By Michael Neal in the Northwest Indiana Times:
While the proposed local option income tax for Lake County would affect all working residents, it's young people who should be the most upset over this issue.
Year after year, we have seen the overall debt increase for Lake County taxpayers. While it is true certain cuts have been made since the levy freeze, it is quite obvious there has not yet been enough effort to get our spending under control at the county level.
Local government budgets and salaries continue to be bloated with no end in sight.
This year, instead of dealing with the looming deficit issue, our county decided to borrow $15 million in order to close the deficit gap. This only adds to the debt.
My generation of Lake County residents will be the ones who will increasingly shoulder the massive debts being incurred by our county government. As if it were not enough with the looming national debt, now we must service the debt of our county as well.
Adding a 1.5 percent income tax on top of our 1 percent property tax and the many additional payments we are already making to service our debt is not the precedent we want to set for the future, nor is it the proper course of action to take to fill our deficit gap.
Our goal should not be to fill the gap; it should be to eliminate the gap.
...
See the full article here:
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/guest-commentary/guest-commentary-why-my-generation-should-oppose-a-lake-income/article_8d2f3fe6-da9c-5e56-be9e-6f8a14cd944d.html
