I can hear the drums, Elizabeth! They are getting louder now! My blood is moving! The people of the dark forest are gathering! Ancient voices are murmuring! Is this the final battle? I want to be there! I want to feel it! I want to see it! And, I want to sing the songs when it is over!
re: "But no. Climate Change. Look, I am sorry to say this, but anyone who “believes” in climate change being somehow catastrophic is stupid, malignant or has not done the required reading. Which means lazy. Which means childlike. There is no there there. Climate alarmism is nonsense, it is bullshit, it is utter crap made up by subsidized kids looking for ‘significance’ and an endless supply of taxpayer dollars. The science is far too new to be reliable, there are thousands of real (not NGO) scientists in opposition to it and the policy implications are so vast we are looking at a new feudalism. Anyone promoting climate change is unserious. "
But their lies and bullshit from idiots like AOC and her handlers, and more critically, stolen elections, have cost us billions and billions of dollars, lost productivity, higher prices, world power, etc.
I couldn’t agree more with you. When a lazy society consumes the biggest stupid uneducated politicians unfortunately you get the AOC of the world, when paying actors becomes the mouthpiece of the world (Greta, Newson, Zelenskyy, etc) any regular hardworking human beings will suffer immensely. There is one reason why they call us deplorables….is because we have to work hard for living. We don’t want or need their system of welfare we just want to live in freedom and peace.
I'm hopeful that President Trump and his team can truly destroy it, with our resolute, unfailing backing. But if he can't I just don't see how we get past this moment in history without some kinetic intervention of our own...
Just a side note: Ronald Regan was an actor, and the first actor to be run and be elected president. I remember the initial jokes. After his first year, I don’t remember anyone making those jokes so much anymore. And Trump has been an actor, of sorts, on TV on his own show, as well as guest spots on many shows over the years. So how is it a solid presumption that all actors are “mouthpieces” of the world? As odd as their previous employment was before they went into politics, why is being an actor a “proof of disqualification” again, even while Trump holds that on his resume too but it doesn’t apply in the same way? Just curious
Anyway, now climate gnome Greta is now stapling herself to hamas flags, climate is not the cause célèbre. What a waste of money Canada needs to get the pipelines get the oil flowing, build refineries and fucking grow up.
Right on target. Just another method of stealing from the people and giving to those who don’t need it like John Carey or Lurche. Meanwhile they live in 6000 sq ft homes with electric cost 💲
Property taxes are also egregiously unfair, counterproductive, extortionate and perhaps unconstitutional. They are simply a mechanism for the criminals and thieves who have taken control of our system of rule to legally seize our money for themselves and to strengthen and perpetuate their control.
What other asset can you own and yet still continue to be charged for in ever increasing amounts determined arbitrarily by a singular bureaucrat? It makes no sense whatsoever. If you want to charge residents for services provided by the city in which they live, charge them fees directly based upon the services they use. What does the arbitrarily assigned value of a home have to do with the cost to pick up their trash or provide police or fire department services for that resident? Why should one resident be forced to pay multiples of the charges paid by another simply because their houses have different assessed values? And in what other realm is a huge tax allowed to be set and escalated every few years by some politician or bureaucrat arbitrarily and unilaterally assigning and raising the presumed value of an asset you already own? No true oversight of a bureaucrat owing allegiance to another politician desperate for more money with which to reward friends; just set a “value” which generates substantially more tax revenue every few years and let the owner spend money and years to challenge if they choose and can afford it. Oh, and by the way, the assessor and friends have attorneys to ”help” you challenge the arbitrary assessment in exchange for 33% of any “savings”. Wait three years and start the scam all over again. Don’t want to play the game? They take the house you bought and paid for and thought you owned. If property taxes are allowed on such an absurd and confiscatory basis, why not also charge them regular annual fees on the groceries they purchased last month? Why not also assign arbitrarily ever higher values to the cabbage they bought a year ago or to the car they bought or even the money they saved in their retirement account, then tax it again based on that assigned value? It makes no sense. It is simply a grift devised by criminals to steal money from those who work for it and earn it, and give it to those who do not.
And furthermore… Property taxes are nothing more than thinly disguised wealth taxes; no different really than imposing a tax on your savings, retirement or investment accounts - assets you worked hard for and own - being taxed at ever increasing amounts every year. How can it be allowable for the government to unilaterally seize - all at once or a little at a time - legally acquired personal assets? If challenged, I expect such taxes may well be found unconstitutional.
