Cheap. Pitiful.

I see that Indy's Mayor is proposing a cut on the County Option Income Tax (COIT) for Marion County. From the Indy Star report:

Mayor Greg Ballard has introduced a proposal to lower the county income tax by three-hundredths of a percentage point, to 1.62 percent.

The adjustment would give a $6 million break to taxpayers. That works out to about $12 a year for the average $40,000-a-year wage-earner in Indianapolis.

Well, ain't he Santa Claus! Is this the same Mayor Ballard who was greatly aided in his election by tax protestors? Is this the level best reward he can give to a constituency that rallied to make itself heard?

Last year, the council increased the county income tax from 1 percent to 1.65 percent to cover an ongoing shortfall in public safety and criminal justice costs. The 2007 state law authorizing that tax increase required 0.3 percent of the money to go toward freezing property tax spending.

On Nov. 7, the state certified the county tax rate at 0.27 percent and gave counties the option of returning excess revenue to taxpayers. In Marion County, that excess is 0.03 percent.

It's very safe, very likely to gain passage by the City-County Council. It's a gain. But it's pitiful. It's a pittance. It doesn't reflect any genuine cut in government, it only represents not taking that small amount which isn't deemed 'necessary', in returning 'excess'.

In times of economic hardship, government is a luxury, not a necessity, and people at home should be allowed to keep a greater share of what they earn so that they can provide for their households.

At what point can we expect to see actual cuts in government?