The American Spectator : The One 'Big' You Can't Escape

Text Size

Car Guy

The One 'Big' You Can't Escape

By Eric Peters on 5.2.11 @ 6:07AM

Big Banks or Big Oil you can ignore. Not so Big G.

Things are bad -- and many blame Big Business, such as Big Banks and Big Oil, as they're styled, for turning the screws on average people. I've got no big love for either. The fact is they are interested in money -- your money. That's what they do. Are you shocked? But here's the thing: If you're careful with your money and apply common sense, you can avoid being indebted to entities such as Big Banks and even Big Oil. Because for the most part* their exactions are voluntary.

You do not, for example, have to buy a $500,000 McMansion on a zero down five-year ARM that requires 50 percent of your take home pay to stay ahead of. No Bankster put a gun to anyone's head to buy more home than they could comfortably afford. People freely chose to do so, banking (ahem) that the increase in value would counterbalance the high carrying costs. Well, they lost that bet. But whose fault is it?

No law says you must purchase a $40,000 brand-new car that broadsides you every month with a $600 payment. You can choose to drive a more affordable vehicle, perhaps one bought outright, with cash.

But, there's a catch: Even if you live within your means, modestly, in a home you can afford -- and drive a car you can afford -- government's exactions are inescapable.

And increasingly, unaffordable.

Personal anecdote: My wife and I moved from high-cost Northern Virginia not far from DC back in 2004 to rural SW Virginia in part to lower our cost of living in anticipation of the now-current economic problems besetting the country. We sold our place and bought a new, less expensive place, which enabled us to really buy the new place -- outright -- so that we have no mortgage.

Neither of us have ever bought a new car in our lives. Both our vehicles were bought used -- with cash.

These two common-sense actions massively reduced the amount of money we need to get by. And no loan officer or debt collector plagues us.

But government does.

The taxes on our modest place out in the country have risen by some 30 percent in five years (even as the market value of our house has dropped by an equal amount) and now the county has passed a new -- massive -- increase in the odious personal property tax on motor vehicles. The new tax rate will amount to an $800 annual fee levied on a vehicle with a market value of $25,000.

While we do not have high-dollar cars, we do have several cars (two older trucks and a couple of older motorcycles). The highest-dollar one we own is worth maybe $7,500. But we still end up with a beefy bill from the county every year. To pay "for the children" -- who aren't our children, because we don't have any -- chiefly because we feel we can't afford any. But because other people who can't afford kids do have them, we and others like us get the bill.

To pay for the local "education" system. The combined hit every year -- the personal property tax on the vehicles and the real estate tax on our house and land -- amounts to around $2,000. That may not be huge by some standards, but it's still a lot of money for us -- and over time, it's a lot of money, period. In just ten years' time, the local wealth redistributors will have stolen -- and yes, that's the right word -- $20,000 from us. For the privilege of owning things we already paid for (and paid taxes on at the time of purchase) with money that has also already been taxed.

It is a sum we can do nothing to reduce, other than by becoming homeless and divesting ourselves of our vehicles.

So, which is the more rapacious, relentless enemy of economic security? Of liberty? The businesses offering products or services we're free to decline if we do the math and calculate we can't comfortably afford the cost? Or the inescapable clutching claws of government -- multiple levels of it -- that constantly filches through our pockets?

Instead of "financial reform" and recriminations directed against Big Business, how about changing the law so that a man's house, once paid for, is his. Period. No more rent payments in perpetuity to the county -- the annual property tax -- that makes ownership a farce. And how about a rising against this noxious business of taxing personal property, so that we can truly own nothing except perhaps the clothes we're wearing and whatever small items we can carry in our hands?

Page: 1 2 >

About the Author

Eric Peters is an automotive columnist and author of Automotive Atrocities: The Cars You Love to Hate (Motor Books International) and a new book, Road Hogs.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (50) | Leave a comment

tsd| 5.2.11 @ 8:02AM

What you are saying sounds bad and is bad, just don't move to Wisconsin... you will easily pay twice that amount. Our new Gov is working to fix some of the theft by government, but we have a very long way to go. It is so much easier to create entitlements than to take them away.

Cosmo| 5.2.11 @ 9:16PM

Parents should pay for their own children's education, like they do their clothes and food.
Besides, there should not be any government schools. They are unconstitutional. The private sector is perfectly capable of operating schools.

