One fabulous recipe for driving away wealth is to raise income taxes or property taxes. The more money a person earns, the more incentive that person has to leave so as to preserve their rightful earnings. When property taxes outstrip the perceived value of contributing to the upkeep of a neighborhood or a municipality, the higher the tax, the greater the incentive to find a place that will be worth the bill.
I've long said that people vote with their feet. I've done it twice in my life. My great-grandparents crossed an ocean to do it. One place I voted with my feet on is Indianapolis. I did it before the City-County Council, on Mayor Peterson's recommendation, raised the income tax. I did it before the property tax assessment issue came to fore. Thank goodness!
Even NuVo gets it:
When the deleterious effect of high taxes is apparent even to NuVo, then it's as plain as the nose on your face. Wayne Bertsch at NuVo.
I love the "World Class Mayor" bit on the t-shirt. Peterson likes to crow about making a "World Class City" and that high taxes are the price to be paid. What a load. When the murder rate is higher than Detroit's, Indy is not a World Class City in any sense, except perhaps Third World. The priorities are a wreck. Public safety should be fully funded while everything else plays second fiddle. It isn't the way things are done in Indy, so I left. Now that I'm making more money than when I lived in Indy, I'm damn glad I did, because it would be a crime to pay more for getting less.
The people who remain in Indy have to decide something: Do you want to have Indy as a cauldron of poverty and crime? Or, do you want to have increasing wealth and decreasing crime? It's a simple matter of policy, and while I'm no fan of the Republicans (because they create disincentives for wealth, only are slower on the implementation), the Democrats are quickly destroying Indianapolis. So, while too many partisan Democrats would rather fiddle like Nero and keep their people in office, will the independents be swayed to vote Libertarian? Or at least stop voting Democrat? (I can't even bring myself to say 'vote Republican'. They haven't earned it.)
I'll keep looking from a safe distance.
Hat tip to Hoosiers For Fair Taxation on the strip!
2 comments:
Makes me wonder when they say "World Class City" exactly WHICH world they're talking about...
The First, Second, or THIRD world?
Sure doesn't seem like the world we're living in, does it?
B.G.
You're right about the lack of accountability here: While the city is gaining momentum in its slide, the Dems and the GOP are looking, well, elsewhere. At least on that both parties can claim success.
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