Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts, is costing more than expected to operate. The Indiana Pacers want lower rent.

As a result, some state senators think everyone who buys alcohol anywhere in Indiana should pay more taxes for it.

Under the right circumstances, an increase in the alcohol tax that sends more money to communities throughout the state might well be a good move. After all, the tax has not been raised since 1981, and Indiana cities have many needs and dwindling revenues.

But everything about these circumstances is wrong.

The Capital Improvement Board in Indianapolis is running a $47 million deficit, partly because Lucas Oil Stadium is costing $20 million a year more than expected. So with just four weeks remaining in this year’s legislative session, Sen. Luke Kenley of Noblesville has suddenly proposed that the entire state bail out the Indianapolis board.

In a blatantly cynical attempt to win votes from legislators who represent areas outside Indianapolis, Kenley proposed that all cities in Indiana get a cut of the revenue.

This is atrocious public policy. One appointed government board gets in trouble, so some lawmakers seek a statewide tax late in the legislative session and try to make it more palatable by spreading around the revenues.

The alcohol tax increase would be part of a plan that requires the Colts and the Pacers – who use Conseco Fieldhouse, also controlled by the board – to chip in $5 million each. But team owners haven’t said they would provide the money.

The Indianapolis Capital Improvements board is similar to the Fort Wayne Allen County Convention and Tourism Authority, which runs Grand Wayne Center. Imagine if Grand Wayne Center had a financial problem and Fort Wayne officials asked for a statewide tax to help pay for it. Legislators would laugh them out of the Statehouse.

Yet, incredibly, a Senate committee voted 10-2 Thursday to advance the proposal. Among those supporting the deeply flawed proposal was Sen. Tom Wyss of Fort Wayne.

The proposal was wrongly amended into a bill that would turn the Allen County tourism authority into a capital improvements board and give it a share of the local food and beverage tax that now goes exclusively to Memorial Coliseum. Elected officials from both parties have sought such a board to help coordinate and finance future construction projects. Inserting the alcohol tax may hurt that worthy proposal.

Many Hoosiers have long believed that Indianapolis weighs far too heavily in the General Assembly, with lawmakers bending over backward to help that city while officials in other parts of the state struggle to get a sliver of the legislative largesse Indianapolis gets.

If state legislators want to prove that is true, they should pass this bill.

But if they care more about good policy and representing all of Indiana, they will craft alternative language that requires Marion County, not the entire state, to address the shortcomings of its own deals.