Mel Torme| 5.2.11 @ 8:18AM

This column by Mr. Peters got skipped somehow (political reasons? I'll post it; you decide):

*****************************************
Too Much Traffic—Too Many People?

By Eric Peters

Once population gets to a certain density, it's game over—for liberty. I mean, for real-deal, live and let live, do-what-you-want-to (provided you're not physically harming anyone else) liberty.

You know—what most of the founding fathers (Alexander Hamilton and his proto-Republicans excepted) had in mind.

The best analogy I've found is traffic.

You live in a very rural area, let's say. Very few other cars are on the road. So, when you roll up behind some old geezer doing 33 in a 55, it's easy to just pass the old dude—and no hard feelings either way. He's able to trundle along at his pace without cars (and angry drivers) stacking up behind him; you're free to drive around the old coot and continue at your speed.

No tensions; no problems.

There are very few traffic lights—and when you come to a stop sign, you're almost always the only car around and it's just a minor, momentary interruption of your travel.

You can pull right onto the main road from sidestreets, usually—with just a quick glance either way to be sure no one's coming.

Usually, no one is.

If you need to park, you just pull into a spot.

And there is always an open spot.

In winter, you can usually get where you need to be without too much trouble because there's no one else causing wrecks that block the road or interfering with your momentum.

Driving is a joy.

Contrast this scenario with the situation that's become typical in and around every major population zone in the United States circa late 2010:

All it takes is one inept/fearful/reckless driver to gum up the entire works; everyone is stuck behind the old coot up ahead in his '87 Buick doing 33 in a 55—because there's no way you can pass with all that oncoming traffic plus you're 12 cars behind the coot anyhow.

And there's more than just one inept/fearful/reckless driver to deal with now, too.

Itinerant workers—often with no insurance; not infrequently drunk—driving beaten-up old wrecks are a constant peril. Many don't read English, so traffic signals are a mystery to them.

Huge SmooVees with distracted hausfraus chattering away on their sail fawns blast through red lights, turn into your lane or don't notice the light has changed green until it's on the verge of turning red again—just in time for you to get stuck in another cycle of waiting.

You're thwarted (or threatened) at almost every turn—literally. Get by/past one and there's another one 20 yards ahead. The conga line of cars barely moves an inch. At every stop sign, there are scores of cars lined up awaiting their turn. Cars are backed up for blocks at traffic lights. Merge lanes are choked. You have to circle every parking lot like a shark, waiting for a spot to come open—and be ready to fight for it.

It takes forever to get anywhere. No one smiles. Everyone's tense.

Might as well give up and turn on the radio.

Driving has become the equivalent of being a mouse in a Skinner Box. You dread leaving your house.

The same dynamic operates in the political realm.

In a frontier-type, low-density environment, people are independent-minded and self-sufficient. To a great extent they self-police—and are happy. They earn their own keep and expect to be left alone in return.

Because people are not constantly rubbing up against one another, there is much less social friction. People can go around one another. You don't like your neighbor? Well, you almost never see him anyway and it's easy to avoid having to deal with him. He goes his way, you go yours.

Resources abound; useful work is easy to get. People are largely free to do what they want, within reasonable bounds—and to enjoy their lives.

This is how America was—I can remember it like it was yesterday. And it's the reason why America was, for the most part, a great place to live ... until about the late 1960s. At which point the population began to balloon at an almost unimaginable rate.

170 million suddenly—and 40 years is suddenly—became 300-plus million.

An almost doubling of the population it took more than 400 years to achieve in the space of my own short lifetime (I am 44).

Suffocating, omnipresent traffic—formerly an isolated curiosity you experienced on field trips to NYC or LA—was unknown to most Americans when I was a child in the 1970s.

Now it is the rule.

The suburbs were then still pleasant, affordable and peaceful places to live and rear a family.

Now they are disconnected, overpriced—and a torturous drive to and from your place of work.

In the 1970s, one could easily access solitude in the nearby woods, on a forest trail—or local park.

People and cars and noise were not everywhere—yet.

Even air travel was nothing like the hateful, demeaning experience it has become today.

What has changed? What's the common denominator?

Too many people.

