Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Marion County (LPMC), Indianapolis, IN
The Maguire Team
It’s Time to Stop The Bailouts
Raising taxes during times like these is a great way to get voted out of office.
Indianapolis, IN - Indiana Senator Luke Kenley (R) and Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard (R) presented the State’s plan to bailout the Indianapolis Capital Improvement Board (CIB) today. Instead of asking the users of CIB properties in Indianapolis to step up and pay their fair share first, lawmakers will be considering a statewide increase of alcohol taxes, ticket taxes, food and beverage taxes, and the Innkeepers tax.
Timothy Maguire, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Marion County, criticized the move to attach this bailout to the state budget. “There is no excuse to force those who don’t directly use the stadiums to pay for the short-sightedness of the CIB first.”
“The appropriate step should be a direct tax on the immediate users of the CIB facilities,” said Maguire. “These Republican-sponsored increases will give us the highest hospitality taxes in the nation, which will only serve to drive off the convention business the City leadership claims to protect. Hurting a $3 Billion industry with unwise taxes will only put more Hoosiers out of work.”
“It was an increase in taxes that outraged the voters of 2007 that swept the Republicans into office,” commented Ed Coleman, Indianapolis City-County Councilor At-Large. “It is a shame that the Mayor and other City Leadership, after only a year and a half, have forgotten the will of the voters. If the Statehouse and the Mayor look to raise taxes on the hard working owners of hotels, bars, restaurants and our City’s guests first, then they truly do not understand the forgotten man in all of this.”
Coleman is asking everyone to contact their state legislators immediately, to voice their opposition to high taxes. “The voters of Indianapolis need to remind their officials of their outrage from 2007, and that they won’t forget a move like this come election time. Ask them to put the average taxpayer first, and the owners of the Colts and Pacers second.”
The Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in the United States, and is the only non-major party with ballot access in the state of Indiana. Libertarians believe in being SERVED by a small non-intrusive government that is financially responsible, administratively competent and socially tolerant.
For more information on the Libertarian Party of Indiana visit: www.lpin.org
For more information on the Libertarian Party of Marion County visit: www.indylp.org Â
This Mayor, Greg Ballard, ran as an anti-Bart Peterson, running a populist campaign, decrying every tax raise and corporate welfare handout to include handing over the store to the CIB and tax abatements out the ass that Peterson implemented on his watch. Peterson deservedly got defeated for among other things forgetting the will of the voters, his (former) boss.
Now you have Greg Ballard, doing the EXACT SAME BEHAVIOR..using such lame scare tactics as the dreaded ‘domino theory’ that if Downtown Indy fails, so does the rest of the state of Indiana (yeah, that went over well in justifying ‘Nam, eh?)
All this, and for what? To kowtow to the Irsays, Simontons, and members of the CIB who are affiliated with various and sundry law firms, who invested chump change in Ballards’ campaign?
Although its a family-oriented newspaper, I really hope that Gary Varvel pens a cartoon of Ballard with a hand up his rectum, using him as a puppet. Either that, or on his knees under a desk, servicing whoever REALLY is in charge of Indianapolis. The hand or the recipient of the headjob can be labled with all the names of those I mentioned as caricature. It’d be entirely appropriate, either way the cartoon would be depicted.
I feel sorry for the citizens of Indy for being taken by this jackass Ballard, and to use his own phrase “No question about that”.
April 2nd, 2009 at 3:21 pm