Gov. Mike Braun gives first State of the State address: Our takeaways

Yahoo

29-01-2025

Republican Gov. Mike Braun gave his first State of the State address to a joint session of the Indiana General Assembly on Wednesday, reiterating many of his campaign promises to curtail rising property taxes and tackle high health care costs.
His prepared remarks were short with few surprises. Meanwhile, one floor up, community members and Black legislators protested in response to Braun's repudiation of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. It was the first time in at least 20 years that most members of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus declined to attend a State of the State speech.
Here are some of our takeaways from his address and the evening. This story will be updated.
More: Watch Braun's first State of the State speech.
These two issues were at the very top of Braun's campaign agenda, and he demonstrated as such by bringing in regular Hoosiers to put human faces on them.
Two of his guests were a couple named Rob and Stephanie Parks, from Greenwood, who Braun said have lived in their home for 27 years. Their property tax bill doubled since 2021, from $715 to over $1,500, according to Braun. (The biggest jump in property tax bills largely occurred in 2023, with an average 17% jump. In Johnson County, according to an analysis by the Association of Indiana Counties, the average was closer to 25%. Certainly there will be outlier statistics.)
Another of Braun's guests tonight was Melissa Dietrich from Ossian, a town just south of Fort Wayne, who he said was surprised to receive a bill of over $1,300 for routine blood work. It took hours on the phone to get that bill down to $300, he said.
"But it didn't feel right," he said. "Melissa, it shouldn't feel right."
Legislative leaders have been vocal for years about their intentions to figure out how to lower the cost of health care. It started with a vaguely threatening letter to the state's biggest hospitals in 2021, and culminated with some lukewarm data-collecting bills in the 2023 legislative session, the last time they had to craft the state budget.
So they were primed to make some bigger moves during this budget session. Braun's hyperfixation on the issue certainly adds fuel to the fire, and there are many high-profile bills by leaders this session tackling it from multiple angles, from price controls to physician noncompete clauses to how much hospitals get reimbursed for Medicaid patients.
He aligns with legislative leaders on just about every other topic in his speech, from the desire to property tax reform to enacting universal school choice to reskilling and upskilling Indiana's workforce.
Former Gov. Eric Holcomb made a habit of breaking news during his State of the State addresses ― sometimes just a morsel, but news nonetheless.
Last year, it was the announcement of a record-high grant award from the Lilly Endowment toward the state's READI program. The year before, it was a new rail trail in southern Indiana. And so on.
Braun's speech includes no such morsels, but rather, reiterates the broad strokes of his agenda. We're not necessarily complaining.
Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer at [e-mail] or follow her on X@kayla_dwyer17.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana Gov. Mike Braun's first State of the State: Our takeaways