Worse, most of these are not even American people. Deliberate policy changes (the Immigration Act of 1965, specifically) have unleashed upon this land a literal tsunami of humanity—most of it Third World humanity. Is it surprising that America is increasingly coming to resemble a Third World country as a result? With the same horrid pathologies—from a seething (and growing in size) permanent underclass to the despoiling of formerly magnificent natural vistas to the relentless lowering of our political discourse to simple-minded catchphrases and childish images marketed to a junior high-level mindset?

This is an obvious, even elementary consequence of adding tens of millions of Mexican peasants and Central-South American stoop laborers, Somalis, Pakistanis and Afghanis—the whole polyglot stew.

But we aren't allowed to notice this—unless of course we "celebrate" it.

Though why such ought to be celebrated is something that's not easy to understand. By every measure save perhaps the profusion of electronic gadgets, Americans are miserable today (note the near-ubiquity of anti-depression meds, the pathological over-eating/obesity and nihilistic consumerism) whereas they were mostly pretty happy in the not-so-distant past.

Yet it is still in our power to halt the bum's rush toward the Third World future our "leaders" are laying the groundwork for. We have it in our power to say, "enough".

We do not need more people.

We certainly do not need more people from the Third World.

And if we can just get a handle on this mess, maybe one day going for a Sunday drive will be enjoyable again.
********************************************

Pecos Pete| 5.2.11 @ 8:35AM

The more people there are, the MORE taxes the gubmint can collect.

Harry the Horrible| 5.2.11 @ 9:54AM

The more people, the more service the government needs to provide. For instance, you from septic tanks to city sewers. Eventually each new person costs more add and maintain than the area collects in taxes.
And, or course, some folks never seem to stop asking for more taxpayer funded services...

Pecos Pete| 5.2.11 @ 8:45AM

The more people there are, the MORE taxes the gubmint can collect.

PolishKnight| 5.2.11 @ 11:33AM

Hahaha! That's the myth of the Bismark empire that modern Europe bought into: Import low wage workers to prop up social security and the welfare state. Works great until those workers qualify for benefits and the pyramid collapses.

More people are useful for big government when the particular people being brought in are big government voters AND the state is a democratic republic. China doesn't bother with that paradigm. They simply order the women to drown off excess kids.

The USA, and Europe, had a perfect solution to responsible parenting: Two parent families. A breadwinner was required to ensure the children were properly raised and would help with their parents' retirements. Until feminism declared ALL women could have high paying jobs and/or become unwed wives of the state. Chivalrous conservatives didn't want to challenge the utopian virgin Mary notion of motherhood. Women can have as many kids as they like at the expense of the state or if they can name a father albeit the latter option is slowly dying off.

It's interesting that in modern times that men are now becoming more sexually chaste and practicing "safe sex" and not trusting women on the pill. George Orwell would be amused...

PolishKnight| 5.2.11 @ 11:04AM

This analogy demonstrates that beyond a certain population density, big government is necessary and beneficial. Country and even urban roads are an example of "small government". Everyone owns their own cars, makes individual driving decisions, and all works well when interactions are minimal.

In a big city, mass, public transit works best and the United States, for a variety of reasons, hates it but it's great in other places. It's a pleasure to be able to get to the airport from a suburb in Europe in less than an hour for the total cost of about 4 bucks. Of course, you have to sit on a train and tram with other people, but most of them are nearly always dressed well, polite, and aren't seething with ethnic tensions and dislike for each other. Oops, I spilled the politically incorrect beans, didn't I?

That's not to say that the big brother socialist cool aid of Europe isn't ultimately destructive. After all, they've had two murderous fascist socialist governments we've had to topple (with little thanks from them) and they're on a highway to fiscal hell, pardon the pun. But that doesn't mean we can oversimplify the issues. Some of the USA's problems are due to, or exacerbated by socialism and big government but that doesn't mean that socialism, or certain non-libertarian government functions, are automatically bad. Like the Apollo moon landing? That wasn't funded by big business!

OK, now I've hit the hornets 'nest with a stick. Let's see what comes out.

Sheila| 5.2.11 @ 11:44AM

Mr. Peters' excellent column on the government's population replacement program got "skipped," somehow? More "we don't believe in PC or censorship" PC censorship from TAS? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

Captn Mel Renault| 5.2.11 @ 6:13PM

Yes, as sure as I am Captain Renault, I am indeed shocked, just as shocked as you, Sheila. Round up the usual PC suspects in the Spectator.com office - Mr. I-luv-the-TSA Tyrell, immigration-fool Andrew Cline, etc. They seemed to leave out this column, even though they used to put Eric Peters' columns up every week during the time of this column.

