Cindi Scoppe‘s column today makes reference to the fact that local governments will soon be required to limit increases in their property tax rates by a percentage arrived at by adding the rate of inflation to the rate of population increase. So, she explains,…
…if inflation is 3 percent and the population grows by 2 percent, the tax rate could be increased by 5 percent.
A formula such as this makes sense to a lot of people.
No, really — it does. Why it does is a mystery that I’m sure some of my readers will be glad to explain.
To me, it makes as much sense as, say, adding my waist circumference to my hat size to determine what size suit I should buy. It’s a formula that might work out to what I need or want, and in fact in my case it comes close. The sum of those two is 41 3/4, but I wear a 40 regular. I could wear a 41 or a 42, and in fact in some cases might, depending on the cut of the suit. But generally, I’d prefer to stick with a 40 regular.
Let’s set aside for a moment this outrageous usurpation of local governing authority by state lawmakers. The state could be limiting itself this way, or local governments deciding to limit their own growth, and the formula would still be ridiculous.
Just as a guy with a bigger waist size will likely need a more-or-less proportionally bigger jacket — an assumption that off-the-rack suitmakers actually follow, which is why we have alterations (and even they don’t assume inseam length, if it’s a good suit) — a certain percentage increase in population is likely to have a rough correlation to the cost of government services that the community in question chooses.
But to think that one will be an arithmetically precise function of the other is to be one very confused individual. At least, it doesn’t work that way in a free country. We get to choose what kinds of communities we have — how many public parks for instance, and what they should include and how well they should be maintained. Our preferences cannot be predicted by arbitrary formulae — even ones based on almost-reasonable assumptions.
In our representative democracy, the voter is king — and kings don’t buy their suits off the rack. They have tailors. On the local level, those tailors are city and county council members. How do they do their jobs? Well, they don’t count the number of people passing through the kingdom’s gates, or check the price of ermine capes.
They measure — here, there, everywhere. They ask questions listen to the king telling them what he wants — more or less cuff, how much break in the trousers? And they have to remeasure and make him a new suit every year, because factors change over time. "Oh, I see his majesty has been pumping iron — more room in the shoulders." Or if he hasn’t worked out, a little more room in the waist.
Of course, if they always give him exactly what he demands, they will lose their heads. So when the king shouts, "I wear a 32 waist! I’ve always worn a 32 waist, ever since high school!" wise tailors listen politely and then make him a pair of pants with a 38 waist.
If he doesn’t like the suit, he can still get rid of the tailors. The voter is king.
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All government has to have limits set by law from above, or the politicians will spend every cent they have, and can borrow, in order to make themselves popular and their financial backers happy.
There is no reason government should grow as fast as inflation, because inflation is merely the devaluation of the currency caused by excess government spending.
Voters cannot control spending because politicians and bureaucrats lie to the voters about the cost of projects, what projects they have cooked up in secret, and a lot of other reasons.
The only real solution is to abolish property taxes altogether, along with a bunch of junk government programs.
Brad,
with all due respect, you and Cindi have absolutely outdone yourselves today in your sophistry, obfuscation and plain muddleheaded thinking. If we can even call it “thinking”.
Yes, we should have clear limits on government. That can be P+I or your underwear size or whatever. But limits there must be. Otherwise, as Lee said above, and as we have seen for many years, government will spend every red cent it can get its hands on.
Now let me give you a newsflash, Brad and Cindi. Just because there will now be a strict limit, there is absolutely no reason that a city or county can’t have more fire or police or parks or whatever. All they will have to do is the same thing millions of families do every day: prioritize and cut lower-priority expenditures. We don’t have an option of spending whatever we want and then simply go to our employer and demand that the company pay for the excess. Do you? We all have to live within the limits of what we can afford. It’s high time that our politicians do the same! In fact, that’s one of the main things they are paid to do: prioritize.
And that “who should decide” question is the height of disingenuousness. With P+I there will be a definite limit but we all know if we let the fat piggies on city/county councils decide, the slop trough will never be big enough to suit them. There will be no limit at all, just as we’ve seen for decades of ever spiraling useless government spending. Remember the thread about whether the budget for next year was going up by 8% or 9% or 11% or 13%? The correct limit should have been far less than any of those unjustifiable increases.
This is a big win for advocates of limited government.
The really irrelevant number for tax increases was the theoretical value of the home you didn’t have for sale, as the basis of how much you should, much less could, pay to the government to let you stay there.
Nope. This is a big win for mindless stupidity.
Just like term limits.
Reading Lee and Lexie you’d think that gubmint was some alien system imposed on us by other beings (“fat pigs”). You’d think that we have absolutely no control over gubmint or the people that make decisions for us. (“…because politicians and bureaucrats lie to the voters about the cost of projects…”)
I snorted out loud when the motivation for school tax reform was indirectly exposed by Sanford’s skinflint cheapness concerning the taxation of his $2 mil “primary residence” on the beach. Of course, he and “the brains” want to keep it undertaxed as a “primary residence” instead of a rental property.
