EDITORIAL: Lawmakers find a way to tax

The News-Dispatch

Funny how everyone in the Legislature is staunchly against any kind of tax increase, except when it's on some of people's vices, like cigarettes or alcoholic beverages.

Or when someone's pet project in Indianapolis needs money, like the capital city's stadium board, the Indianapolis Capital Improvement Board. That board runs the city's professional sports stadiums, and it is looking for the taxpayers to bolster its fiscal situation.

To save the sports stadiums board's hide, State Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, proposed doubling the tax on alcohol. To make the plan palatable, he included language to share some of the proceeds with cities and towns around the state.

When some lawmakers wanted to boost funding for transit in Northwest Indiana, they proposed a quarter percent income tax on the counties of Lake, Porter, La Porte and St. Joseph - but not Marion County (Indianapolis) or the rest of the state. A number of elected officials in Porter County already are on record against the income tax hike for transit, saying it creates a taxing authority that local people don't get to elect. It could cost $125 a year on taxable income of $50,000, which begins to smart.

As taxes go, the alcohol tax would be pretty painless, or we suppose it could be numbed if people followed the advice of one advocate, Bluffton Mayor Ted Ellis. Asked how he would explain the higher tax to consumers, Ellis told a Senate committee, "If this becomes law, we encourage them to have another beer."

The alcohol tax would boost the cost of six-pack six cents, a bottle of win a dime and a bottle of liquor around 60 cents. Besides, it's only going to hit those who use the stuff.

On that theory, we could easily see some extra gasoline tax to fix our crumbling roads, or maybe a tax on riders of the South Shore for commuter train upkeep.

We need them as much as Indy needs its stadiums.

That's how taxes creep up.