If you fools take it down, I will just "post it again, Sam". As a more modern show would put it, "I pity the fool who censors my posts!"

Le Cracquere| 5.2.11 @ 9:19PM

And let me see if I've got the corollary correct: Anyone who likes the different, but real, benefits that come with city-level densities deserves ZERO respect or leeway for his choices. After all, they're the wrong ones, no? And anyone un-American enough to see "civilization" where an Eric Peters might see "too many people"--well, liberty is reserved for "independent minded," "frontier" types, one supposes.

Mel Torme| 5.2.11 @ 11:29PM

Speaking for myself, not Eric Peters (who wrote the post that I pasted), I say: We're talking about the population of the country, not your city. City life has got it's good parts, but leave that to individuals to decide. I don't have to respect any decision of yours, but I also don't plan on supporting laws that force people to live a certain way (density-wise).

I'm talking about the average population density of the whole country. Any real (not the global climatechangecrap) environmental problem will be that much worse with more population; there's no way around that.

Part of what made America America was the wide open spaces. Yeah, not for everyone, but they are there when you went to get away from people, who, in general, start to suck after a while.

Le Cracquere| 5.3.11 @ 8:56AM

Fair enough. I also don't care for forcing people a certain way--or for asymmetrical spending that nudges people in one direction or the other.

But last I checked, there's still plenty of wide-open space out there. As long as a man isn't reliant on the governmental transportation/utility teat, he can live out in the middle of nowhere. But if we're proposing the spread of access to the aforementioned teat far and wide across the "wide open spaces" ... well, I refer you to my caveat about "asymmetrical spending" above.

But on the whole, I agree with you: there's probably more downside than upside to massive population increases/transfers.

Petronius| 5.2.11 @ 8:48AM

Nothing to disagree with here. In this state honest people have two options. Live in the major metropolitan areas with the gang bangers, or out in the boonies with the meth dealers. And the closer one lives to a college or university, the meaner the idiots. And there's little use trying to discuss liberty with people who do nothing but demand that the world be as they would have it.

Ken in Tyler| 5.2.11 @ 9:33AM

Property tax in any form is a serious violation of Natural Law. In essence it boils down to the fact that when property is taxed, the government assumes for itself the right to confiscate that property. That means as a practical matter there is no "right" to private property. You have the government's permission to use it only so long as you continue to pay the current tax (rent) bill.

Here in Texas, there has been a popular move to replace property tax with an increased sales tax. Of course, the politicians won't let it get very far since it reduces their control over the citizen and eliminates their ability to force the citizen to cough up the required annual contribution to a failed school system and bloated government bureaucracy.

PolishKnight| 5.2.11 @ 11:16AM

Yikes, I'm going to sound more like a socialist for saying this but... property taxes are fundamentally sound and proper because the government is responsible for protecting that asset. In theory, of course, you can have your own firearms and even army to protect your own property and don't need the police but how practical is that for everyone? If I leave the house, do I then need to hire an armed guard to watch the place?

Since the state is providing security and legal services to protect property and even to define it (both physical and intellectual), a property tax is quite fair. I'm going to further state this should apply to intellectual property. Disney should pay the state each year a percentage of receipts from Snow White. (After all, Sonny Bono passed the law extending copyrights out beyond 50years in order to keep SW and Bambi, gasp, out of the PUBLIC DOMAIN! Eeek!)

I'm sorry folks. I don't believe the super wealthy and their heirs are entitled to compound interest and tax breaks on their wealth for all eternity like a bunch of Kings. The whole ball of wax should be flat taxed including if it's hidden in a trust (like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.)

Helcyrus| 5.2.11 @ 12:02PM

PolishKnight says: ...property taxes are fundamentally sound and proper because the government is responsible for protecting that asset.

Really? Then why am I paying home owner's insurance, auto insurance, etc. if it is the govmnt's responsibility to protect my assets?

It is NOT the responsibility of any local, state or federal govmnt to protect individual property. In fact, it is not even the responsibility of the police to protect the individual. Their job is to maintain order and prevent future incidents through the threat of the perpetrator being apprehended.

