Seitz: Don't lower taxes

Yes, you read that right.

Bill Seitz, the Republican state representative from Green Township who made his bones in politics as a hard-nosed, tax-hating fiscal conservative, thinks it would be a really bad idea if Cincinnati voters went to the polls next Tuesday and passed Issue 9, the ballot issue that would phase out the city's property tax by 2014.

For anyone who has followed Seitz' political career, this is a hard concept to get your head around. It's as if Pat Robertson suddenly decided gay marriage was a good idea.

Mayor Charlie Luken gathered about 30 opponents of Issue 9 on the steps of City Hall Monday morning. For the most part, the crowd was made up of the usual suspects - unionized city workers, Charterites like former mayor Arn Bortz and his nephew, council candidate Chris Bortz, Democrats like Laketa Cole and mayoral candidate Mark Mallory.

The two who stood out were Seitz and Doug Moorman, a former aide to Ohio Gov. Bob Taft who is now vice president of government affairs at the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, who was there to deliver the Chamber's enbdorsement of a "no on 9'' vote.

Seitz said his principal objection to Issue 9 is simple - eliminating the property tax would create too much reliance on the city's earnings tax. Something in the neighborhood of 60 percent of the income generated by the earnings tax is paid by people who work in the city but live elsewhere, including Seitz own western Hamilton County district.

"It is simply bad tax policy,'' said Seitz.

(Photo by Meggan Booker/The Cincinnati Enquirer)