To Ticket or Not to Ticket

The people hate red light and speeding cameras, but our rulers love them. Citizens to Abolish Red Light Cameras claims, “Since 1991, there have been a total of 35 election contests in Arizona, California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, Washington. With few exceptions, automated ticketing has failed by as much as 86 percent. One city did embrace the use of cameras after uniformed police officers were dispatched to go door-to-door to "encourage" citizens to keep the ticketing system in place.” If you really thought we had a “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” the red light camera issue should disabuse you of that mistake.

As if reading from a script, Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl communicated our rulers’ perspective to The Dayton Daily News. “‘The purpose of using red light and speed enforcement cameras is to prevent accidents and save lives,’ Biehl said. ‘The very presence of the cameras has been proven to change people’s dangerous driving habits. Since the red light cameras were installed in 2003, we have seen a noticeable reduction in light-running accidents at intersections where the cameras are in place, and a similar reduction in accidents citywide. We expect to see further reductions.’”

Even if Biehl was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, which he’s not, his argument would still be illegitimate. It presupposes that mundane adults - those who don’t work for government - are children who must be controlled by morally and intellectually superior rulers. This is obviously untrue. People who work for the government have no moral or intellectual superiority over people who don’t. Adults are not children who must be looked after by a paternalistic government for their own good.

Even if Biehl’s claim was true, he fails to mention the trade-offs which the people overwhelmingly reject. The DDN reports, “The number of speeding tickets issued in Dayton increased nearly 1,400 percent to 58,325 since the city added speed cameras to some of its busiest streets two years ago. A Dayton Daily News investigation found at a rate of 152 a day, or more than six per hour, the city’s 14 traffic cameras issued 55,676 speeding tickets in 2012.” Clearly the people do not find Biehl’s supposed benefit worth this outrageous cost.

Furthermore, Biehl is not telling anywhere near the whole truth. A number of independent studies show red light cameras increase accidents and risk to safety, contrary to Biehl’s claim.

Biehl also fails to mention the cameras open the door to significant corruption. Since the people receiving the tickets have no recourse in a criminal court to challenge the evidence against them, there’s no way to know if the camera actually caught the person speeding or running a red light. Many victims claim they didn’t break the law. Many districts shortened yellow lights in order to catch more people.

But the elephant in the room Biehl fails to address is the financial motive behind the cameras. The DDN discovered, “[Dayton] records show speed camera citations generated $2.38 million between April and December 2012.” That’s a lot of other people’s money stolen using these cameras. If everybody paid, that number would have jumped to $4.52 million. Tickets in the region cost car owners $5.6 million in 2012. Al Capone would consider this racket dirty. That’s why a Hamilton County judge banned the cameras. A Florida legislator called them a tax on poor people. That’s why most of Dayton’s cameras are located in poor neighborhoods. There are none around the University of Dayton, Miami Valley Hospital or downtown. Rulers don’t steal money from their cronies; they steal it from others and give it to them.

A suburb of Cleveland called Maple Heights illustrates stealing money, not safety, is the motive behind the cameras. The mayor of Maple Heights told the Associated Press, “‘[Opponents of the cameras] really didn't win anything,’ Lansky said. ‘They bankrupted the city is what they did.’” The oppressed people of Maple Heights can only hope.

Voters also banned the cameras in Cleveland, cutting $5 million from their rulers’ stolen haul. That’s $5 million their rulers can’t use to oppress them, so that’s a double victory. Cleveland’s rulers will have to make do with the millions more they steal in other ways.

All Ohioans may soon breathe a sigh of relief since the Ohio Senate recently passed a bill that would require all tickets to be issued by a police officer. As commonsensical as that sounds, it’s going to take an act of Congress, well, the legislature, to make it reality.

But the legislature isn’t doing this because it’s the right thing to do. They’re doing it because 65 percent of the money collected goes to an out-of-state manufacturer. If this ban passes, some crony will begin producing red light cameras in Ohio and get that ban overturned. Then we’ll be right back where we are today but with no hope for a legislative remedy.