When the “property tax relief” bill takes affect Sanford’s tax bill will probably shrink by numerous magnitudes. OTOH, middle class and lower class tax payers will see the buying power of their disposable income shrink significantly.
I wonder how long it’ll take for this realization to sink in.
Brad,
I’ll agree to unfettered growth rates when I see the government make an effort to cut waste. Til then, I think we should set the growth rate at -1.0% a year and see what happens. Maybe we’d stop building $50 million dollar high schools with $2 million dollar football fields and $500K parking lots. Maybe we’d see consolidation of school boards, elimination of redundant and deadwood positions across all government, and the end of funding for powerful senator’s pet projects.
Let the politicians fight over the pool instead of just grabbing more and more.
Question – are you comfortable with the level of unnecessary spending in our government? If not, then why not push to fix that first before giving the government even more to waste?
The government we have today is imposed on us, by a gang of thieves who have gradually subverted the principles of self-government into a honey pot to make themselves and their cronies rich off tax and spend schemes.
LW, I’m sorry, but I cannot take you seriously when you talk about limited government. As for those “fat piggies” at the “slop trough,” you want those same “piggies” to take MY money and put it in YOUR wallet. So you can send your kid to a private school, and at the same time, undermine our public school system.
As long as you aspire to pick my pocket, I shall be obliged to point out the, um, inconsistency of your position.
“As for those “fat piggies” at the “slop trough,” you want those same “piggies” to take MY money and put it in YOUR wallet.”
Not at all, KC. You see, they have already taken YOUR money and appropriated it for education. Now the only question is who should decide exactly where that money is spent: parents or educrats. One way or the other, though, none of YOUR money will ever end up in MY wallet!!
Lex, taxpayers have been voted off the island by the deadbeat majority.
Lee, who is the “deadbeat majority”? I know that you consider yourself to be a libertarian, but the Republicrats have been in power for some time now at every level of government. I know you hee and haw about “educrats”, but unless we get rid of the idiots in power, we are stuck.
Look around the State House and Senate. There are some people that have been there for 30+ years. How can we have change with the same jokers in office. Remember Ole Strom? Boy just thinking about his 1000+ years of constituent service to our state makes me realize why we rank last in everything. Who the hell cares about “constituent services”? That is code for caters to old farts, and as someone under the age of 50, I could give a rats ass about tax rebates on adult diapers and an annual birthday card from the senator. Alas, I am one of about 3% of voters under 50 in this state that vote, and as long as the inmates are running the asylum, nothing will change around here.
Sorry for my longwinded rant, I just wanted some clarification, because for once, we may agree on something (although I may be wrong).
The deadbeat majority is actually a minority who vote, mostly for politicians who promise to deliver goods and services to them, paid for by someone else… goods and services mostly which the private sector provides, but which the deadbeat voters want for free.
A good example is the voter who wants government to provide his medical care. He doesn’t want to pay for private insurance and copayments, even though he can afford it. He doesn’t want to pay the taxes, which with government inefficiency, will cost more than private insurance. He wants his for free, and he wants someone else to pay way too much in taxes.
Preston, I agree that we need to clean the entrenched crooks from office. The State paper, of course, opposes term limits and supports ridiculous gerrymandering which guarantees a few seats to blacks and permanent seats to whites with seniority, who use it to run the state like their fiefdom, and line their pockets.
Plus whenever someone has the audacity to run against one of the entrenched barons we get those infamous State hitpieces as with Kit Spires.
Lee, for once we can agree. Gerrymandering is out of control. Clyburn signed off on that crap so he can stay in his seat forever and then pick his successor. Same goes for Spence/Joe Wilson (and the rest of the SC delegation). These guys are all void of ideas. They show up for the paycheck (which is pretty damn good by SC standards). They then call their apartment a church, write a law to protect themselves, and end up not paying taxes.
As someone who worked in DC, let me tell you that our delgation is a joke, with the punchline being that no one outside of any of these fools offices knows who the hell they are. They are thoughtless, influenceless monkeys.
I know you will disagree, but the solution to these problems in my opinion is state funded elections. Freedom of speech applies to individuals, not corporations, and it is the individual that can no longer be heard. Make issues not cash the focus.
Let me know what you think.
The Democrats have a bill in committee right now to fund elections. Predictably, it only funds Democrats and Republicans. A third party or independent has to jump some huge hurdles to get any funding, such as getting X amount of votes in the previous election. Since they are forbidden from using their own funds or private donations, so it is unlikely they will get many votes.
* Term limits – 10 years total for life
* No retirement or medical benefits for politicians
* Congressional and state districts drawn along county lines.
That bill sounds better than what we have. I will concede that it is counterproductive to limit things to the two major parties, but an incremental change would be a start.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the current system sucks.
Government funding, and especially government-only funding, of elections, would even further entrench the incumbents, and prevent anyone outside the party core from ever being nominated to any office.
Great post!