From the Northwest Indiana Times:
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. is taking Lake County Republicans to task for opposing a local income tax.
"Downstate Republican legislators have told us we must pass this tax, but local Republicans are beating us up for doing it," complained McDermott, chairman of the county's Democratic Party.
The Lake County Council voted 4-3 Tuesday to impose three local income taxes amounting to a 1.5 percent assessment on all county residents.
McDermott is focusing his ire at Lake County Councilmen Dan Dernulc, R-Highland, and Eldon Strong, R-Crown Point, who cast two of the negative votes and signaled they have no intention of changing their minds.
McDermott said Strong and Dernulc know all government units in Lake County have had their tax levies frozen since 2007 as a result of legislation by the Republican-dominated General Assembly and signed into law by Indiana's former Republican Gov. Mitch Daniel.
"Just come clean Chairman Dernulc and Councilman Strong and do what the rest of your Republican Party has been telling Lake County to do for years," McDermott wrote in an email to The Times.
Dernulc responded Thursday, "I'm not beating up anybody, including the Lake County Council majority." He said he campaigned and won election on a vow to oppose a local income tax. "Why should the legislature be telling us what we should be doing?" he said.
Strong said, "Tom McDermott didn't elect me. I'm doing what I think is right for Lake County. If Tom McDermott disagrees with me, so be it."
Dernulc also challenged McDermott's assertion the law impelling an income tax is a downstate Republican creation. He said former Lake County state Rep. Robert Kuzman, a Democrat from Crown Point at the time, was its author.
Kuzman, now a lobbyist and attorney for an Indianapolis-based law firm, said they are both right. He said he and Senate Tax Chairman Luke Kenley, a Noblesville Republican, jointly wrote the legislation that year.
The argument would be academic if the General Assembly lifts the freeze.
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http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/parties-spar-over-income-tax-blame/article_2aef439b-d390-5fbb-888c-bcb9c26387ce.html