Hilarity in Huber Heights

A recent Dayton Daily News headline read, “Huber expected to OK $1.25 million in music center upgrades”. Of course they were. The boondoggle isn’t even built yet, and Huber Heights’s rulers are already upgrading it. But this was a fait accompli. The history suggests Huber’s rulers met with Music and Event Management, Inc. executives, the boondoggle’s eventual manager, smoked $100 cigars and drank 90-year-old scotch purchased with taxpayers’ money, and agreed to use this music venue boondoggle to soak the taxpayers of Huber Heights for every penny they could loot from them before proposing the project.

The article’s sub-head reads, “Supporters say additional work will pay for itself”. Of course they do. They always say that. They said the same thing about their aquatic center boondoggle. The DDN tells how that is working out, “Attendance at the Kroger Aquatic Center at The Heights has dipped again for the second year in a row...” It also reports, “In 2013, the aquatic center — 8625 Brandt Pike — had a net loss of $35,159 and drew 29,282 people with 201 season passes.” So it lost money two years in a row, two out of three it’s been in existence. Rulers blame the weather without mentioning the inherent inability of socialists to perform economic calculation and therefore to effectively manage any project. Taxpayers are the gift Huber’s rulers force to keep on giving.

Sure, this summer was cool, as was last summer. If an investor lost his own money on a pool project because he didn’t do his homework to determine the Earth was entering a cool climate cycle, nobody else would get hurt. But since rulers steal money from taxpayers in the form of taxes, every taxpayer in Huber Heights is getting hurt by this pool boondoggle and now the music boondoggle.

After reviewing how Huber’s rulers hoodwinked taxpayers into paying for this boondoggle, the evidence it was a scam from the beginning is overwhelming. First, the rulers misled taxpayers about the cost. On Dec. 7, 2012 the DDN reported, “A $10 million music center has been proposed to anchor the $220 million Heights development here, and construction could start as early as next year, city officials said.” Three days later the DDN reported the price mysteriously nearly doubled to $18 million. It’s not credible Huber’s rulers learned the real price immediately after publicizing a grossly wrong one.

At the same time they compared it to Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati. They allocated $100,000 to a management company to determine feasibility which turned out to be the same company that ran Riverbend and now manages Huber’s boondoggle. That’s a shameless conflict of interest. You’d have to be hopelessly naive not to realize this deal was pre-determined before anything was reported. Every meeting, every so-called debate on this boondoggle, has been a sham.

On March 5, 2013, the DDN reported Goodsports Enterprises would build a hotel and sports complex next to the boondoggle. Rulers led Huber’s taxpayers to believe the boondoggle was already producing benefits. That turned out to be phony too. The reality is rulers secretly paid for Goodsports to be part of their boondoggle, but Goodsports never committed to show up. The DDN reports, “Huber Heights officials are investigating why the city spent nearly $300,000 to prepare a building pad for GoodSports Enterprises’ $22 million fieldhouse/hotel — when the development agreement did not require it.” So the same rulers who made and paid for the deal are supposedly investigating themselves to discover why they did it. This scam is so transparent, they should be embarrassed. Meanwhile, Goodsports is a no-show. I apologize to Huber‘s taxpayers who are being robbed, but I can’t help but laugh.

The subsequent “scandal” regarding the “proposed” $1.25 million VIP upgrades makes me laugh out loud. While pretending they hadn’t yet decided to fund the upgrades, Huber’s rulers were already secretly paying for them. The DDN reports, “The two change orders totaling $323,751 impacting the two main concession stands and the VIP concession stand were approved in May and June of this year.” City council subsequently, unanimously approved the additional spending. Big surprise. The outrage and debate exhibited over discovering those payments was another scam. This boondoggle was going to cost $19.25 million, that we know of, all along.

Huber’s rulers have Romanesque delusions of grandeur. In a region where extravagant looting by local rulers is the norm, Huber Heights stands out, and there are negative consequences. The DDN reports, “Huber Heights officials are in the early stages of looking to revitalize the center of town that city leaders say points to a commitment to the entire community and not just the growth north of Interstate 70.” Baloney. This shows Huber’s rulers have looted Huber Heights into decline to enrich themselves and their cronies, and they plan to continue, using the town’s center next. Nobody can loot others into prosperity.