I earned the money to purchase my home. Yet, technically I can never truly own it since my perceived ownership is directly tied to the status of the taxes paid on the property.

For example, I grew up in Baltimore, MD. When the housing renovation boom happened property values (and taxes) went through the roof. Elderly folks who had retired in their homes decades before, homes they spent their entire lives in, now found that even though the home was paid for (no mortgage), they could not afford to live there due to the taxes.

So, if you pay property taxes (irrelevant of what the taxes are for) you do not own the property. You are renting the privilege to have your name on the deed and cash out the equity ( to be taxed of course).

John Navratil| 5.2.11 @ 2:04PM

Helcyrus,

With insurance, you are not protecting the assets you insure, you are protecting your estate from the damage done by your own negligence in, on or with these assets.

The protections provided by your property taxes are police and fire.

That said, excessive property taxes are another problem.

PolishKnight| 5.2.11 @ 3:25PM

Duh, all "excessive taxes" are a problem.

I suppose this sounds like something Tony Soprano would say: He only provides one type of protection. There are several kinds of insurance. The state provides protection from other citizens. Of course, a democratic state is made up of those very same citizens which is another problem.

Regarding you "earning" the money to buy your own home. That's one thing. The 500 lb. gorilla that conservatives and libertarians don't address is when someone inherits a "house" from their parents, grandparents, or great great great etc. parents. These folks just live there and then live off the 'interest.'

Regarding the old folks in Baltimore. The housing values went up and many of them sold out and moved to Arizona or Florida (which created their own booms there.) Some of them died and left their property values to their heirs (after taxes, of course.)

All of these transactions were protected by the state.

Only way out of that paradigm is to go with anarchy or a libertarian "private court" concept which I'm leery of.

On the other hand, "income" and "sales" taxes are more questionable. There's no need for the state to protect "income" so to speak (income is profit which is an abstraction of property.) If you spend 10 dollars and earn 11, the 1 is "income". That's where all the deductions and other fun business kicks in and GE and others get off.

Same with sales taxes. When is a "sale" made? Barter? Different branches of a corporation moving assets around? It's a paperwork nightmare in the very least.

I'm ok with a flat tax on property because it would blow away the leftist claim that the top 2% of wealthy control 99% of the wealth or some other such nonsense. If a flat tax is in place, that means that the wealthy by definition will pay out more. Period.

But... here's the caveat: Dealing with property intensive industries such as ... farming. Farming has a lot of expensive land that often produces reduced revenues. But that issue can certainly be addressed. Of course, this whole mess is a result of the real estate bubble which manufactured trillions in wealth that didn't exist to begin with...

Mel Torme| 5.2.11 @ 6:21PM

"The 500 lb. gorilla that conservatives and libertarians don't address is when someone inherits a "house" from their parents, grandparents, or great great great etc. parents. These folks just live there and then live off the 'interest.'"

I saw that your were worried, Yikes, that you might be a socialist earlier today. Let me clue, you in, hoss; with statements like that I pasted above, you are. I have read your posts before and never saw this side of you - maybe it's just some bad Thai food your oriental wife cooked up yesterday - this too shall pass.

Seriously man, why's it a problem if someone inherits a full-paid-off house from the folks? What do you even mean by "living off the interest"? What interest? Do we not have a right to give our kids the fruits of our labor? Envy does not look good on anybody, and that's why socialists look so green-colored; it's not just the Thai food.

Occam's Tool| 5.2.11 @ 7:18PM

Hey, I love Thai fried rice and beef.

PolishKnight| 5.3.11 @ 10:10AM

I now know where I want to go for lunch...

PolishKnight| 5.3.11 @ 9:51AM

Of course, I was speaking about the home as an abstract concept for property in general applying to the ultra wealthy and in regards to an earlier comment by someone saying he "earned" his house.

I suppose that I can be classified as a socialist if there's a line in the sand and I crossed over it but so have many people here. Love the government telling which people can marry and which can't? Against polygamy or sibling marriage? Want to make people pay the government for roads? Or education for poor people? Then you're a "socialist" by someone's definition!

Let's address what you just literally said. Perhaps you were a bit smug in calling me a socialist that you didn't consider your own words very carefully:

"Do we not have a right to give our kids the fruits of our labor?"

