The previous article and this one pair well together. State and local leaders don’t present the pros and cons of choices, leading people to believe that that reducing their property taxes is a unilateral good.
The high % rate that the amendments have passed likely means a good chunk of the people voting for the exemptions are also the same people upset that schools are losing funding. Would they make a different choice if they knew the tradeoff? I’m not sure, but regardless, good elections require that to be well known
Thanks! Yes, it should be impossible to talk about a tax cut without a spending cut. In Texas we have the odd mechanism where property taxes and annual reassessments can create a windfall and surplus for the collective school budgets. This temporarily allows us to pass tax cuts that look like no one is paying for them. The problem is, values don’t always go up. These will really tie our hands if appraised values ever more the other direction.
Well written. The scariest sentence in there, and a point I didn't touch in my article: "The senior freeze has the potential of becoming the majority of residential properties by 2030 if the current rate of growth is sustained." We are not just giving seniors an increasingly better deal on their taxes, they are making up an increasing percentage 1) of taxpayers due to demographics 2) of homeowners due to affordability challenges. Further, they will want to stay in that house as long as they can in the future, further "graying" the homeowner base. These are unintended consequences that on their face show how near-sighted these policies are, before you even get into the progressive/regressive debate.
The previous article and this one pair well together. State and local leaders don’t present the pros and cons of choices, leading people to believe that that reducing their property taxes is a unilateral good.
The high % rate that the amendments have passed likely means a good chunk of the people voting for the exemptions are also the same people upset that schools are losing funding. Would they make a different choice if they knew the tradeoff? I’m not sure, but regardless, good elections require that to be well known
Thanks! Yes, it should be impossible to talk about a tax cut without a spending cut. In Texas we have the odd mechanism where property taxes and annual reassessments can create a windfall and surplus for the collective school budgets. This temporarily allows us to pass tax cuts that look like no one is paying for them. The problem is, values don’t always go up. These will really tie our hands if appraised values ever more the other direction.
I wrote about the other side of this, which drives some of these tax rate cuts: https://cgreen.substack.com/p/how-texas-squeezes-city-budgets?r=5pijfe&utm_medium=ios
Curious of your thoughts
Well written. The scariest sentence in there, and a point I didn't touch in my article: "The senior freeze has the potential of becoming the majority of residential properties by 2030 if the current rate of growth is sustained." We are not just giving seniors an increasingly better deal on their taxes, they are making up an increasing percentage 1) of taxpayers due to demographics 2) of homeowners due to affordability challenges. Further, they will want to stay in that house as long as they can in the future, further "graying" the homeowner base. These are unintended consequences that on their face show how near-sighted these policies are, before you even get into the progressive/regressive debate.