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| Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard distanced himself from supporters and campaign promises immediately after election. |
FACT: Ballard has implemented dozens and dozens of tax increases, including more than 100 business fee increases, a hotel tax increase, a car rental tax increase, a sporting event-admissions tax increase, an expansion of the professional sports district to collect more state sales and income taxes, a “hidden” sewer rate increase and parking rate increases, among others.
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CAMPAIGN PROMISE #2: Ballard promised to repeal the 2007 Local option income tax.
FACT: After over three years of demonstrating clear control over the City-County Council agenda and final votes, Mayor Ballard has relied on additional tax revenue to fund basic operations and has not repealed the 2007 income tax increase. It is for this increase that he so vehemently attacked former Mayor Bart Peterson and which, by many accounts, swept Mayor Peterson out of office.
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CAMPAIGN PROMISE #3: Ballard promised to work to abolish property taxes and to spend 60% to 90% Million Local Option Income Tax on property tax relief.
FACT: Ballard has not made any push to eliminate property taxes from the Indiana Constitution, and Ballard and his City-County Council have not spent any new income tax revenue to independently lower property taxes in Marion County.
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CAMPAIGN PROMISE #4: Ballard promised to end "country club politics" just before taking over as Mayor. November 7, 2007 Victory Speech.
FACT: Ballard has accepted free memberships to two Indianapolis country clubs and provided a police car to a third country club owner who was a campaign contributor.
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CAMPAIGN PROMISE #5: In 2007, Ballard promised to end the taxing authority of unelected boards. 2007 Ballard Campaign Website Issues/Local Government Reform.
FACT: Mayor Ballard has not eliminated taxing authority of any unelected board and, in fact, Ballard proposes to transfer water and sewer utility districts to the unelected Board of Public Utilities (dba Citizens Energy Group) which has its own tax raising and rate raising authority. And the Metropolitan Development Commission diverted $8 Million of property tax money to unelected CIB for the first time.
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The website contains citations to documentation about when the campaign promises were made and how the promises were broken.
It speaks volumes that the Ballard campaign does not even attempt to dispute that the Mayor has broken scores of campaign promises. Rather the Ballard campaign says that by looking up Candidate Ballard's campaign promises and comparing them to the Mayor's actual record is "mudslinging." The Ballard campaign, the same campaign that incredibly spent over $1.3 million in three off-years (including over half a million dollars last year) while not running a single campaign commercial, continues to look extremely amateurish.
What is most sad for Republicans is that he's given Democrats and Chairman Ed Treacy all the ammunition they need to take out not only Ballard, but Republican Councilors who have mindlessly rubber-stamped Ballard's unpopular agenda. All the allegations lodged on the blog Ballard Broken Promises are, at least so far, 100% true. People who walked with Ballard on the 2007 campaign trail heard those promises and enthusiastically supported the long-shot candidate. Immediately after he was elected, Ballard threw those campaign supporters over the boat and reneged on one campaign promise after another. Will someone please tell me why we Republicans should back a big spending, big taxing, insider-dealing Mayor for re-election, someone who has completely betrayed conservative Republican principles and sold out the people who supported him in 2007?