Republicans On Tax Panel Vote To Hike Taxes In Indianapolis

Republicans rode a wave of anti-tax sentiment to retake the Mayor's office in 2007. Ever since, they've been backpedaling, advocating tax increases at every turn. Yesterday's vote of a bipartisan tax commission was no different. Republican appointees on the panel voted to eliminate the homestead property tax credit in a 6-4 vote, a move that will hike property taxes for most homeowners in order to increase revenues for the city-county government by over $8 million at the expense of reducing tax revenues to most other taxing districts, including schools.

Incredibly, the panel also wants the City-County Council to consider hiking local income taxes to help fund public safety. In 2007, Mayor Bart Peterson and the Democratic-controlled council raised local income taxes 65% to increase funding for public safety. Greg Ballard and Republican council candidates attacked Peterson and the Democrats mercilessly for raising income and property taxes. Despite promising to make public safety job one, there are now fewer police patrolling the streets than the day Ballard took office in January, 2008 after the gigantic public safety tax increase.

Republicans claim the efforts are needed to close a $55 million budget deficit, even though Mayor Ballard claims he has been adopting honestly-balanced budgets each year while he's been in office, a fete made possible only by sleight of hand budget gimmicks that most council members lack the time and effort to discern.

There are questions about the validity of the panel's vote. There were only five members present to cast votes in favor of the proposed elimination of the homestead property tax credit sought by Mayor Ballard. Republican council member Marilyn Pfisterer, who comes from the background of a double-dipping government household, decided she was entitled to cast two votes in favor of the proposal by casting a proxy vote for another Republican council member who was absent for the vote, Jack Sandlin. Proxy votes are not permitted under council rules.

Dishonest politicians blame property tax caps for the City's revenues woes. The real culprit is the continued decimation of the tax based relied upon to fund basic government services caused by passing out hundreds of millions of dollars in direct subsidies and tax breaks to businesses which contribute generously to the politicians' campaigns, dole out free tickets to sporting events and provide junkets and other freebies to them. This is achieved by continually removing a significant portion of the property tax base available to other taxing districts through the expansion of TIF areas, which are nothing more than slush funds operated to reward favored businesses at the expense of all other taxpayers.

UPDATE: Apparently Pfisterer is not a voting member of the commission; she simply showed up to cast a vote in Sandlin's absence. The Star's Jon Murray is now reporting that the commission's co-chair, Jim Steele, a Republican, intended to have members cast their votes by a secret ballot until other members objected. The four no votes included Democrats Vop Osili, Frank Mascari and Dan Sellers, along with Republican Bob Lutz. Democratic County Assessor Joe O'Connor voted with the five who supported the elimination of the credit. In addition to Steele, O'Connor and Pfisterer's vote for Sandlin, MIBOR's Chris Pryor, Co-Chair Beth Henkel and Jeff Spalding, former city controller and an architect of Ballard's disastrous, dishonestly-balanced budgets, voted with the majority.