VALPARAISO | Nobody in the crowd of more than 100 people at City Hall seemed to disagree with Gov. Mitch Daniels' pitch for permanent property tax relief Thursday.

Making his 55th appearance in Porter County, Indiana's governor was in town to outline his plan to reduce taxes and government spending.

"I would like to put the (Department of Local Government Finance) out of business," Daniels said, referring to the state agency responsible for reviewing and setting the spending limits on the budgets of all 2,600 local taxing bodies in Indiana. "The DLGF plays Whack-a-Mole with 2,600 moles.

"They are supposed to run around and check on every one of these and make sure they did it right," he said. "That's not respectful of the local autonomy. The question should no longer be how much does government need, but how much the taxpayers should be expected to pay."

If the bill passes as now written, Daniels said Indiana taxes would be among the lowest in the nation, providing additional incentive for businesses to locate here while still providing needed services and building schools. He also spoke in favor of referendums on all projects involving new buildings.

The governor fielded questions from the crowd, most of which dealt with his tax relief plan. The exception was one on the plan to divert a portion of the sales tax from Lake, Porter, LaPorte and St. Joseph counties to fund the $350 million local share of the $1 billion cost to extend the South Shore commuter rail service to Valparaiso and Lowell and make improvements to the existing line in the other two counties.

A man said he thought the project was moving very fast for a billion-dollar project and asked Daniels if the local funding should be put on a referendum for the voters to decide. Daniels said the fact it is moving quickly makes it more attractive to him, but at the same time he doesn't think the state should "leap into it thoughtlessly."

Daniels said he will sign the bill if it gets to his desk because it seems to have the support of most of the people in Northwest Indiana, and passage by the legislature would be the judgment of the rest of the state that it is worth pouring that much money into it.