The downtown mafia gets more and more predictable as time passes. One of the things you can count on is that when they are preparing to ask for another tax increase, they always produce another study to tout the benefits of what they're already doing with your money and why we'll all be better off if we pay higher taxes to allow them to do more of the same. And so the results of a study are announced today by VisitIndy (formerly known as the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association) informing us that the economic impact of tourism on the city last year was $4 billion and 75,000 jobs, an increase of 10% over the previous year. Supposedly, the local tourism industry added 6,500 new jobs over the previous year. It's just that nobody has noticed the difference yet. “Tourism is a core driver of central Indiana’s economy, supporting a record number of jobs and generating $632 million in local and state taxes,” Leonard Hoops, CEO of Visit Indy, told the IBJ. True to form, the media reports the numbers as fact without questioning the study's validity.
The study was conducted by the same outfit that produced a bogus study claiming the Super Bowl generated $150 million in direct spending impact, or about triple what credible analysts tell us is the actual economic impact of a Super Bowl. As with all studies of this ilk, the entity being paid to produce the study is told by the entity paying for the study in advance what the outcome must show and the paid propagandist gladly obliges. Why is it being produced now? Because Mayor Greg Ballard plans to ask the City-County Council to approve two new tax increases next year for the benefit of the Capital Improvement Board, the longest running racket in Indiana history. The real purpose behind the tax increase is to pay the extortion demands of billionaire Herb Simon, who says he'll take his Indiana Pacers elsewhere if we don't tax the little people some more to cover the cost of paying larger salaries to his already overpaid NBA players.
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