Here's some food for thought on the county option income tax and some valid reasons why such a tax should not be enacted:
1) The country is in a recession, and Northwest Indiana is now #2 in the nation in year-to-year increases in unemployment. And our elected officials want to sock us with new taxes. What are they smoking?
2) Cities, towns, and Lake County need to learn to live within their budgets. They still have not made enough substantial cuts and eliminated unnecessary fat to even justify asking taxpayers for more money. Taxpayers are forced to live within their means and stick to a budget, why can't governments? Accountability, try it sometime.
3) Why should we the taxpayers pay a county income tax just to give ourselves tax relief? Isn't that just putting money in the right pocket only to take it out of the left one?
4) Enough already with these stupid pie-in-sky projects. We do not need a new convention center. We do not need another strip mall or shopping center. We don't need another marina or banquet halls. It's not the government's responsibility to be in business. Let the private sector build these projects. And we don't need a South Shore extension to Lowell or Valparaiso. A small segment of the population would actually benefit from this project. This project only encourages more urban sprawl. How many more strip malls do we need?
5) Let Lake County residents vote in a referendum and have the final say on whether we want an income tax or not. Or any other tax for that matter.
6) Elected officials need to remember they work for the people who elected them and not the other way around. Quit catering to special interests, lobbyists and other politicians. Taxpayers have had enough!
Team Hammond Taxpayers' Group does not support a county option income tax. Can't get much clearer than that.
What can you do? Contact your county council members and/or attend county council meetings and voice your opposition to the income tax. This tax can be defeated.