I compliment the DDN on dozens of articles conveying Huber’s rulers’ perspective. Unfortunately, it hasn’t reported any other perspective, let alone the full story.

The War to Produce Heroin

For 100 years, the government has been waging a war on drugs. President Nixon escalated the war and popularized the term in 1971. Stormtroopers have been kicking in doors, shooting grandmas, sticking guns in the faces of children, throwing bombs into babies’ cribs and shooting dogs ever since, ostensibly to reduce both supply and demand for illegal drugs.

If the government’s goal really was to reduce supply and demand of illegal drugs, there are no words to describe the magnitude of the failure of their stormtrooper approach. Last November, the Montgomery County coroner warned heroin deaths were on the rise. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine called heroin deaths in Ohio an epidemic despite all the bullets, bombs and jackboots targeted at the American people. DeWine promised to steal another million dollars a year from taxpayers to fund more invasions of grandmothers’ houses by paramilitary police. By January, Dewine had created a new heroin task force to solve the problem, but in March, heroin deaths hit a record high. In April, they were still on the rise.

Apologists always demand we give the government more time, as if 100 or 43 years, take your pick, hasn’t been long enough, but surely Dewine’s task force should have produced results by August. It didn’t. The Dayton Daily News reported in August, “Montgomery County coroners performed autopsies for suspected heroin overdoses on two area residents during the day Friday and were expecting another arrival that night, bringing the heroin death toll for the past week to 18, officials said.”

Granted, that was an exceptional week. Only three people died of heroin overdoses in Montgomery County the next weekend. The coroner called that a “good weekend.” I call it tragic. My heart breaks for the families of the victims.

Government’s stormtrooper approach can never succeed at achieving its proclaimed goal. Prohibition of alcohol failed. Repealing it dramatically reduced crime, violence and deaths. The same will happen when we end prohibition of all drugs.

And our rulers know this. Plutocrats, top politicians, and top bureaucrats aren’t stupid. They know their drug policies are killing Americans. They just don’t care. They profit from the pain caused by prohibition, so they continually ratchet it up.

Of course, they can’t let the American people know that. They always blame somebody else. Media has run a number of articles linking heroin to Mexico recently. For example, USA Today claimed: “Nearly all of the heroin fueling a U.S. resurgence enters the country over the 1,933-mile Mexico border, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.” The implication is clear: it’s the Mexicans’ fault. But this seemingly in-depth article lies by omission. It intentionally fails to inform 92 percent of the world’s opium, from which heroin is made, is produced in Afghanistan, encouraged by US policy.

Before the US invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban had virtually eradicated opium production. Our rulers, after invading Afghanistan, reinstituted it because US rulers benefit from opium and heroin trade. Global Research explains, “The multi-billion dollar laundering of drug profits supports the Western banking system and the world economy. As explained by Michael C. Ruppert in Crossing the Rubicon, ‘the CIA is Wall Street, and drug money is king’. Drug money, in Ruppert’s analysis, is the steroids of the financial world.” Under US rule, Afghanistan reported record opium production in 2013.

Illegal drugs are second only to oil in international trade value, and like oil, they are traded in dollars. Just like selling oil in dollars bolsters the world reserve status of the dollar, so does selling illegal drugs in dollars. Protecting the dollar is the number one priority of US foreign policy from the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria to Ukraine. Protecting the dollar is the reason the US is allied so tightly to Saudi Arabia and other totalitarian oil producers and against Iran.

Our rulers don’t want to stop the drug trade. They’re intentionally driving up prices and profits for illegal drugs so more suppliers produce them, flooding the streets with dangerously concentrated drugs to further reinforce the dollar. And they’ve been wildly successful. So while our rulers in Washington and Wall Street party on billions of ill-gotten drug gains, scores in Dayton and around the country are dying of heroin overdoses or having their doors kicked in by stormtroopers then being caged if they survive.

The war on drugs also highlights the hypocrisy of self-professed limited government conservatives. Government’s power to control what one puts in one’s body and to kick in doors, throw bombs and shoot people to enforce it is irreconcilable with limited government.