Additionally, not only is taxation of personal assets improper and likely unconstitutional, property taxes are extraordinarily regressive, imposing the greatest burden on those least able to afford them. For a great many of those who own homes, their home is by far their largest asset. This is especially true for all but the most wealthy. Imposing an unfair, ever increasing tax on the largest asset of the least wealthy is unconscionably cruel. It is all the more hypocritical that the worst offenders - those imposing the largest property tax burdens - are invariably politicians posing as champions of the poor and middle class whom their property taxes harm the most. Property taxes steal increasing amounts of one’s wealth every year until for many it is almost completely gone.
Property taxes are also blatantly discriminatory, charging different amounts to pay for the same government-provided services based solely on the value of an asset someone owns - their home. It is no different than charging different prices at the grocery store or the car dealer or any other seller of goods or services, varying with the value of one’s home or any other arbitrary measure, say their height or weight or the color of their hair. It is blatantly discriminatory. There must be a single price for the same goods and services for all, regardless of one’s weight or height, the size of their home or any other metric.
The only fair and legal system is to charge everyone the same price for the same goods and services, and entirely eliminate taxation of personal property and any other assets already purchased and owned. Abolish property taxes.
I bought a very dilapidated property and have invested time and money and an incredible amount of labor fixing it up. Property tax people want to see inside the house to assess the value. It's lunacy and no one is coming in. In short property taxes penalize the industrious and reward those who do nothing. I couldn't agree more with your post.
As I recall, in my very distant memory, I believe that in the State of Indiana(?), Property Tax was declared "unconstitutional," at least, at the time. I.e., we don't really own our said property, but pay an ever increasing annual rent for it to "feel" like we own it!
Yes,I literally saved a building from crumbling to the ground and being worth nothing. It's a rather historic building and improves the look of the town. We could incentivize people to save buildings through giving them a tax rebate, instead the government steps in and says hey this could be worth some money someday--if you manage to sell it and though this is completely fake money we are speculating on--since the worth does not exist and has not been realized--we're going to assess this fake worth and charge you a rent based on that.
As a General Building Contractor, Remodeling Specialist, I was able to both save & repurpose many buildings & homes during my construction days. Some with major additions. I also "matched" existing trims, often even having to have new knives to match for my own molder/planer/saw (I truly need to have a Tool & Equipment sale, to help with my living expenses!!!). And, once upon a time, had a very good Stain & Paint dealer, who could match any stains! Also had at least one subcontractor, who remarked more than once, that he was amazed at how I could make something old look so new!
Beautiful way of saying what a lot of people especially the elderly are suffering in silence, because nobody wants to hear their pain. Time to abolish it.
So true. I don't consider myself elderly (ha! My kids might) but I am a widow, and just barely hanging on to the house we raised our kids in. My property taxes went up 9% last year, 8% the year before, and are going up yet again, amount TBD but it'll be big. You know, because the schools need the money due to the "changing demographics," even though student enrollment has declined and text scores are in the basement.
I believe this will be the last year I will be able to stay in my home.
I hear you, as many others too suffering from the same crazy stupid political disease.
I don’t know what state you live in but here in Florida the Governor is very pragmatic and the idea of ending property taxes is becoming a big political thing. I hope we can get it and if we do maybe other states will do that too. Also abolishing the department of education will help. We live in a rural part of the county and the only services we get is trash collection. No matter what we have to pay taxes for water, sewer, schools.
I agree completely. If the government can take something you paid for and own because you aren’t paying them a tax on it, then you don’t really own the property. And that is unconstitutional.
The trouble is that no one can any longer imagine how schools and local governments could exist without exacting property taxes from us. I’ve never looked into this, but it would be interesting to know when local governments began collecting property taxes, and the excuse they gave for enacting them.
I’ve become thoroughly disillusioned thanks to high prop taxes. Since most of the tax goes to schools I’ve tried searching accountability within school districts to no avail. It appears that when one district builds a new shiny high school, the next door neighbor district then has free rein to build theirs. If I were king, schools would be 100% private. The most effective and worthy schools would rightly get the most reward.
AMEN - you completely described the unfair and illogical property tax structure in Portland, Oregon. Wildly different assessed values of homes based entirely on an arbitrary value assigned back in 1995. Equal homes of market value could range dramatically by 50 to 100%. Every pet project the city piled (parks, libraries, the zoo!) is another new budget measure paid for through increased property taxes, which every renter with a bleeding heart will vote for despite not owning a home and having any modicum of understanding of the burden of these increasingly crushing costs. These same renters scream incessantly about rising rents, and evil landlords. Good Lord it’s infuriating!!
Renters! That is "why" the only persons who could actually legally Vote, to begin with, were Property Owners! Property Owners are the "only" entities with something to lose.
Exactly the same in Seattle where the cost for the replacement of the viaduct was piled on to property taxes. Here we have a new hospital that they want to build under public bond when the old hospital is not that old. That will be floated off the back of property taxes. Meanwhile we have the worst doctors and everyone is scared to go to this hospital and a new building absolutely will not change that. they are estimating that it will cost each of us ten grand for every house in town for the next 30 years.