But that's just it: I clearly referred to inheritances from ancestors that are long dead. People who are living off of the wealth produced not by their parents, even great grandparents, but by the wealth produced by investments from other people.

As I love to point out to unapologetic socialists: These capitalists, in the truest meaning of the word, secure their gains via the state to get special tax breaks, shelter income and property, and even get outright subsidies in addition to using the state to regulate competitors out of business.

Here's a shocker for you: I think that if the Russians took these guys down to the Romonov's basement and got rid of them, the world would go on. Heck, it might take a few years for their investment portfolio managers to even figure out they're gone!

Yes, those are shocking statements but we should address these issues: Is the state responsible to take care of the poor and what limitations should be placed on that care? Should a welfare mother be entitled to have a half dozen kids while working parents have only 2 or even 1 while supporting them? How can this be remediated without looking like China drowning kids in the river?

Simplistic namecalling of "socialist" isn't going to make these issues go away and in the meantime, the clock is ticking and government gets bigger and nastier. Tick tock.

Ken in Tyler| 5.2.11 @ 3:14PM

To repeat, I'm in Texas. That is my point of observation. Here, property taxes go to just what I previously mentioned; public schools, and a bloated government bureaucracy. They are not allocated to pay for the Sheriff's dept and only a tiny designated fration helps support the volunteer fire departments in the county.
The approach of an increased sales tax in lieu of property tax can be structured to provide the same number of FRN's to the govt but with the vital distinctions that I can't have my property seized for failure to pay a bill to the government and my level of taxes is at least to some extent voluntary when I choose to purchase a service or product. No sale, no tax. Also encourages savings which turn into investments. Property taxes are wrong in principle even if the government were efficient and the schools effective.

gaetano| 9.3.11 @ 9:23AM

Doesn't any realize that you can never own you home clear and free? First, you pay off your mortgage,and you should own your home,right? Wrong. So ,now,your county steps in and wants taxes from you on your supposedly owned home,right? Wrong> If you don't pay your property taxes ,of lets say, $3000, they sell your supposedly owned home for $3000 to whomever, and you just lost a home that you paid for 20 years, plus the same tax on it for those 20 years, and just lost it for $3000. WOW, this is really what I call a free world. What the hell is free in this world,other then the air you breathe? Not even the water that God has provides for you is free. So tell me, What can you ever own in your life time , while living in our great united states of America? You don't even own your own children. Hell, if they are not treated the way the government wants you to treat them, they will take them and put them some where else. That way, your supposedly children can grow up and go buy a home to which they supposedly think that they will pay off some day and be scott free of debts and retire for life in peace. YEA, RIGHT! AND THE CYCLE STARTS OVER AGAIN.Am I WRONG?

Harry the Horrible| 5.2.11 @ 9:55AM

I've always thought there was something seriously wrong with taxing somebody's primary residence.
Basically it means that they don't own the property - they just rent it from the government.

MATT M.| 5.2.11 @ 10:01AM

No one "owns" real estate we only rent it from the Government.

LMajito| 5.2.11 @ 10:56AM

wait a minute folks...so what are you proposing here...that each citizen that owns property maintain the road in front of it? how about when fire strikes? use his own hose? each one homeschooling their children? and when the bin ladens come knocking at the door, if you have a weapon then you'll use it if not then allah akhba is the new salute?

who's going to foot the bill for maintaing the bathrooms at the local park? the users? really?

i don't mind paying the taxes if i see around the results...it is when one pays the taxes and all is going to waste that bothers me.

if you have over 4 cars and only two adults live in that household, you have a hard time getting my sympathy because motor taxes are too high.

and who says that $500k buys a modern mcmansion? certainly not in any major urban area...perhaps in arizona or nevada you may be able to pickup a 6k sqft home for half a mil, but it's way out there and the neighbors being coyotes, scorpions and local rattlers...that's no deal...one of the side effects of the easy dough for real estate was the irrational increase in home prices...now the owners of these properties have a very hard time accepting the fact that the home they bought was waaay over priced...so you have $120k homes with prices in the $300k range but that does not make them mcmansions...at least not by my standards...

when you buy a home, don't forget to calculate the property tax...thats the T in piTi

George S| 5.2.11 @ 11:13AM

Property taxes are legitimate -- they pay to service your property with water, sewer, police and fire protection, access roads and schools. Where they go illegitimate is when they are used to raise revenue in place of income or sales taxes, such as salaries and benefits. The latter are more subject to political rebellion and evasion (don't buy, deductions, etc.) and property tax increases are usually indexed by law, thus taking legislators off the hook and allowing them to pig pile political favors in the assessments. It also doesn't help when our more affluent neighbors -- who can afford high property taxes -- reliably vote liberal.