Ryan McMaken derides prohibitionists, “These are the same people who ask the ridiculous question: ‘Are you prepared to deal with the consequences of legalized cannabis?’ If by ‘consequences’ they mean fewer non-violent husbands, mothers, fathers, and teens rotting in government cages, then yes, I am prepared to deal with those ‘consequences.’”

It also means greatly reduced crime, violence and deaths. The same applies to all drugs. There was no heroin problem before opium was banned. There will be none after it’s decriminalized.

Congratulations, It’s a Parking Garage

I bet if you were free to build anything you wanted on a prime piece of Dayton real estate, say the intersection of Patterson Blvd. and the Great Miami River, you would build a business that would attract lots of people from all over to make lots of money. This location overlooking the Mad River merging with the Great Miami, overlooking the fountains, cries out for a thriving business that would bring people downtown every day. One of the last things you would build is a parking garage because that would squander one of the most beautiful locations in Dayton.

But Dayton’s rulers think they’re smarter than everybody else, so they’re putting a parking garage there. Instead of a thriving business where people could sit on a patio and enjoy Dayton’s most valuable natural resource and natural beauty, they’re building a parking garage that nobody will enjoy and will create virtually no wealth. It will just be another centrally planned eyesore along the river.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. At least they’re not putting a school there. They already put a school on the other side of the river. At least they’re not putting a park there. They put a wealth-destroying park across the street and across the river too. At least they’re not putting a firehouse there. They put a firehouse at Main Street overlooking the river; squandering another beautiful location.

This parking garage will serve residents and employees of PNC bank in Crawford Hoyings’ Water Street Redevelopment partially paid for by money stolen from taxpayers. Dayton’s rulers are very generous at giving money stolen from taxpayers to their rich cronies. The Dayton Daily News, parroting Dayton’s rulers, calls this Filling a need in downtown Dayton. Maybe they haven’t noticed half the commercial and residential space downtown is empty. All this building will do is take the riverfront away from the people of Dayton. Because of its central plan, it will attract few to visit, let alone move downtown. Our rulers tell us people are moving downtown, but they’re only moving because they are stealing money from taxpayers and using that money to subsidize their rent, making everybody but the recipients and themselves poorer. Oddly, our rulers and their media propagandists never report that as downtown becomes more impoverished every year.

In a related story, Dayton’s rulers will start their centrally planned Riverscape River Run whitewater project on the Great Miami River this year. The $4 million project is supposed to attract people downtown, as if a thirty-second whitewater ride with a view of Dayton’s scenic parking garage, school and firehouse is any attraction. At least the parks are pretty. Since there’s little to do downtown because our rulers bankrupted all the businesses, anybody who does show up will zip in and out of town without spending a dime. This is another waste of money, but at least it was raised voluntarily.

In contrast, the NBA finals featured images of the beautiful San Antonio Riverwalk. The San Antonio River, a creek by Ohio standards, teems with thriving businesses. Hoards of people visit and spend money there all day, every day, creating wealth that benefits everybody. It attracts tourists from around the world.

Dayton could be even better. If Dayton’s rulers freed the river, entrepreneurs would invest their own money and transform it into a world-class attraction and wealth-creation district in no time, but our rulers couldn’t profit off money stolen from taxpayers that way. They aren’t stupid. They’re using their power to legally steal to greedily advance their personal economic interests. They’ll make lots of money from the perfectly legal kickbacks they receive from these plutocrat enrichment projects.

Theft of wealth and central planning by Dayton’s rulers are the problem, not the solution to Dayton’s economic woes.

Big Victory Against the Police State in Dayton

Daytonians dodged a bullet. The people of Los Angeles suburb of Compton learned in late April they had been secretly monitored by air surveillance. The Los Angeles Times reports, “For nine days in early 2012, a small Cessna plane recorded low-resolution images of every corner of the 10.1-square-mile city and beamed them to the local Sheriff’s Department station, where deputies observed incidents including fender benders, a string of necklace snatchings and a shooting.” That’s not all they observed. These Peeping Toms observed everything that happened in Compton during those flights.