Your thoughts are so inspiring!!! I had to sell my house as a retired person because our taxes kept going up and on a fixed income we couldn’t afford living there anymore! We lived there for 27 years and raised our kids.
I wanted to stay so our grandsons could visit and play where their dad grew up. It broke my heart. Now we live in a condo where the HOA keeps going up along with the property taxes!!! We’re suffering as we age. It’s a broken and evil system!
There are talented and honourable women fit for high public office or other leadership positions. But emasculated or narcissistic men capitulating to feminist demands for 50% women leaders everywhere are abject failures as men. They have failed us.
To all of you who think that women are to “blame” or feminism is to blame, or letting women vote and hold office is to blame, I suggest you take that up with Margaret Thatcher. The things you are saying are not literal truisms; there are plenty of examples in history of women who were strong rulers. One of the current problems however is the general dumbing down of education, specifically from roughly the 1980’s on, and the dumbing down or elimination of the civil service entrance exam, among other things. Many of our problems stem either directly or indirectly from the 1960’s and the long march through the institutions. First wave civil rights and women’s rights were good, and some things after that were good, but mostly the communists finding and collaborating with malcontents, like minded communists, and outright grifters, all hoping just to bring American democracy down is the real problem. And they have played on sex and race incessantly. Don’t let it work on you too in the opposite direction. We all need to come together to throw them off!
Sometimes I look at how prosperity often affects societies negatively and I wonder if prosperity isn’t more of a curse than a blessing. Personally, Ive lived apart from prosperity here and there and those times have blessed me with an appreciation for the luxuries that living in a prosperous country has afforded me: a hot shower every morning, more food than Im able to eat at once, socks that are clean and dry, a machine that washes my dishes for me, not having to launder my clothes in a river, and the list is longer than I can type.
In truth, prosperity isn’t the curse, failing to be grateful for it is the curse.
Hard to agree with you more than I do on this. GDP consists of all outputs of the economy of which government spending is one. Subtract government spend and what is left is more or less the private economy which is what is taxed to let the government spend.
When one tracks the private economy vs GDP, it becomes easy to see that government spending has always underperformed adding to GDP. In fact, the last 4yrs, government spending was so rampant that it degraded the private economy to the lowest level in many years.
Yes, collapse government spending which also includes the onerous expensive to implement regulations and the private economy will soar.
An excellent piece. Your solution is correct. Kill the administrative state!! Return the money to local control and the people decide which boondoggle on which to spend.
"I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." ~ Thomas Jefferson
Carthago delende est has echoed in my mind for two years….we can’t sow the fields with salt because we live here too … but we can and we must dismantle their evil architecture brick by brick, job by job, criminal by criminal…
I introduced the consumption tax in the US in July 1999. I did not expect immediate passage, but I knew it was the only place left to go - for all the reasons you state. The FairTax would take 23% out of every dollar spent as opposed to taking 22.5% out of every dollar earned. It would eliminate the IRS and the trillion dollars we spend every year complying with it. It would eliminate the embedded cost of the IRS which is 22% of our price system dramatically lowering prices and increasing purchasing power. It would tax the wealthy and the underground economy and would attract $20 trillion offshore creating an economic growth in the first year of over 10%. It would also be the biggest transfer of power from Washington to Middle America in history which is why it is taking so long. Brilliant articles such as yours will hasten its arrival. Thank you.
In Ireland we have BOTH a consumption tax (VAT).and income tax as well as capital gains tax and inheritance tax. Yes, it would be great if it was "either/or" but it always turns out to be "this and."
Also, if all those paper pushers are let go, where will they work?
Out of curiosity, because I don't know how they work, would a Consumption Tax be just a tax on goods, or a tax on both goods and services? I.e: When I go to the store and buy a TV, clearly that's in scope. When I go get a haircut, does the tax apply to the barber's labor?
I really liked the screen shots exposing the tariff structures and the tax structure. I’ve followed both, but I’ve never seen it presented so clearly. The politicians are both prostitutes (to the rich) and pirates (to the rest of us). They’ve been destroying (plundering) the private economy in the West for years. Time to stop then. Climate Change is just another Scam.
Another important and underlying question about Europe: Who does NATO really think they have to defend themselves from?
As I see it, they think they have to defend themselves from Russians. But they are letting invaders from other war-torn nations enter freely. And they are creating special rules that prevent these invaders from being punished for the crimes they commit against their own citizens!
The collective leadership of the European NATO nations is so stupid that they can't even recognize a real invasion! And the US, through NATO, is supporting this collective stupidity!