By the way... every election year how many ads do you see or hear that claim candidate X voted to raise property taxex Y times and vote for me and I will fight to lower (not actually lower, but 'fight' to lower) property taxes? With ObamaCare taking hold in the near future, we'll be seeing the same ads with "Medical Care Waiting Times" in place of "property taxes". Bet on it.

PolishKnight| 5.2.11 @ 11:21AM

I'm laughing a bit at the author suggesting we can escape banks. Perhaps 50 years ago but today? Try to cash your paycheck without a bank account.

While many (including me) choose to save up money and buy their homes with cash, the great unwashed have demanded the state subsidize the real estate bubble via easy credit. If someone walks in off the street and buys a million dollar suburban condo, the banks are told by Congress to give him the loan and the local voters love it because it keeps real estate prices through the roof. In the meantime, savers have the Sophies' choice of either putting their money into a 1 percent savings account while obama-flation is at 10% or more OR into a money market account where chaos reigns supreme (care to buy stocks?)

Sid Vicious| 5.2.11 @ 2:21PM

Of course one can escape the clutches of the "evil" banks. I've got two words for you:

Credit. Union.

Do business with one as a saver, and you become a part-owner of the institution. Most will let you open a passbook account with as little as fifty bucks. Then you'll have a place wherein you may cash those paychecks with a clear conscience.

Bill| 5.2.11 @ 11:47AM

The writer doesn't understand; by most standards, he, as a homeowner, is rich. Therefore, "taxing the rich" now takes on a personal attribute each time he pays property taxes. This is one of the burdens the "rich" must pay in order to live in our society. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes would be proud.

Bill| 5.2.11 @ 11:52AM

Once upon a time in the dim distant past, our society dealt with the issue of taxing the rich by only allowing property owners to vote.

But eventually, the moochers and looters persuaded the rest of us that that is unfair, and extended the franchise to the dispossessed, thus making it possible for the have-nots to rob the haves legally.

Oldefarte| 5.2.11 @ 11:49AM

Eric's article is entirely correct/factual. Government extracts through taxiation the income of others' labor in order to fund its programs/activities/payments to the indigents that carelessly become financial wards of the state/government. These idiots haphazardly birth children that they cannot afford ot support themselves and thereafter turn over to the the state/government their parental responsibility to support these children. The entire aid package [education, transportation, school meals, etc] all have to be paid for, and the payees are you, me and every other taxpayer of the government. These indigents believe it is their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to have children, even though they are financially pennyless to adequately/financially care for these children themselves. Instead of allowing tax exemptions for each additional child that someone claims on their tax return, they opposite [tax surcharges] should be applied instead. The indigents of this country carelessly cause governmental expendatures in the form of social aid, infrastructure needs, etc that the taxpayers are FORCED THROUGH TAXIATION to pay for, and with our budget/debt in now dire condition it about time that some or all of this social welfare be reduced/eliminated from governmental expendatures!!!!!!!!!!

Keophus| 5.2.11 @ 12:11PM

In general I agree with this article but people who moan about the cost of raising the next generation (but have no kids of their own) miss an important point.

Who exactly do they expect to care for them in their old age? To buy their investments when they cash out? After they've spent their life enjoying nicer things, nicer vacations, better amenities because they don't divert their own resources into child rearing. In fact, those of us who do raise children are subsidising them.

(Which is not to say that all of the things that are "for the children" actually work out that way.)

Occam's Tool| 5.2.11 @ 3:52PM

Without kids, no one will wipe your tail in the NH.

Bob K.| 5.3.11 @ 12:36AM

They are looking for someone else's children to take care of them while they slowly commit genetic suicide in comfort!

cicero| 5.2.11 @ 1:12PM

I hope that all of those "childless by choice" people who cannot afford to have children, but can buy their houses, cars (4) etc, for cash save a lot of money. When they are in their 80s, and every one they knew are either dead, or in their same circumstances, they will need that money to pay someone to pretend to love them.