The Times documents the Dayton connection, “Ross T. McNutt, president of Persistent Surveillance Systems, which operated the aerial program, said the images beamed back by the cameras were so sweeping that each individual appears as a single pixel -- not nearly discerning enough to detect race, sex and other distinguishing characteristics. And only images tied to known crime scenes received close scrutiny, he said.” Right.

Persistent Surveillance Systems (PSS) is the local TechTown company which Dayton’s rulers planned to contract to monitor everybody in Dayton. Fortunately, after heavy criticism, they temporarily killed the plan, but promised to reconsider after critics became distracted by other issues.

The Compton report casts doubt on the veracity of the claims about the aerial Peeping Tom. For example, if people appear only as a pixel, it would impossible for the camera to resolve a necklace snatching , a shooting, or any action. That’s not very useful. Everything claimed about this spy scheme is fishy. Aerial spy cameras in the 1960s could read license plates. It defies logic that police would choose a lower resolution camera when they could employ one that reads license plates, recognizes facial features, and enables them to stalk your daughter.

Also, the way the system was used in Compton contradicts the Dayton plan. The Dayton Daily News documented, “The city has released a draft policy statement on how it would use the airplane cameras, saying they would only be deployed in a handful of circumstances — to disrupt Part I (felony) crime patterns, to assist in weather emergencies or natural disasters, to monitor illegal dumping, to support tactical operations (SWAT, hostage cases), and to monitor major events or large-scale disturbances.”

That isn’t how the system was used in Compton. It was used for general surveillance because the system is most effective in that role. Government always uses spy systems to their maximum capability. Local rulers’ claims about restricting the use of this spy system are no more credible than the National Security Agency’s claims it doesn’t spy on Americans. Rulers make claims like this to mislead people, then once the program starts, perverts use it to the full extent possible for their own purposes.

The DDN reported another discrepancy, “[Dayton Police Chief Richard] Biehl said the Boston Marathon bombings made a case in favor of the cameras — a major event where surveillance would occur, and images might show a perpetrator coming or going.” This claim contradicts the report that people show up as individual pixels. It would be impossible to track an individual pixel in a crowd of pixels, and it defies logic that Biehl would want to employ such a low-resolution camera when he could employ a modern, high-resolution camera that really could track a person through a crowd. If the plane really doesn’t have a high-resolution camera now, it would get one as soon as Dayton’s rulers signed a contract.

The targeting of Compton highlights the bad intentions behind this technology and validates critics. One Compton resident cut to the heart of the matter, “‘Why are we the target?’ asked Ellen Harris, 67, as she unloaded a cart full of groceries into her car. ‘As citizens we deserve [to know]. We are not all criminals.... It’s an invasion of privacy.’”

If PSS had flown their Peeping Tom plane over Hollywood for nine days, everybody in the world would be up in arms. Twitter would burn up. The Kardashians would sue. Alec Baldwin would go on a homophobic rant. George Clooney would interrupt President Obama and demand McNutt’s head on a platter for peeping in on the backyard activities of Hollywood royalty. And Obama would deliver it. But nobody cares about Ellen Harris, or anybody else, in Compton.

Critics correctly recognize this technology will be used primarily to exploit poor people and minorities. The rich and powerful have the resources to keep it away from them. And no phony government policy will change this.

Biehl justifies his desire to employ the Peeping Tom on dwindling police resources, but the data tell a different story. As the number of police in Dayton is reduced, crime rates have fallen. This happens everywhere. Because we were brainwashed by government schools and government-controlled media, Americans believe police reduce crime. The opposite is true. A Cato study discovered more police leads to more crime. Biehl is trying to justify his bureaucratic fiefdom and his exorbitant salary stolen from taxpayers. Our rulers’ desire for Peeping Tom technology isn’t going away, so we have to stay vigilant.

Last Chance for a Tax Revolt in Dayton

There’s a long, patriotic history of tax revolts in America. The Boston Tea Party is the most famous. The Whiskey Rebellion occurred during George Washington’s presidency after big whiskey producers in the east conspired with Alexander Hamilton to tax the whiskey produced by small farmers in the west out of existence. History books teach Washington and Hamilton crushed the rebellion, but few note the farmers ultimately won. They never paid the tax, then Thomas Jefferson repealed it.

