A Solution for High Property Taxes

Christian Science Monitor: Property taxes rising nationwide:

From Madison, Wis., to Bucks County, Pa., the local tax assessor is dipping deeper into homeowners' pockets as real estate prices rise and states share less of their tax revenue with local governments.

With people starting to receive their 2005 tax bills, the levies are squeezing the middle class and senior citizens - leaving them less to spend on everything from restaurants to roof repair. There is also concern the taxes could particularly hurt the home-buying chances of the young or civil servants such as firefighters. States such as New Jersey now have grass-roots efforts - verging on revolts - for reform.

Here's my solution for the problem:

End the public school system. Abolish government-run schools. Privatize public education. Whatever form or label this takes, get the state out of the education business.

Why pick on public education? Because that's where the money is:

"There is a property tax crisis," says Myron Orfield, a property tax expert at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "It's especially bad in states like New Jersey, Ohio, Connecticut, and Illinois, which are property-tax dependent."

Part of the problem lies in demographics and the rapid growth of exurban communities. Young couples who can't afford suburban homes have moved to "edge" communities further from the cities. Those are filled with children, and to educate them the communities have to jack up property taxes to build new schools and hire teachers.

Revenues for public elementary and secondary schools, by source and state or jurisdiction: 2000-01:

• Of Connecticut's education revenue of more than $6.4 billion, $2.5 billion (39.5%) came from the state and $3.5 billion (54.6%) came from local governments. Mean Uncle Sam tossed in $276 million (4.2%).
  
• Of Illinois's education revenue of more than $18.2 billion, $6.1 billion (33.6%) came from the state and $10.3 billion (56.6%) came from local governments. Mean Uncle Sam tossed in $1.4 billion (7.8%).
  
• Of New Jersey's education revenue of more than $15.9 billion, $6.6 billion (41.8%) came from the state and $8.3 billion (52.3%) came from local governments. Mean Uncle Sam tossed in $628 million (3.9%).
  
• Of Ohio's education revenue of more than $16.6 billion, $7.1 billion (43.2%) came from the state and $7.8 billion (47.1%) came from local governments. Mean Uncle Sam tossed in $1 billion (6.1%).

According to the feds, American taxpayers handed over more than $500 billion for public schools in the 2003-04 school year on the federal, state, and local levels. That is up from more than $372 billion in 1999-2000. In 1999, state and local governments spent 35% of their funding on public education.

I want that cut that out entirely, completely, and without exception, as quickly as possible. Those taxpayers handed that money over under the explicit threat of violence against them if they did not. An explicitly immoral way to "invest in our future," if you ask me. I think the solution is obvious: pay for education on your own.

Taxpayers nationwide would thank you, assuming they aren't so tied to this ugly system of forced wealth redistribution that they feel they need YOUR money to educate THEIR kids.

Madison, Wis., is an example of how some of these changes are affecting both the town and some of its residents. Assessments climbed 9 to 10 percent for several years in a row as housing prices have risen, reflecting the city's buoyant economy. This is happening once more, so even though the city is actually reducing the mill rate (the multiple of property value used to determine residential taxes) from 8 mills to 7.8, property taxes are going up 5.5 percent.

The city's rising property taxes are squeezing retirees Diane and Donald Brockman, who have lived in the same house for over 40 years. Now, the retirees estimate it takes them two full months of their fixed income to pay their property taxes.

"We don't go out to eat, we don't go to theaters, we don't travel a lot," says Mrs. Brockman, who worked as a operating-room nurse for 40 years. "You have to give up your pleasures that you have worked all your life to do," she says, suggesting that it might be appropriate for the community to give some kind of tax credit to them for all the years they have faithfully paid their taxes.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, an unabashed liberal, is sympathetic to their plight. "We've moved away from progressive forms of taxation to more regressive," he says. "This is of great concern to me that the tax structure is less fair."

Oh fuck you, Cieslewicz. I'll tell you what isn't fair. Picture this.

A single man living on his own. He has no children. His job earns him enough to pay his bills and have some left over for savings and entertainment. He lives in an apartment and wants to buy a house. His broker says he can afford to pay the principle and interest on the loan as well as the finance charges, but explains the taxes to factor in are going to be upwards of $2,000 a year. At the margin of the single man's income, that makes homeownership impossible. As the Brockman's illustrate, since we are under the threat of force to pay our taxes, we tend to cut our spending in the enjoyable areas of our lives.

This hypothetical scenario isn't limited to just singles, but I mention it specifically because this man does not have children in public schools and therefore gets no benefit from those taxes. Suppose this man were to decide that his child, should he have one, will be educated either at home or in private schools. In that case (one increasingly common), the tens of thousands of dollars ostensibly taxed from him to pay for educational expenses will never go to the educational expenses of his kid. He, in essence, is paying for multiple educations when he should be paying for one.

THAT isn't "fair."

In many states, the tax bite is finally causing taxpayers to bite back. For example, in New Jersey, a grass-roots group, Citizens for Property Tax Reform, says it has 500,000 participants after 15 months of existence. The group's mission is to force a property tax reform "convention."

"For 30 years the New Jersey legislatures tried but they couldn't come up with a ... solution, so we thought we should take the process out of Trenton," says Cy Thannikary, a retiree and revolt founder. "We want fundamental reform of the way to fund schools and municipal services."

Copyright © 2004 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

The only legitimate and honest way to fundamentally reform the way those services are financed is to abolish them and let free markets form. Everything else is just moving one pile of lies and bullshit from one superficial issue to another.

Posted by Drizzten at December 03, 2004 01:54 PM