If Mayor Greg Ballard gets his way, the local income tax burden in Indianapolis will grow by another 20% on working taxpayers on top of the 65% increase in that burden without relief his predecessor imposed in 2007. But it's much worse than it seems. Part of that tax increase is being imposed for a new welfare program that will provide wealth transfer payments from middle and upper income tax earners to low-income, mostly single-parent mothers equal to more than $6,100 per qualifying child. Think about that. We will have just established a new entitlement program for single-parent mothers worth more than $6,100 per child. Thanks to Gov. Mike Pence's new pilot program, the benefit will only be offered in Marion, Lake, Vanderburgh and Jackson Counties. If Indianapolis is alone in matching Pence's state contribution to the early childhood entitlement education benefit for low-income parents, we have become the most attractive place in Indiana by far for low-income single mothers to live.
Ironically, Mayor Ballard has been saying that Indianapolis has got to reach out and attract higher income earners to move to Indianapolis who pay income taxes upon which we have become dependent to fund city-county government. Yet his plan for the income tax increase he proposes this year and the higher income taxes he wants to levy in the future to support the metropolitan mass transit boondoggle, will make income taxes the highest in the state of Indiana. At the same time, he's locking in a new entitlement program worth more than $6,100 to the lowest income-producing workers who don't even pay income taxes. Why wouldn't a single-parent mother living in Hendricks, Hamilton, Johnson, Shelby or some other county in the state move into Section 8 housing in Indianapolis to take advantage of this new entitlement program so she can drop off her one-parent child to free up more time to do the things that got her into the mess she found herself in the first place? The notion that this new entitlement program is somehow going to reduce crime in the inner city totally escapes me. Do we really believe that a child having a government-paid babysitter when they're four years old is going to make an appreciable difference on whether they're out on the streets committing violent crimes while they're living in that some household when they reach their preteen and teen years?
Frankly, I can make the case that Mayor Ballard's plan to raise taxes yet again and create another costly entitlement program for low-income families is actually going to contribute to Indianapolis' long-term crime problem by making it a less attractive place economically for middle and higher income earners while providing a perverse incentive for those contributing little or no taxes to move into the city. Mayor Brainard is sitting up there in Carmel saying "Go for it." He knows that every time Indianapolis raises its income tax rate, he's going to see more of the people he wants moving to his city to escape the higher taxes in Indianapolis buying new homes and paying taxes. And with Ballard's costly new entitlement program for low-income families, he's sealed the deal on keeping out the people he doesn't want to see moving into his city. And if Indianapolis delivers the mass transit boondoggle it wants so badly, he'll have subsidized transportation to transport those undesirables to and from low-paying jobs in his community that he doesn't want living in his city.
Watch this video of a speech Mayor Ballard gave as a candidate for office in 2007 if you have any doubt about what a fraud he has turned out to be on the issue of taxes and crime. Hat tip to fellow blogger Paul Ogden.
UPDATE: Chicago went all out on early childhood education programs for three and four year olds more than two decades ago. It's worked wonders to reduce crime in their city just like their ban on handguns, right? I don't doubt that many children benefit from early childhood education, but you're only offering false hope if you think at-risk children being brought up in troubled families are going to fare any better when it comes to straying onto the wrong side of the law just because they attended a free, early education program when they were four years old.
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