Taxing Patience
The Wall Street Journal reports on Arizona governor Janet Napolitano's not-so-secret plan to deal with the falling real estate values and mortgage problems in that state: raise property taxes even more. Napolitano is not alone, many states are doing the same thing. While crying to Washington for money for struggling homeowners, state politicians are cheerfully planting a tax boot on the necks of those same homeowners.
Arizona has been hit hard hit by the real-estate bust, with the average home value down 17% in a year and a record number of foreclosures. So Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano has devised a clever way to revive the housing market: Raise property taxes.
Last week Ms. Napolitano vetoed a bill that would have made a two-year suspension of the state property tax permanent. "It's untimely. It's untenable. It's unwise," she said of her untimely and unwise veto. So as housing values slide, Arizonans next year will get walloped with an extra $250 million property tax bill.
Arizona is one of a growing list of states and big cities looking to raise taxes on homes to close budget gaps in 2008 and 2009. Housing values are expected to decline by $1.2 trillion this year, according to Global Insight Inc., an economic consulting firm, and that means tens of billions of dollars in lost taxes.
In recent weeks, Fairfax County in northern Virginia, Washington state, Chicago and Memphis have announced proposals to increase residential property tax rates to offset declining revenues. So at the very time that states and cities are begging for money from Washington to help distressed homeowners pay their mortgages, property tax hikes could push hundreds of thousands of homeowners under water.
So the states are choking their residents with tax hike after tax hike. Both Democrats running for their party nomination for President are promising huge spending which will require higher taxes. And Charlie Rangel has already laid out his plan to raise Federal taxes by one trillion dollars. And the economy is already shaky.
Anyone beginning to see the problem here, yet?
Uncategorized | Gaius Saturday, 26 April , 2008
By Mockinbird, Saturday, 26 April , 2008 @ 4:45 pm
Yes, I see the problems. America doesn’t have politicians who are among the best and brightest, anymore. Instead we have career politicians who lie, cheat, and steal, and promulgate "crypto-marxism" solutions to problems they often helped create in the first place. We used to have Eisenhower,Henry Jackson, Charles Bennett and Everett Dirksen, among others. Now it’s Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, all of whom I feel should ferment in prison for a while.