As we struggled through the increasingly massive hype for the upcoming football game (you know the one we mean!), some wording in this morning’s editorial on page B8 caught our attention. With reference to the push for "mass transit," we get this statement.
"The legislature, which opens its session this week, won’t be asked to approve the overall transit plan nor the means to pay for it. That would be left up to the voters in both counties. All state lawmakers have to do is allow people in Indianapolis, Beech Grove, Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville and Westfield to decide for themselves whether they want to build a transit system of reasonable scale and relatively moderate price." (Our emphasis.)
In other words, the proponents of this gigantic boondoggle want to put a referendum before the public which will be backed by the very same kind of exaggerated statements of benefits we’re currently getting about the football game.
In order to save their time and effort, we’ll suggest what their wording for the referendum question to be submitted to the voters might look like.
"Do you support a reasonably minor tax increase in order to build a transit system which will attract billions of dollars of economic development; bring in thousands of tourists with millions of dollars of revenue (like Union Station); turn Meridian Street into a limited access, high speed path between the Palladium and the Stadium; and might even help some citizens without private transportation to get back and forth to work?"
Most of the folks who support this program are the same ones who decided that it was OK to commit well over a billion tax dollars to build a couple of sports palaces downtown. And they didn’t even bother to get citizen approval for those. Just imagine what they might do when they can say, "Hey. You told us it was what you wanted!"
If this does get shoved through the legislature, we urge all voters to watch language usage very, very carefully. For instance, in the wording of the editorial as well as the referendum question we suggested above, how many definitions are there for the word "reasonable?" And what actually constitutes a "relatively moderate" cost?
We’re reminded of the hoary old joke which used to make its way around the legislative halls. The proponent of an amendment says, "But Senator, it’s only a one word change. It just inserts the word ‘not’ after the word ‘shall’!"
Who will write the referendum question?
I'm sure the referendum will have the same clear and consise wording as the Wishard referendum, in other words, it will be business as usual.
Posted by: Vox Populi | January 01, 2012 at 06:59 PM