Category Archives: Random Blogging

Politics, Budgets and Taxes

The other day, an advocate for the homeless asked me why the needs of the most vulnerable citizens always seem to take a back seat to the demands of sports teams, developers, and bright shiny objects like cricket fields. He attributed this state of affairs to animus against the needy, but–as I told him–I don’t think that’s it. It’s just that politicians respond to pressure from people who show up–people who contact them, who vote and especially people who donate.

The problem we face when allocating public resources is that very few of us who benefit from inequities that unfairly burden others are willing to graciously concede those advantages. It’s too easy to convince ourselves that we are entitled to them.

When the Indiana Supreme Court ruled a few years ago that the system that had yielded grossly unequal property tax assessments for years had to be fixed,  the homeowners who had benefitted from artificially low assessments–and whose taxes had accordingly been  lower than those of folks with far less valuable properties–screamed bloody murder. Rather than sheepishly acknowledging that they’d made out like bandits for years, and that perhaps it was time to pay their fair shares, they saw themselves as victims of a rapacious government and took their revenge by ousting a hapless Mayor who’d had nothing to do with that particular decision.

Fast forward to Mayor Ballard’s proposed budget.

I’ve not been a fan of this Mayor, but his proposed equalization of the tax rate for IMPD is both fair and overdue. For decades, center city folks were taxed to support both the sheriff’s department (which has county-wide jurisdiction) and IPD (which patrolled only the old city limits). When the two departments were combined into IMPD, apparently the tax rates were not adjusted accordingly. As a result, those residing within the old city limits continued to pay more for police protection than those living outside those limits. As I understand it, Ballard’s proposal would equalize the tax and end what has effectively been an unfair subsidy of some citizens by others–and those who’ve benefitted are (predictably) whining about having to pay their fair share.

Since this post is likely to make me even more unpopular than I already am, I will add that I also support the Mayor’s proposal to eliminate the homestead credit in order to pay for the addition of desperately needed police.

Would I prefer that we shift funds from cricket fields and sports teams and too-generous subsidies to the Mayor’s developer buddies instead? Of course.  Is that likely to happen? Not in my lifetime.  Let’s recognize that politics is the art of the possible, and address our public safety deficit before crime rates that approach Detroit’s undermine every other thing we are trying to do in our city.

Speaking of homestead credits, we really should invest in efforts to ameliorate the plight of the people who don’t have a homestead. There are steps we could take now that would actually save tax dollars in the long run.

But we probably won’t because they don’t scream and vote, and they aren’t in a position to make campaign contributions. And because, to our politicians, the “long run” is the next election.

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A Wobbly Leg on the Three-Legged Stool

Years ago, when many of us were working hard to revive a moribund downtown, I learned the lesson of the “three-legged stool”–housing, retail and business. All three are needed for a vibrant city center, and at the time, Indianapolis’ downtown had only one leg: business. Downtown meant banks and law firms and brokerages; very few people lived in the central city, and retail was virtually non-existent.

When my husband and I moved to then-still-iffy Lockerbie Square, there wasn’t even a grocery nearby. Downtown had few restaurants.

Change came slow and hard. First, an O’Malia’s (now a Marsh) was lured into the old Sears building. A couple of adventurous doctors joined the lonely downtown dentist to serve the small but growing residential population. The breakthrough, of course, was Circle Center–the culmination of a decade of planning, land acquisition and hope.

Circle Center was just one element of the municipal effort to bring people downtown: the canal, sports venues, City programs that supported residential development, the arts and districts like Massachusetts Avenue and Fountain Square. Our downtown’s renaissance was the result of decades of hard work and intentional policies.

Despite its thriving night life and restaurants, despite the number of residential projects underway, downtown still has a long way to go. We don’t have the amenities provided by suburban “big box” stores like Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond.  We still don’t have a competitive array of clothing stores, convenience stores and the kinds of retail choices that a growing residential population needs.

It was sad when Borders was replaced by a bank. I think allowing the Indianapolis Star to replace Nordstrom is a mistake we will all regret. But until yesterday, I didn’t realize what had happened to the rest of Circle Center.

I was early for a downtown meeting, so I decided to walk through Circle Center. I’ve been really busy at work, so it had been several months since I’d been there. It was sad. There were several new stores, but they were clearly aimed at teenaged buyers–cheap costume jewelry, trendy and inexpensive clothes for young girls, shops that seemed ill-at-ease with the relatively few remaining higher-end stores from headier, earlier days. Together with the dark space that used to be Nordstrom, the overall effect was depressing.

There weren’t many shoppers there, either.

The fate of Circle Center is important, because it remains the single largest retail destination for downtown residents and workers. There are plenty of storefronts available for the kinds of shops that have been moved into Circle Center, but there aren’t plenty of places that can offer downtown residents the same mix of goods available at the regional shopping malls.

Downtown has never achieved a critical mass of retail, but we were working toward it. The current sad state of Circle Center is a huge step back–and with large numbers of residential units coming online, the timing couldn’t be worse.

