I’m thinking the way you think. Government units have been growing and spending more year after year. Keeping budgets the same as a previous year’s budget is seen as a cut, so they’ve been pushing to spend more and more to justify increasing their subsequent years’ budgets.

If we get a 1% income tax, it is likely that it will keep increasing, especially if part of the money is going to end up in Hammond, East Chicago, and Gary.

There are too many interests that want to get a slice of the pie and will push for tax increases so they can spread the money around to friends and family.

I was listening to Glenn Beck talking to Ron Paul this morning and they mentioned that the key to solving some of the problems taxpayers are facing is to cut back spending.

Every year, governments at all levels have pushed for budget increases and growth. George Bush has seen record increases in government spending while on his watch.

We’d have plenty of money without always having to increase taxes and borrow money from the Saudis and Chinese if we’d cut back a little bit. Pretty soon, we’re going to hit our credit limit and it won’t be pretty.

The property tax is capped. They can’t get any more than 2% of your assessed value.

Being that income taxes and assessed values are so highly correlated (you need a higher income to afford a more expensive house), I really don’t think that Steve’s argument against taxing assets makes a difference in practice.

I share your mistrust of government, I know many governent leaders and they are always convincing themselves that they could fix society’s ills if they only had more money.

I would suggest that Lake County implement the income tax, only on binding agreement to cut government by the same amount. This is what Mitch Daniels has called for, and I have to agree with him. Local government and libraries and storm water boards and schools are getting pretty carried away increasing their incoming dollars by 7-10% per year.