Mark Anderson wrote: "You know, I tried before, to no avail, to fight this perception that property taxes are 'unfair.'"
Perhaps you're running into difficulties persuading people because you have a different definition of "fair" than those you're trying to convince. In my opinion, the measure of the "fairness" of a tax should be the ability of the taxee to pay. Hence, someone with more ability to pay (i.e. more income) should pay more. Conversely, one with very little income should pay very little. By this measure, the only "fair" tax is the progressive income tax. All of our other tax options (property, sales, and fee-for-service) are regressive, being paid disproportionately by those with the least ability to pay. Take sales taxes. It's easy to say that everything but food is a luxury item, and that poor folks have the choice to not spend, and therefore not pay the tax. However, (for just one example) the growth in low income jobs is occurring mostly outside core cities, while low income folks continue to live mostly in core cities. In the absence of a strong public transit system (like, say, in Minneapolis) a car - and the corresponding sales tax on the front end AND for gasoline - is nearly necessary. It's not hard to explain why people with low incomes pay sales tax disproportionately. As to property tax, Wizard aptly described the human effects of Mr. Anderson's draconian ideas. But let's examine the societal cost, in dollars. Q: When a retired person on a fixed income is pushed from her/his home by rising property taxes, does she/he tend to find less expensive housing? A: Less expensive to them, yes. But often this less expensive housing is supported housing: a group home, nursing home, managed care facility, etc. Q: Who picks up the tab for the supported housing? A: Either from the very beginning or after the retired person in question runs through her/his savings (a process that doesn't usually take long, due to the relatively high cost of supportive housing and the often relatively meager savings left at this point in someone's life) we get to pay, as taxpayers. Q: Which is cheaper to society, allowing a person to stay in her/his own home and pay less tax, or shunt her/him into supportive housing for the next couple of decades? A: The former. Whether Mark finds it tragic or not when the government forces people to "consume different housing" through tax policy, we cannot rely on the change in "consumption" he advocates to be a "downgrade." In terms of cost to taxpayers, it may well be an "upgrade." And that's really stupid social policy. It's fascinating to me that persons who otherwise want government intrusions in their lives kept to a minimum still favor "voluntary" taxes. The effect of such taxes is to force a change in individuals' behavior: sales taxes put a modest brake on the economy, property taxes force people out of certain communities and into others. I can support a voluntary tax as long as the policymakers who created them did so with an eye to their secondary effects. For instance, the cigarette tax which is meant partly to discourage smoking or a steep gasoline tax (in concert with other viable transit alternatives!) which aims to reduce total miles driven. Mark Anderson: "Have you looked downtown recently? One mall is nothing compared to the many skyscrapers in Mpls." Have you been to the Mall of America recently? The idea that such an edifice produces a piddly little property tax base strikes me as silly. Mark Anderson: "Well I've heard conflicting stories on that -- don't know if we're truly paying for suburban sewers. But that's a good reason to stop money flying all over, so we can tell who's paying for what. The central city certainly shouldn't be paying for the expansion of the exurbs (sp?). Pawlenty got a good start; now we should finish what he began." But that's just the thing: he never will "finish what he began." That's what Chris is trying to say. He's not interested in doing the total reforms you suggest. The exurbs, the locus of Timmy's power base, want our money spent on their infrastructure. To cut them off as he's cut off rural and urban areas (which, surprisingly enough, tend to vote DFL) would go over like a lead balloon. This is far less ideological than I think you think, and far more realpolitik. And, finally, Mark Anderson: "Mpls has never had such authority in the past -- the current government is no more to blame than any other for the last 150 years." Actually, neither state nor local governments are to blame. It is the nature of income tax that it cannot be too tightly focused, or localities would begin pushing people out - especially people of high income, just the folks Minneapolis has been trying to woo back to the city for the past decade (at least). The basic fact I think Mark neglects is that we are incredibly interconnected in this state. Minneapolis provides services of all kinds to people from all over the metro. They drive our streets, depend on our police, etc. The state's economy is quite dependent on Minneapolis.' A balkanized tax system in which all municipalities fund themselves directly is simply neither fair nor effective. Now, Mark does have a good point: the more we know where our taxes are going, the more accountable the system. I think there are ways of ensuring this level of accountability without dismantling the mechanisms that allow different levels of government to share money with one another, a baby-with-bathwater solution if I've ever seen one. Robin Garwood Seward TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