Years ago, a friend of mine said that Europe is going to turn into a petting zoo for the Chinese. They are fast on their way to that outcome because they lack innovation and political intelligence. Viktor Orban's Hungary excepted.
More people realize Absurdistan daily. The corruption of the Western leaders and brokenness of the institutions is only surpassed by the idiocracy and immorality of the average schmo. It is going to take thousands of good men doing community excellence to build anew. I have a plan. I am sure many of your readers are doing the same.
I’m going to put this out there for everyone’s consideration.
Before you jump from the proverbial knee-jerk reaction, ask yourself, “where DOES ‘money’ come from anyway?”
Public employees don't pay taxes. They are a net drain on GDP, they don't ADD to it.
Repeat after me: public employees don’t pay taxes. That W4 and 1040 form are illusory.
Repeat this as many times as you need to until is sinks in. NO public employee pays ANYthing for taxes, retirement, unemployment insurance, medical benefits, ANY of it. Not at the pump, at the grocers, on Amazon or anywhere federal, state, county taxes are taken.
How can I say this? With certainty.
This is a fundamental of economics as basic as “you get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax.” and almost no one gets it and certainly no one is talking about it out loud but it SHOULD be at the TOP of every conversation regarding DOWNsizing of government to rescue our economy. Yes, it’s contrary to how our consensus public education victimhood would have us think about wealth creation, redistribution, generational theft, and it’s true.
Again, think. How can someone who is PAID by taxing the wage-earners, the ones who CREATE value in the economy, pay taxes? It may say they do on their pay stub, sure, and they are asked to “put in a little more” for benefits, but in reality, every time a public employee from President down to the least-paid garbage collector (cough-cough… don’t they make something like $200,000 a year in New York City?) gets a raise, it is paid for by someone who MAKES that money, someone who has created value in the free market economy and, subsequently, been TAXED, that money taken from them under threat of fines, imprisonment, confiscation of property and future earnings.
The money public employees are paid is redistributed from wage-earners, economic value-creators.
And no, I'm not saying teachers, police, fire, etc., have no "value," that is a red herring often thrown out by the economically semi-literate or functionally illiterate to defer from the fact those employees are paid WITH tax money.
It’s been said that at one time, to pay federal employees, it took taxing several hundred free-market wage-earners; now it’s THREE?
Think of it this way: a public employee saying they too pay taxes is like a man soaking in a bathtub which is being filled by harried servants scooping up water with a cup just to empty it back into the tub saying "see, I'm filling the tub."
Think it over. Think it through. When you get it, share. Change the conversation. Pass it along. Open someone else’s eyes.
The discussion should be, are we truly getting value for our money spent and how do we take control of government "by, of and for the people" back from politicians corrupted by taxpayers dollars laundered through teachers/public employee unions, planned parenthood, Solyndra, GE, and all the rest?
Interesting, glad this issue was raised. It's still a bit opaque and a simpler way to explain it is that the private sector taxpayer pays the monies that constitute the government employee wages but the government employee DOES pay tax. All that does though for the government sector employee is reduce his effective salary.
In summary, private sector taxes pay public sector NET or EFFECTIVE wages.
I have always thought of public sector taxation as "the three dollar scam". They give you a job that's worth one dollar in the open market. However, they want you to be loyal to "the party" so they give you an additional dollar more. But because of the way taxes are corrupted you are given an additional dollar over market, then take it right back. It now appears you are paying taxes but you still get twice as much in pay and benefits as the private sector. And that's just for low-level minions.
Hearing how rich other countries would be if they focused on their own resources, instead of offloading it to other countries, makes me think of when Germany tried to develop its own country, but the Allies had a different story -- and poor Germany has been demonized for decades all because of a decision to grow its economy: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-holocaust-examined
I can hear the drums, Elizabeth! They are getting louder now! My blood is moving! The people of the dark forest are gathering! Ancient voices are murmuring! Is this the final battle? I want to be there! I want to feel it! I want to see it! And, I want to sing the songs when it is over!
A polite way of saying people are fed up!
You said it more emotively than I did.
re: "But no. Climate Change. Look, I am sorry to say this, but anyone who “believes” in climate change being somehow catastrophic is stupid, malignant or has not done the required reading. Which means lazy. Which means childlike. There is no there there. Climate alarmism is nonsense, it is bullshit, it is utter crap made up by subsidized kids looking for ‘significance’ and an endless supply of taxpayer dollars. The science is far too new to be reliable, there are thousands of real (not NGO) scientists in opposition to it and the policy implications are so vast we are looking at a new feudalism. Anyone promoting climate change is unserious. "
But their lies and bullshit from idiots like AOC and her handlers, and more critically, stolen elections, have cost us billions and billions of dollars, lost productivity, higher prices, world power, etc.