Doug French writes of tax revolts during the Great Depression, “History shows that people get angry when you kick them while they are down. During the last great depression there were tax strikes. Property owners created over 1,000 different taxpayer leagues around the country, ‘which voiced outrage over what were perceived as needless government expenditures in a time of severe economic hardship.’”

Few Americans have been kicked more when they’re down than Daytonians. Ohio and Dayton taxes transformed Dayton from the world’s leading center for innovation into one of the top ten fastest dying cities in the country. Local rulers were angry about the Forbes article, but only because it told the truth. In 1960, Dayton’s population was 262,332. In 2010, it was 141,527. It declined every decade in between. That kind of devastating decline is common in communist countries, but shouldn’t happen in America. Just as the burden of government caused the decline in communist countries, it caused the decline in Dayton too. Because of high taxes in Ohio and Dayton, it’s more profitable to do business elsewhere.

No honest person disputes this. Politicians admit they lure businesses into their districts by offering tax incentives. It’s no secret that lower taxes attract investment, and Dayton sorely needs investment. The reason Fuyao almost didn’t come to Moraine was the burden of taxes. The state and city had to offer significant tax reductions to attract Fuyao to what otherwise was the perfect location.

Even communists acknowledge this. Yahoo News reports, “Cuba is proposing a new Cuban foreign investment law that would cut the profits tax in half to 15 percent and exempt most investors from paying it for at least eight years, official media said on Wednesday.” If Dayton’s rulers cut taxes in half today, Dayton’s 50 year decline would immediately reverse and transform into economic growth and job creation. That’s what everybody, officially, wants.

But Dayton’s greedy rulers will never allow that. Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. The Dayton Daily News documents Dayton’s insanity, “Dayton’s income tax rate has been 2.25 percent since 1984. The first 1.75 percent is permanent, but the final 0.5 percent requires periodic approval, which voters have overwhelmingly given in 1990, 1994, 2000 and 2006.” Same tax rate; same decline. Dayton’s rulers were supposed to cut spending to match that permanent income. That was a lie. Dayton’s greedy rulers never intended this tax to disappear. That’s why Mayor Whaley and her ruling cabal are pushing for that 0.5 income tax to become permanent on May 6. This is voters’ last chance to stop the tax insanity that’s destroying Dayton.

Greed puts Whaley’s machine left of Cuba’s communists. Political machines push for tax hikes in low turnout elections because few people vote. Whaley won the mayoral runoff election last May with only 4865 votes. Even the DDN acknowledges this scandal, “Voter turnout was dismal. Despite high-profile candidates and television ads and numerous mailings, only 9,869 people voted in a city of 141,000. That’s fewer than the number that voted on the income tax issue in Beavercreek, a city of 45,000.” Dayton’s looters earned voters’ contempt, but low turnout this election will benefit them. They hope for low turnout so they can keep partying on dough stolen from taxpayers.

Whaley’s machine pulled out all the stops to pass this tax. All the socialists support it. WHIO provided a free propaganda special. The Dayton Chamber of Commerce supports the tax because higher taxes protect big businesses from smaller competitors. The ballot language doesn’t mention the tax will become permanent. Dayton’s rulers hope most voters won’t know. Plus, workers who live outside the city can’t vote. That’s taxation without representation. America’s Founding Fathers fought a revolution against that.

Every year, tax-feeders tell taxpayers they must sacrifice, supposedly for the common good, but Orwell understood political language is designed to make lies sound like truth. When tax-feeders use the term “common good”, they mean their personal bank accounts. Only parasites benefit from legally robbing taxpayers.

This is the last chance to stop the insanity, reverse Dayton’s decline, and start rebuilding Dayton into a great, productive city like it once was. The common good is served by having the common people keep more of their hard-earned money and making the tax-feeders sacrifice for once. As even Cuba’s rulers admit, if voters reject this tax, the economy in Dayton will improve. A small improvement because it’s a small tax cut, but great transformations have to start with a first step.