I’d like to believe the City and Simon are working on reversing this, but given the curiously passive approach of the administration to so many significant issues, I’m not holding my breath.

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Politics and Paranoia

I have an old friend (old meaning duration, not age, although neither of us is getting any younger) who has remained resolutely Republican despite his own distress at the party’s current incarnation. Presumably because of that affiliation, he is evidently on some sort of list that allows him to get the sort of emails that I rarely see, and from time to time, he shares them. (I think he likes to imagine me with my hair on fire as I read them.)

The other day, he sent me one that began:

The American Dream ended (on November 6th) in Ohio. The second term of Barack Obama will be the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest Republic in the history of mankind.

A coalition of Blacks, Latinos, Feminists, Gays, Government Workers, Union Members, Environmental Extremists, The Media, Hollywood, uninformed young people, the “forever needy,” the chronically unemployed, illegal aliens and other “fellow travelers” have ended Norman Rockwell’s America.

Next time someone solemnly assures you that their problems with Obama have nothing to do with bigotry or mean-spiritedness–and that what is really racist is to suggest that they do–think about this diatribe.

From the far Right, we increasingly hear these laments–the whine of the poor white male Christian victims. What we get from the far Left is more likely to be naiveté and annoying immaturity, but it also can descend into paranoia.

I have a Facebook friend who is constantly sending email “alarms”–with lots of exclamation points and highlighted passages–bemoaning President Obama’s “sellout” and viewing every presidential or congressional action as a conspiracy against “the 99%.” No one gets the benefit of the doubt. All Republicans are evil, all Democrats are disappointing pussies and/or fellow-travelers.

Interestingly, at the very end of the “Patriot’s” screed, he warns darkly that the nation can only be “saved” by zealots with guns. A similar thread runs through my leftist friend’s hysterical “alerts”–only by taking to the streets can “real Americans” prevail.

Thanks to the Internet, it is sometimes hard to remember that the vast majority of Americans are pretty sensible people who would very much like to see the crazies from both ends of the spectrum return to their caves or wherever they came from.

Most of us think it would be nice if our elected officials spent less time placating hysterical extremists and more time attending to the nation’s problems.

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Dear Lord, Where Do They Find These People?

According to Rep. Tom McClintock, there simply is no such thing as white-collar crime.

At a town hall meeting in El Dorado Hills, California on Tuesday, a constituent asked McClintock for his “stance on Wall Street criminal practices.” The congressman responded, “Well first of all, for a criminal practice there has to be a gun. It’s pretty simple.”

I think we know what’s simple, and it isn’t the Congressman’s intriguing theory of what it takes to constitute criminal behavior.

Every day, it seems we meet a new officeholding whack-a-doodle.

This week it was Lee Bright calling Lindsey Graham a “community organizer for the Muslims.” Last week, Steve King explained that for every young immigrant who was a valedictorian, there were a hundred others with “calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.” Before him, Paul Broun insisted that evolution and climate change were “lies from the mouth of hell.” Rand Paul insists that  black people have no trouble voting–and that despite his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and any and all measures to lift people from poverty, he’s all for equality. And of course, almost every week there’s some new insanity from Louie Gohmert, who Charles Pierce memorably called “perhaps the dumbest mammal to enter a legislative chamber since Caligula’s horse.”

There’s a new one just about every day. Michelle Bachmann hasn’t even taken her crazy eyes into retirement yet, and literally dozens of her fellow Republican Congresscritters are contending for her title of  “least securely tethered to reality.”

It would be funny if it weren’t so terrifying.

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How Long Can This Continue?

The State, a newspaper in South Carolina, reports that Senator Lindsay Graham–the very right-wing South Carolina Senator who is coming up for re-election–has attracted a primary opponent. Because, you know, Graham is insufficiently insane.

State Sen. Lee Bright announced his candidacy Tuesday for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, calling incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham “a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“During the (congressional) recess, when I would hope that he would be around folks in South Carolina, getting their feelings on so many issues that affect their lives, he has instead chosen to take his time to be a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood and that concerns me,” Bright told supporters in a conference call. “He needs to spend more time listening to what the brothers in South Carolina have to say.”

Increasingly, I feel as though I have fallen down the Rabbit Hole with Alice, or I’m living in one of those science fiction books I used to read, where the protagonist goes to sleep only to wake up in an alternate universe.

Mr. (not very) Bright uses all the dog whistle words: community organizer. Muslim. Next thing you know, he’ll be accusing Graham of having been civil to the President (although he’d be hard pressed to find an example of Graham actually voting for something the President proposed. At this point, if President Obama suggested we endorse the sun continuing to rise in the east, most Republicans would call the very idea “socialism” and oppose it.)

I know we Americans have gone through periods of hysteria and bigotry and self-destructive behaviors before. We just didn’t have the internet and Facebook and blogs to rub our faces in every paranoid utterance, every display of aggressive ignorance and racial animus. I want to believe that this, too, shall pass…..

But I’d feel so much better if someone could assure me that we will come to the end of this cycle of crazy before the harm done becomes irreparable.

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