I couldn’t agree more with you. When a lazy society consumes the biggest stupid uneducated politicians unfortunately you get the AOC of the world, when paying actors becomes the mouthpiece of the world (Greta, Newson, Zelenskyy, etc) any regular hardworking human beings will suffer immensely. There is one reason why they call us deplorables….is because we have to work hard for living. We don’t want or need their system of welfare we just want to live in freedom and peace.
I'm hopeful that President Trump and his team can truly destroy it, with our resolute, unfailing backing. But if he can't I just don't see how we get past this moment in history without some kinetic intervention of our own...
Hold that thought. I think you may be on to something. We should know in 3-1/2 years .... if we're capable of rational thought by then.
Just a side note: Ronald Regan was an actor, and the first actor to be run and be elected president. I remember the initial jokes. After his first year, I don’t remember anyone making those jokes so much anymore. And Trump has been an actor, of sorts, on TV on his own show, as well as guest spots on many shows over the years. So how is it a solid presumption that all actors are “mouthpieces” of the world? As odd as their previous employment was before they went into politics, why is being an actor a “proof of disqualification” again, even while Trump holds that on his resume too but it doesn’t apply in the same way? Just curious
I don’t remember either one been hired by any political group to be their mouthpiece.
In the contrary, I think they lost a lot of money and suffered attacks on their lives exactly for the opposite.
I feel like a pinch a nerve here. I hope you understand the difference, by the way my daughter is an actor.
Anyway, now climate gnome Greta is now stapling herself to hamas flags, climate is not the cause célèbre. What a waste of money Canada needs to get the pipelines get the oil flowing, build refineries and fucking grow up.
Worldwide, its uncountable TRILLIONS.
Right on target. Just another method of stealing from the people and giving to those who don’t need it like John Carey or Lurche. Meanwhile they live in 6000 sq ft homes with electric cost 💲
AOC is likely Central Casting. They’re all bought and paid for. The People are waking up to this charade.
She actually answered a casting call ad for actors, that didn't tell what it was actually for, and it was for that political position.
Elizabeth, an awe-inspiring read, critical stuff made easily digestible.
This truly needs wider distribution.
Onward, Christian soldiers!
Thank you, Elizabeth! This is the most substantive, truthful, and (YES!) inspiring piece I have read in months, if not years.
I love that you lived in Bermuda for a period of time. It is a beautiful country and holds a warm place in my heart for many reasons.
100% agreement here
Well done!
Property taxes are also egregiously unfair, counterproductive, extortionate and perhaps unconstitutional. They are simply a mechanism for the criminals and thieves who have taken control of our system of rule to legally seize our money for themselves and to strengthen and perpetuate their control.
What other asset can you own and yet still continue to be charged for in ever increasing amounts determined arbitrarily by a singular bureaucrat? It makes no sense whatsoever. If you want to charge residents for services provided by the city in which they live, charge them fees directly based upon the services they use. What does the arbitrarily assigned value of a home have to do with the cost to pick up their trash or provide police or fire department services for that resident? Why should one resident be forced to pay multiples of the charges paid by another simply because their houses have different assessed values? And in what other realm is a huge tax allowed to be set and escalated every few years by some politician or bureaucrat arbitrarily and unilaterally assigning and raising the presumed value of an asset you already own? No true oversight of a bureaucrat owing allegiance to another politician desperate for more money with which to reward friends; just set a “value” which generates substantially more tax revenue every few years and let the owner spend money and years to challenge if they choose and can afford it. Oh, and by the way, the assessor and friends have attorneys to ”help” you challenge the arbitrary assessment in exchange for 33% of any “savings”. Wait three years and start the scam all over again. Don’t want to play the game? They take the house you bought and paid for and thought you owned. If property taxes are allowed on such an absurd and confiscatory basis, why not also charge them regular annual fees on the groceries they purchased last month? Why not also assign arbitrarily ever higher values to the cabbage they bought a year ago or to the car they bought or even the money they saved in their retirement account, then tax it again based on that assigned value? It makes no sense. It is simply a grift devised by criminals to steal money from those who work for it and earn it, and give it to those who do not.
And furthermore… Property taxes are nothing more than thinly disguised wealth taxes; no different really than imposing a tax on your savings, retirement or investment accounts - assets you worked hard for and own - being taxed at ever increasing amounts every year. How can it be allowable for the government to unilaterally seize - all at once or a little at a time - legally acquired personal assets? If challenged, I expect such taxes may well be found unconstitutional.
Additionally, not only is taxation of personal assets improper and likely unconstitutional, property taxes are extraordinarily regressive, imposing the greatest burden on those least able to afford them. For a great many of those who own homes, their home is by far their largest asset. This is especially true for all but the most wealthy. Imposing an unfair, ever increasing tax on the largest asset of the least wealthy is unconscionably cruel. It is all the more hypocritical that the worst offenders - those imposing the largest property tax burdens - are invariably politicians posing as champions of the poor and middle class whom their property taxes harm the most. Property taxes steal increasing amounts of one’s wealth every year until for many it is almost completely gone.