Le Cracquere| 5.2.11 @ 10:33PM

Instead of having someone pretend to love them for free!

Joe D.| 5.2.11 @ 1:48PM

I agree with you article in general. However, your property taxes are for more than just teachers, although it may seem like it. You pay for roads, trash collection, snow removal, etc.

Handy| 5.2.11 @ 1:49PM

Mr. Peters, thank you for today's article. Mr. Torme, thank you for posting the "skipped" column. Both were right on.

Big and also small governments are at the root of our problems. They are inexorable and inescapable. The balance has been tipped. We are no longer free nation.

Eric, not only are your car columns informative and fun; your grasp of economics is far superior to some of the so-called "pros." Keep up the good work.

pomdter| 5.2.11 @ 1:54PM

Your problem is thinking like a conservative, and wanting a broken system fixed. Instead, you need to think of ways of making the system work for you. I.e. get a mortgage and put that $ into an IRA and now deduct the mortgage while the $$ from you house grows to make up for the interest payments. Or even more extreme: start a church or a farm .....

Michael Smith| 5.2.11 @ 2:13PM

Mr. Peters definitely sounds like a candidate for promoting The Fair Tax. If all of our governments start using it, and we hold their feets to the fires on spending, we can all benefit. GB

Occam's Tool| 5.2.11 @ 3:51PM

Dear Eric: might I suggest moving to North Dakota? Taxes there are QUITE low. Grand Forks is nice, as is Fargo. Let me know and I'll help you unpack.

Nunya| 5.2.11 @ 5:10PM

In general I believe that we should all pay our "fair share" of taxes, whatever that may be and however they collect them. I like my roads plowed in the winter, and my city sewage system to work, etc.

My problem with property taxes is the part about not paying them and the government then takes over the property. There's something inherently wrong with that in my mind, and I believe it goes against the founding fathers' ideas about owning proiperty. In my opinion the government should not be able to physically take posession of one's property, unless in extreme situations, or for public use (like highways, etc.). Otherwise, we are essentially saying that the government owns everything, we are simply using it for now--which has its roots in Marxism.

JP| 5.2.11 @ 5:48PM

Most counties and cities cannot "afford" decent streets, sidewalks, sewers, police, and firemen. And it has nothing to do with thier cost. Where I live, there are also a plethora of taxes. And rarely do county commisioners and mayors reduce benchmark spending.

Who Knows?| 5.2.11 @ 6:35PM

Robert Ringer, way back in the 70's, was famous as a Libertatian author of "Looking Out for Number One", among other books.

Hmm---going on forty years ago!

When you add up all the forms of taxation, including regulation, and other forms os affecting behavior, America is ALREADY a socialism "paradise".

Taxes, which include the cost of MOST LAWYERS, is way beyond 50% of GDP, and has been for decades.

Why, in my coming dotage, it still amazes me that we continue to have what earnings we get to keep.

Of course, we DO live in a rich time and country, so there's NO EXCUSE for any American, with the slightest ability to work, to be poor for long.

Who's stopping anyone from saving 10% of their take home pay, starting when they work, even at the age of 18, and then saving in a safe way the rest of their life?

NO ONE!

Yesterday, I was edified by a young lady of about 18, who used her food stamp card to buy---GUM!

We live in a sinking ship of FOOLS!

Our CHOICE.

JeffT| 5.2.11 @ 7:08PM

"Who's stopping anyone from saving 10% of their take home pay, starting when they work, even at the age of 18, and then saving in a safe way the rest of their life?" Government, in all its forms. That's who.

Occam's Tool| 5.2.11 @ 7:21PM

Sorry, Eric, it's South dakota, although I think North has gone down in the last few years with their oil boom.

RobertF | 5.3.11 @ 12:03AM

Mr. Peters sounds a lot like Bill Gates when it comes to "overpopulation". The truth is over eighty countries or over half the world's population will have below replacement fertility in the near future. These countries will die out eventually if that continues.

As population climbs so does are well-being; it's not the other way around. Two-hundred years ago live expectancy was under 30. Today it is around 70 worldwide.

People are our greatest resource.

So Mr. Peters, you and your wife need to get busy; you are going to need someone to take care of you in your old age.