Tax breaks bring Cate Blanchett film to Cincinnati

This year’s best actress Oscar winner Cate Blanchett is coming to Cincinnati to film a new movie titled Carol. The film will also star Rooney Mara, known for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Sarah Paulson, best known for Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave and TV’s American Horror Story, and Kyle Chandler from TV’s Friday Night Lights. Todd Haynes will direct.

This is a great opportunity for people in Southwest Ohio. The entire film will be filmed in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Film Commission called for 700 extras to be cast locally. Also, since the film takes place in 1950s New York, the producers called for 1950s background cars for the film. That should excite people in this car town. This is a big deal. It’s like Hollywood is coming to Southwest Ohio.

Cleveland.com reports tax breaks brought the movie to Cincinnati, “Carol was awarded an Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit by the Ohio Film Office, which announced the project today along with the Greater Cincinnati Film Commission.”

For those people who don’t realize taxes harm businesses and kill jobs, the Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit proves otherwise. In 2011, Cleveland’s Newsnet5 documented, “The spotlight may be on Hollywood, but the Ohio film industry continues to grow as Ohio's Motion Picture Tax Credit secures more productions. According to the Ohio Film Office, five new projects will bring in anticipated revenue of more than $17.1 million for Ohio.” In 2010, Cleveland.com noted, “The tally in the first year of Ohio's film tax credit is nine movies and at least one new resident. ” The Ohio Film Office describes the credit, “The Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit provides a refundable tax credit that equals 25 percent off in-state spend and non-resident wages and 35 percent in Ohio resident wages on eligible productions.” This tax break brings new business into the state, boosts local businesses and benefits all Ohioans. It also creates lasting business connections and opportunities that continue to boost our economy over time. In addition, it increases tax revenue. Too many people don’t understand that. That’s it’s only downside.

Ohioans aren’t the only people attracting business out of Hollywood with tax incentives. Variety reports Hollywood continues to flee California at an alarming rate “despite the film production incentive program California enacted in 2009, which provides for $100 million a year in tax credits for what’s usually 20% of production costs. That’s significantly smaller than programs offered by other states such as New York, which offers $420 million a year in credits for 30% of production costs.” The secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor feared Hollywood is turning into Detroit and for the same reasons: high taxes and oppressive labor unions.

Tax breaks, best of all tax cuts, don’t only benefit the film industry. New York attracted The Tonight Show from California with a $20 million a year tax break. And they don’t just benefit the entertainment industry. They benefit all businesses. Fuyao Glass Industry Group considered moving someplace besides Moraine despite the market forces that made Moraine an ideal location until JobsOhio promised undisclosed - meaning really big - tax incentives.

Politicians only offer tax breaks to big businesses - plutocrats and cronies  - but the people of Dayton are legally scheduled to receive a significant tax cut. 0.5 percent of Dayton’s 2.25 percent income tax expires this year. That would give every worker and business owner in Dayton a 22 percent income tax cut. As Ohio’s movie tax break illustrates, that will bring new business to Dayton. It will also immediately make existing businesses more profitable. It will make every worker in Dayton wealthier. It will create productive jobs. It will improve the lives of everybody in and around Dayton. The boost in business would also increase tax revenue for the city, its only downside.

But Mayor Whaley doesn’t want the people of Dayton to be wealthier. She doesn’t want Dayton’s economy to improve. She wants her stolen money. She wants voters to make that 0.5 percent, business-killing income tax permanent in an election at the beginning of May. Whaley supports Detroit-style taxes and labor unions. We know how that ended up for Detroit.

If the government did nothing, we’d all become instantly wealthier. Because the tax is set to automatically expire, Dayton’s economy would instantly improve. Instead of allowing that to happen, Whaley and her cronies are forcing a vote for a new, permanent tax to replace the temporary one that’s done so much harm. Dayton’s minority governing cabal hid the permanent tax behind confusing ballot language, but they will come out in force to vote for it in a traditionally low turnout election they hope nobody else shows up for.

So tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors. This is our one chance to win a tax cut that long-suffering Daytonians desperately need, but it can only happen if the people come out in force at the beginning of May to vote against the ruling cabal’s legalized theft of our incomes.