Property taxes are also blatantly discriminatory, charging different amounts to pay for the same government-provided services based solely on the value of an asset someone owns - their home. It is no different than charging different prices at the grocery store or the car dealer or any other seller of goods or services, varying with the value of one’s home or any other arbitrary measure, say their height or weight or the color of their hair. It is blatantly discriminatory. There must be a single price for the same goods and services for all, regardless of one’s weight or height, the size of their home or any other metric.
The only fair and legal system is to charge everyone the same price for the same goods and services, and entirely eliminate taxation of personal property and any other assets already purchased and owned. Abolish property taxes.
I bought a very dilapidated property and have invested time and money and an incredible amount of labor fixing it up. Property tax people want to see inside the house to assess the value. It's lunacy and no one is coming in. In short property taxes penalize the industrious and reward those who do nothing. I couldn't agree more with your post.
As I recall, in my very distant memory, I believe that in the State of Indiana(?), Property Tax was declared "unconstitutional," at least, at the time. I.e., we don't really own our said property, but pay an ever increasing annual rent for it to "feel" like we own it!
Yes,I literally saved a building from crumbling to the ground and being worth nothing. It's a rather historic building and improves the look of the town. We could incentivize people to save buildings through giving them a tax rebate, instead the government steps in and says hey this could be worth some money someday--if you manage to sell it and though this is completely fake money we are speculating on--since the worth does not exist and has not been realized--we're going to assess this fake worth and charge you a rent based on that.
As a General Building Contractor, Remodeling Specialist, I was able to both save & repurpose many buildings & homes during my construction days. Some with major additions. I also "matched" existing trims, often even having to have new knives to match for my own molder/planer/saw (I truly need to have a Tool & Equipment sale, to help with my living expenses!!!). And, once upon a time, had a very good Stain & Paint dealer, who could match any stains! Also had at least one subcontractor, who remarked more than once, that he was amazed at how I could make something old look so new!
Beautiful way of saying what a lot of people especially the elderly are suffering in silence, because nobody wants to hear their pain. Time to abolish it.
So true. I don't consider myself elderly (ha! My kids might) but I am a widow, and just barely hanging on to the house we raised our kids in. My property taxes went up 9% last year, 8% the year before, and are going up yet again, amount TBD but it'll be big. You know, because the schools need the money due to the "changing demographics," even though student enrollment has declined and text scores are in the basement.
I believe this will be the last year I will be able to stay in my home.
I hear you, as many others too suffering from the same crazy stupid political disease.
I don’t know what state you live in but here in Florida the Governor is very pragmatic and the idea of ending property taxes is becoming a big political thing. I hope we can get it and if we do maybe other states will do that too. Also abolishing the department of education will help. We live in a rural part of the county and the only services we get is trash collection. No matter what we have to pay taxes for water, sewer, schools.
I agree completely. If the government can take something you paid for and own because you aren’t paying them a tax on it, then you don’t really own the property. And that is unconstitutional.
The trouble is that no one can any longer imagine how schools and local governments could exist without exacting property taxes from us. I’ve never looked into this, but it would be interesting to know when local governments began collecting property taxes, and the excuse they gave for enacting them.
I’ve become thoroughly disillusioned thanks to high prop taxes. Since most of the tax goes to schools I’ve tried searching accountability within school districts to no avail. It appears that when one district builds a new shiny high school, the next door neighbor district then has free rein to build theirs. If I were king, schools would be 100% private. The most effective and worthy schools would rightly get the most reward.
AMEN - you completely described the unfair and illogical property tax structure in Portland, Oregon. Wildly different assessed values of homes based entirely on an arbitrary value assigned back in 1995. Equal homes of market value could range dramatically by 50 to 100%. Every pet project the city piled (parks, libraries, the zoo!) is another new budget measure paid for through increased property taxes, which every renter with a bleeding heart will vote for despite not owning a home and having any modicum of understanding of the burden of these increasingly crushing costs. These same renters scream incessantly about rising rents, and evil landlords. Good Lord it’s infuriating!!
Renters! That is "why" the only persons who could actually legally Vote, to begin with, were Property Owners! Property Owners are the "only" entities with something to lose.
Exactly the same in Seattle where the cost for the replacement of the viaduct was piled on to property taxes. Here we have a new hospital that they want to build under public bond when the old hospital is not that old. That will be floated off the back of property taxes. Meanwhile we have the worst doctors and everyone is scared to go to this hospital and a new building absolutely will not change that. they are estimating that it will cost each of us ten grand for every house in town for the next 30 years.
