Gov. Pillen Hopes Special Session Leads to Tax Relief

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Jim Pillon back to the program aheadof the special session a little bit later
this month. Governor, Good morning, Good morning. How are you guys
doing today? Yeah, so far, so far. We like the we
like the sunshine. I like theheat in the summertime. What the heck,
I'll never complain about he no,never. What is the actual What

(00:21):
is the actual date of the specialsession starting? I believe right now Speaker
arches zero and in and I thinkI think that the date's going to be
like July six, ye right right, yeah, so late next uh in
a couple of weeks late late thismonth. All right, can you give

(00:42):
us an update on UH? And? I don't know how specific you want
to get here ahead of it,but I know that your your your outline
has changed somewhat regarding how you wantto attack this property text issue. What's
what's the big rock that you wantto see moved in this special session?
Well? Yeah, the rocks thathave to be moved is we have to

(01:04):
solve the property text crisis. Wehave to solve the crisis that's been looming
for generations. And one piece that'sreally really simple is we have to start
saying no, we have to stopspending money. Hard caps is an essential
piece of it. We you know, it's astonishing. We are all worked

(01:29):
up about the valuations. Rightfully,so valuations go up, we write bigger
checks. State statute. It's hardto believe we have state statute that says
valuations go up, levees go downaccordingly. However, every local government agency
has the opportunity to override that,and they do one hundred percent of the

(01:51):
time. Hard caps saying no morespending. I'm a hard cap zero,
no more spending. Figure out howto let the people keep the money,
do more with less. That's whatwe're doing at the state. So decrease
spending, running government like a business, so that we have this is a

(02:12):
tax decreased plan, really really acritical part of it. And then the
other is, as I've said fromday one when this calling happened, one
hundred and eighty of our two hundredand forty four school districts that didn't get
a dime from the state to educateour children state statue, the state of
Nebraska is supposed to educate our kids. So the plan is for the state

(02:35):
to fund K twelve education. Everybodylooked at your property tax statement. We
will decrease property taxes over fifty percent, and it will provide more resources for
public schools, will have tremendous supportfrom K twelve education and the other key
And when we're talking about hard caps, obviously we're going to be protecting police,

(02:59):
We're going to be making sure thatwe have resources of fire. But
we have to run state like abusiness, and you know it's essential.
We will decrease property taxes over fiftypercent by having funding at K twelve.
Kay, But you've changed your approacha little bit on the sales tax piece,

(03:19):
right, Yeah, so the noahof fans are but we're working very
hard to be able to fund partof the funding. Three hundred and fifty
million of the funding of this willcome from the state because we're running it
like a business and decreasing spending.The other piece will be we have to
broaden a sales tax base. Thefirst step is the one hundred and twenty

(03:42):
exemptions that have taken place in thelast fifty years. I think we've identified
one hundred and thirty two. Severalsenators yesterday said there's got to be more.
You know, we have over sixbillion dollars worth of business of exemptions,
there's broad bases that are competitive withour neighbors. Very very simple,
and lastly, all of us wejust have to have an attitudinal change property

(04:08):
taxes. Every economist agrees if youwant to stifle your state and your economies,
you want to keep people away andchase people out. Have the highest
property tax. Somebody told me BillO'Ryan was on and said, what's wrong
with Nebraska? They have the secondhighest property tax in the country. I
don't know if it's at high,but it's obviously too high. We have
to fix it. It's pretty high. Well, amen to that governor.

(04:30):
But a couple of things. Oneright from the get go, the Farm
Bureau, which represents producers, said, any taking away of my sales tax
exemptions is a non starter, whichis fairly inflexible in the English language.
I understand, But let me askyou about how challenging it's been to explain
the math. You are a scientist, you're an analytic, and get correct

(04:54):
me my numbers if I get themwrong. But approximately, for a farmer
or producer, they pay one hundreddollars a na acre in property taxes,
maybe higher, maybe a little bitlower, and then they have a good
number to use. Okay, solet's say one hundred. I don't know,
depending probably on the crop, whatthe average input would be per acre
for you know, corn, whichis a fairly significant crop of ours.

(05:15):
But it strikes me that if youwere to explain to them, if I
charge you and let's just say thehighest number, five percent on sales tax
on your inputs, it'll cost youthis on the front end, But if
I save you fifty dollars an acrein property taxes, how is this not
warmly embraced by the agg community.Well, the fact is that it is

(05:39):
embraced warmly by a whole lot ofpeople that do that do know how to
do the math. I certainly havetalked to farmers across the state. I've
talked to young farmers, and Iunderstand young farmers are very concerned because it
increases tax for them eight to tendollars. You know. My answer is,

(05:59):
hey, if you have a noteof that, let's have another plan.
This is transit transformative. It hasto be fixed now, you know,
I think young farmers could have taxcredits. That would be a no
brainer. But we have to fixit. Maybe there's other solutions with more
taxing on buying new equipment. Youknow, I'm okay with whatever the whatever

(06:23):
everybody gets around. What I'm notokay with is when lobbying groups just come
in and say no, no,no, hell, anybody can do that
right well. And the other issueinvolves, frankly, just the economics of
producing crops in our state, producinganimals and crops. Many of those expenses
are deductible, but right now they'rejust not being charged. And it's got

(06:46):
to be an all in or andall out. Would you say, now
you're close to thirty three, doyou have thirty three votes to get this
done? Yeah? You know,in the end, in the end,
when it comes time for pressing thebuttons, every elected official understands the crisis
we have at property tax. We'regoing to have way more than thirty three
push the green button, no questionabout it. All right, gother thanks

(07:10):
and just quickly, the mentioned onindustrial relations yesterday ruled in your favor on
my employees returning back to the office. When do they have to be back
in the office, is there?They'll be back in. They'll be back
today's Friday. They'll be back inMonday morning. And maybe the thing I
want to say is I can't tellNebraska's how proud I am of the vast

(07:31):
majority of public servants that we havein the state of Nebraska that have been
working their tails off, just likeevery farmer, ranch or business person in
the state of Nebraska has been doingthroughout the whole pandemic. You know,
these are processes I don't like,but the last these are the last I
don't So it's a big win tomake sure everybody's there. Culture is really

(07:54):
critical, but I want to makesure that all public servants that Nebraska public
servants aren't branded, that they're allstaying home. It's a small number,
it's less than a thousand people.I'm really proud of the people that have
been there, working hard, thepeople that are believing in that we can
run business, run government like abusiness, and helping us decrease spending by

(08:18):
two hundred million next year, fourhundred the year after. I'm really proud
of the public servants of Nebraska,and I'm excited to get the last back
into work so that they can befully on the team, fully productive,
having a great positive attitude, andmake an incredible difference from me. After
work Monday,