Or…
In Today’s Episode of Tilting at Windmills, and Complaining About Axiomatic Conditions:
The former governor of NY made the idea of a state-wide property tax cap an goal of his this winter. AIUI the reasons for such include: NYS is hemorrhaging jobs, and losing tax base, because it has some of the highest tax burdens in the Union. Property taxes are one leg of this.
Now, because property taxes are locally set, based on local assessments and generally based on meeting school budgets, it is impossible to speak about a statewide property tax rate. I can find a cite for NYC property tax rates - where they range from 10%-15% of the assessed value! I’ve found another for an explanation of how property taxes rates are set in NYS. But still people in Albany are talking about putting in some kind of cap, like Massachusetts’ Prop 2 1/2. Personally, after having seen Massachusetts’ experience with it, I oppose the idea of a mandated tax cap. The simplest way to explain my opposition can be summed up with a quote from the Wikipedia article:
Now, we get to today’s news. The State’s Teacher’s Union (the single most powerful and influential lobby in Albany, btw.) is coming out against a property tax cap. If they’d left it there, I’d be shocked to find myself in agreement with one of my usual bête noire. Instead they’re putting their influence behind the idea of a "circuit breaker.’ And by ‘circuit breaker,’ the people advocating that solution are suggesting that the State be expected to refund monies to property owners below a certain income level or assessed value. But specifically excepting business or rental property
Or, to put things another way: They are advocating artificially raising the property tax burden even higher on business. Which will lead to even more pressure on businesses to leave the state in favor of political and economic environments that are less oppressive. Which will even further reduce the state’s own income, esp. as people follow the businesses in an effort to find work!
Then there’s the whole rental property idea. I certainly don’t object to property taxes being paid on rental property, but let’s be honest here: No landlord with the brains to blow their nose is going to “eat” property taxes, instead property taxes are part of the calculation for figuring what rent will be, and thus are passed on as a so-called hidden tax to the renter. So, if one is poor, but owns property, one can expect a break - but if one is too poor, or with too bad a credit history, to own a house, these idiots are advocating socking them even harder? In the name of helping poor and lower-income people?
NYS has one of the largest debt loads in the nation. I’m not talking personal debt - I mean public debt. According to this, in 2004 NYS was second only to CA. I doubt that’s changed. The risk, it seems to me, and to others quoted in the news stories above, of having the state take the burden of tax relief for low income property tax is that it will do nothing to encourage fiscal responsibility, rather it will just shift the load from local municipalities to the state, without any accountability. According to a couple of the articles the estimated cost, to the state, of the ‘circuit breaker’ idea is $1.5 billion. And you know what they say: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon we’ll be talking real money!”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of trying to mandate some way of controlling spending in all levels of government, but the idea of a property tax cap is not the way to do it! And this ‘circuit breaker’ idea is even worse!
Stop advocating “we’ll get someone else to pay for this” bullshit! When dealing with governmental spending, there’s very little “someone else,” because it all comes out of our collective pockets, one way or another! And, if the effect of a more realistic view of public spending, that it comes out of everyone’s pockets, means that schools, roads, and the other public services have to sell themselves to the public, so much the better!