Going to the hardware store. A note on taxes.

Socialism is when the government does stuff. And it's more socialism the more stuff it does. And if it does a real lot of stuff, it's communism.

Richard D. Wolff.¹

I saw them there when I went into the hardware store, but they were talking to somebody and I didn't have to engage them.  I was not so lucky on the way out.  I glanced over as there oddly enough were cookies at the table and I thought for a moment it might be an effort to raise money for something like the Girl Scouts, but there were no girls there.  Only two women, whom I'd guess were in their 70s.

Them: Excuse me sir, are you a registered voter?

I'll be frank, I really hate the initiative and referendum process.  I figure most people sign the petitions to get something on the ballot, as they are polite and don't really want to offend the signature takers.  Eons ago, I was like that myself.

I've long since being that way.  Most of the time I refuse to sign the petitions, but I don't engage the petitioners in debate.

And I didn't this time.  I wish I had.

The rest of the brief conversation:

    Me: Yes (said in an irritated tone).

    Them: Would you like to sign our petition?  If passed, it would drop property taxes 50%.

    Me: No (said in an even more irritated tone).

By the time I got home, I was irritated with myself.  I wish I had engaged them in conversation.  If I had, what I would have said is this?

Oh?  Property taxes in Wyoming, which has no income tax, pay for police, fire departments, basic city sevices and education.  Why do you hate policemen, firemen and teachers?

That's brutal, but that's the truth.  If we don't tax property for these things, we have to tax something else, or go without.

This city has had two reported teenage murders in the last month, and a lot of killings here just go unreported. We have a developing violent gang problem.  I'm not even going to bother with the drug problem that comes with living in a city that's on an Interstate Highway.  We have a homeless problem due to other municipalities busing their homeless to our city.  All of these ties right into what I just noted.  

Badly educated people are a major social problem that ends up being a burden on emergency services.  

The "I don't want to be taxed" movement really came about, no matter how it is thinly intellectually justified, as property taxes have risen significantly in the state in recent years.  The reasons are several fold, one simply being that county assessors falsely suppressed raising them, as property values raised, as they're elected officers and they were chicken about it. The State, which has the duty to distribute the taxes, finally got after them to do t heir jobs, and they've been having to do them. That's raised taxes.

Another is that a certain attitude in the state has encouraged people to move in, although a large number move right back out. Those who move in are largely older, having made their lives elsewhere, and having educated their children elsewhere. They sold their houses high in those places, where they should have stayed, and don't want to pay for anything here. Additionally, a lot of these people have real populist views, and would be just fine with not educating anyone in their declining years as they'll be dead as a door nail when current children become ignorant voters themselves.

For that matter, some of the recent imports have washed up from regions where education in particular is lacking.  This is particularly the case for people who have come up from the South.  Steeped in a sort of ignorance themselves, they aren't thinking things through, and regard education as some sort of left wing conspiracy. This has unfortunately seeped into American conservatism itself, and is now sort of a rallying cry.

Property taxes are rising just because of people like this.  They sell out their homes for a pile, and then come here and buy new ones at inflated prices.

I'd really like to know what these people would propose to cut, if we didn't have the property taxes.  They likely have no idea. The same people who would cut property taxes would go to a city council meeting and complain about a pothole, which is filled, basically, with money from property taxes.

Property taxes are, moreover, more fair than people suppose. If you have property, you have means. It's telling that these complaints come from old people, not young couples. Renters aren't paying property taxes.  And if the property taxes are too high, it may mean you exceeded your means, or you have multiple properties.  In the latter case, sell one, that will reduce property values and help distribute the scarce resource. 

Footnotes.

1.  A relative of mine uses this quote frequently, which is where I heard the first part of it.

I looked Wolff up, and he is an academic Marxist, which I'm not in any sense.  Marxism is proven murderous crap. But the quote is not without merit.  Every democratic society has governments which do a lot of stuff, and by and large the public really likes the stuff it does if it benefits from it, and doesn't if somebody else does.  Some of the most subsidized industries in the US completely fail to realize that and their members loudly complain about the government.  Trucking is, for example, a prime example.