Well said Mellis.
Oklahoma offers homesteaders an annual property tax exemption of up to $1k.
Yippee Aye Ay kei yay
Why not abolish that insidious tax and shut down all the collections offices? Are we all civilized tribes in captivity?
Your thoughts are so inspiring!!! I had to sell my house as a retired person because our taxes kept going up and on a fixed income we couldn’t afford living there anymore! We lived there for 27 years and raised our kids.
I wanted to stay so our grandsons could visit and play where their dad grew up. It broke my heart. Now we live in a condo where the HOA keeps going up along with the property taxes!!! We’re suffering as we age. It’s a broken and evil system!
Masculine republics give way to feminine democracies, and feminine democracies give way to
tyranny - Aristotle
There are talented and honourable women fit for high public office or other leadership positions. But emasculated or narcissistic men capitulating to feminist demands for 50% women leaders everywhere are abject failures as men. They have failed us.
re: 'But emasculated or narcissistic men capitulating to feminist demands for 50% women leaders everywhere are abject failures as men.'
Dah!
Hard times create strong men
Strong men create good times
Good times create weak men
Who let women vote and hold office
Which creates hard times.
To all of you who think that women are to “blame” or feminism is to blame, or letting women vote and hold office is to blame, I suggest you take that up with Margaret Thatcher. The things you are saying are not literal truisms; there are plenty of examples in history of women who were strong rulers. One of the current problems however is the general dumbing down of education, specifically from roughly the 1980’s on, and the dumbing down or elimination of the civil service entrance exam, among other things. Many of our problems stem either directly or indirectly from the 1960’s and the long march through the institutions. First wave civil rights and women’s rights were good, and some things after that were good, but mostly the communists finding and collaborating with malcontents, like minded communists, and outright grifters, all hoping just to bring American democracy down is the real problem. And they have played on sex and race incessantly. Don’t let it work on you too in the opposite direction. We all need to come together to throw them off!
Sometimes I look at how prosperity often affects societies negatively and I wonder if prosperity isn’t more of a curse than a blessing. Personally, Ive lived apart from prosperity here and there and those times have blessed me with an appreciation for the luxuries that living in a prosperous country has afforded me: a hot shower every morning, more food than Im able to eat at once, socks that are clean and dry, a machine that washes my dishes for me, not having to launder my clothes in a river, and the list is longer than I can type.
In truth, prosperity isn’t the curse, failing to be grateful for it is the curse.
Oh! I love that so much! It’s so true!
Hard to agree with you more than I do on this. GDP consists of all outputs of the economy of which government spending is one. Subtract government spend and what is left is more or less the private economy which is what is taxed to let the government spend.
When one tracks the private economy vs GDP, it becomes easy to see that government spending has always underperformed adding to GDP. In fact, the last 4yrs, government spending was so rampant that it degraded the private economy to the lowest level in many years.
Yes, collapse government spending which also includes the onerous expensive to implement regulations and the private economy will soar.
An excellent piece. Your solution is correct. Kill the administrative state!! Return the money to local control and the people decide which boondoggle on which to spend.
"I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." ~ Thomas Jefferson
Too bad Jefferson's prescient words were not heeded.
Carthago delende est has echoed in my mind for two years….we can’t sow the fields with salt because we live here too … but we can and we must dismantle their evil architecture brick by brick, job by job, criminal by criminal…
Thank you.
I introduced the consumption tax in the US in July 1999. I did not expect immediate passage, but I knew it was the only place left to go - for all the reasons you state. The FairTax would take 23% out of every dollar spent as opposed to taking 22.5% out of every dollar earned. It would eliminate the IRS and the trillion dollars we spend every year complying with it. It would eliminate the embedded cost of the IRS which is 22% of our price system dramatically lowering prices and increasing purchasing power. It would tax the wealthy and the underground economy and would attract $20 trillion offshore creating an economic growth in the first year of over 10%. It would also be the biggest transfer of power from Washington to Middle America in history which is why it is taking so long. Brilliant articles such as yours will hasten its arrival. Thank you.
In Ireland we have BOTH a consumption tax (VAT).and income tax as well as capital gains tax and inheritance tax. Yes, it would be great if it was "either/or" but it always turns out to be "this and."
Also, if all those paper pushers are let go, where will they work?
I will ask this here as well:
Out of curiosity, because I don't know how they work, would a Consumption Tax be just a tax on goods, or a tax on both goods and services? I.e: When I go to the store and buy a TV, clearly that's in scope. When I go get a haircut, does the tax apply to the barber's labor?
Under an IoB enhanced VAT, the water vapor in your breath will be appended to your water usage claim, along with various administrative surcharges.
I really liked the screen shots exposing the tariff structures and the tax structure. I’ve followed both, but I’ve never seen it presented so clearly. The politicians are both prostitutes (to the rich) and pirates (to the rest of us). They’ve been destroying (plundering) the private economy in the West for years. Time to stop then. Climate Change is just another Scam.
Another important and underlying question about Europe: Who does NATO really think they have to defend themselves from?
As I see it, they think they have to defend themselves from Russians. But they are letting invaders from other war-torn nations enter freely. And they are creating special rules that prevent these invaders from being punished for the crimes they commit against their own citizens!
The collective leadership of the European NATO nations is so stupid that they can't even recognize a real invasion! And the US, through NATO, is supporting this collective stupidity!
Years ago, a friend of mine said that Europe is going to turn into a petting zoo for the Chinese. They are fast on their way to that outcome because they lack innovation and political intelligence. Viktor Orban's Hungary excepted.
More people realize Absurdistan daily. The corruption of the Western leaders and brokenness of the institutions is only surpassed by the idiocracy and immorality of the average schmo. It is going to take thousands of good men doing community excellence to build anew. I have a plan. I am sure many of your readers are doing the same.
I’m going to put this out there for everyone’s consideration.
Before you jump from the proverbial knee-jerk reaction, ask yourself, “where DOES ‘money’ come from anyway?”
Public employees don't pay taxes. They are a net drain on GDP, they don't ADD to it.
Repeat after me: public employees don’t pay taxes. That W4 and 1040 form are illusory.
Repeat this as many times as you need to until is sinks in. NO public employee pays ANYthing for taxes, retirement, unemployment insurance, medical benefits, ANY of it. Not at the pump, at the grocers, on Amazon or anywhere federal, state, county taxes are taken.
How can I say this? With certainty.
This is a fundamental of economics as basic as “you get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax.” and almost no one gets it and certainly no one is talking about it out loud but it SHOULD be at the TOP of every conversation regarding DOWNsizing of government to rescue our economy. Yes, it’s contrary to how our consensus public education victimhood would have us think about wealth creation, redistribution, generational theft, and it’s true.
Again, think. How can someone who is PAID by taxing the wage-earners, the ones who CREATE value in the economy, pay taxes? It may say they do on their pay stub, sure, and they are asked to “put in a little more” for benefits, but in reality, every time a public employee from President down to the least-paid garbage collector (cough-cough… don’t they make something like $200,000 a year in New York City?) gets a raise, it is paid for by someone who MAKES that money, someone who has created value in the free market economy and, subsequently, been TAXED, that money taken from them under threat of fines, imprisonment, confiscation of property and future earnings.
The money public employees are paid is redistributed from wage-earners, economic value-creators.
And no, I'm not saying teachers, police, fire, etc., have no "value," that is a red herring often thrown out by the economically semi-literate or functionally illiterate to defer from the fact those employees are paid WITH tax money.
It’s been said that at one time, to pay federal employees, it took taxing several hundred free-market wage-earners; now it’s THREE?
Think of it this way: a public employee saying they too pay taxes is like a man soaking in a bathtub which is being filled by harried servants scooping up water with a cup just to empty it back into the tub saying "see, I'm filling the tub."
Think it over. Think it through. When you get it, share. Change the conversation. Pass it along. Open someone else’s eyes.
The discussion should be, are we truly getting value for our money spent and how do we take control of government "by, of and for the people" back from politicians corrupted by taxpayers dollars laundered through teachers/public employee unions, planned parenthood, Solyndra, GE, and all the rest?
Interesting, glad this issue was raised. It's still a bit opaque and a simpler way to explain it is that the private sector taxpayer pays the monies that constitute the government employee wages but the government employee DOES pay tax. All that does though for the government sector employee is reduce his effective salary.
In summary, private sector taxes pay public sector NET or EFFECTIVE wages.
I have always thought of public sector taxation as "the three dollar scam". They give you a job that's worth one dollar in the open market. However, they want you to be loyal to "the party" so they give you an additional dollar more. But because of the way taxes are corrupted you are given an additional dollar over market, then take it right back. It now appears you are paying taxes but you still get twice as much in pay and benefits as the private sector. And that's just for low-level minions.
More generally, why does government expenditure contribute to GDP?
Hearing how rich other countries would be if they focused on their own resources, instead of offloading it to other countries, makes me think of when Germany tried to develop its own country, but the Allies had a different story -- and poor Germany has been demonized for decades all because of a decision to grow its economy: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-holocaust-examined
Exactly! Look what happened to poor Gaddafi as well!
Not entirely true. The British paid the USA for WWII - although usually it's the losers who pay. Germany chose its path - not once, but twice.
Another phenomenal post. Thank you.🙏