I am closer to Scott on this topic of trying to find a good balance. However, you need to keep in mind that in the suburbs of Texas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Vermont, New York you pay $15,000 on property taxes on a $500,000 house every year. That is without home owners insurance and HOA. When you add those in property taxes, home owners insurance, and HOA on a $500,000 is well over $20,000 every year. Also $500K is not what it once was now that the housing market has gone crazy.
I am a boomer and I tend to agree somewhat, although technically it would not be extracting wealth from the state but rather limiting the ability of the state to extract wealth from property owners. But there need to be common sense safeguards in place. My property taxes in my little burg went up 400% since 2018. Lots of my fellow citizens were priced out of the homes they had lived in their entire adult lives. We all lived simply and within our means but they were eviscerated by governments that do not. In my state property taxes are a main, if not the, source of funds. But we are outgunned politically by non-property owning voters with ever increasing demands who elect politicians who gleefully comply. Then raise property taxes. It is a stunning and vicious cycle. As harsh as this might sound, I begin to understand earlier restrictions on the vote - property ownership, poll taxes, literacy tests. I understand andxagree that every citizen should have a say in their governance. But having a say should not mean taking advantage of those who value, and have achieved, self-sufficiency through fiscal responsibility. The benefit-me-through- use-of-other-people's- money thing is out of hand at this point. Coupled that with the idea that the government(s) should, much less can, fix what ails us and we are in very dangerous territory.
We don’t have a democracy asshole, we have a republic, and that republic from the very beginning restricted the franchise to people who actually had a stake. It doesn’t need to be property ownership alone, there can be other qualifiers too. But the idea that anyone who falls out of a vagina in America gets to be a part owner operator of it is fucking retarded and leading to total dysfunction
The semantics of democracy vs republic is completely irrelevant to the topic of voter disenfranchisement. The fact that you felt the need to point this out is telling of your need for a gotcha rather than critical thought.
And yeah, let’s rely on the guys who decided only Protestants could vote and that all votes should be public. Those guys definitely had the right idea.
It’s completely relevant, because republics are built upon the idea that universal participation in the political process is a bad idea. If it weren’t, democracies would work better than republics, but they don’t. America was founded by people who thought that if it ever became a “democracy”, it would collapse.
“I don’t want people I don’t like to vote for my laws”
“I don’t want people I don’t like to vote for people who make my laws”
No, please - explain it to me. I would love to see you bend over backwards to explain to me why voter disenfranchisement is bad for democracies but actually good for republics.
No. The property owner pays the tax. It is no doubt part of their calculation in setting the rent, as are mortgage, maintenance, casualty insurance, etc..
That's like saying the store pays the sales tax so you don't actually pay it. If property taxes increase, rent will increase, and the landlord uses a portion of the rent money to pay the property taxes.
No it is not. Nowhere near. I pay the sales tax, the store does not. Sales tax is a use tax. I am the user. I pay the tax. I have some control over it by not using (buying) as much. Property tax is tied to the existence of property and the ownership thereof, not the use. Property taxes are set by a governmental entity that I as a property owner have no control over. I said property taxes were calculated, along with other costs of ownership in setting rent. I do not know the source of the funds landlord property owners use to pay property taxes and neither do you. Property ownership is a burden renters do not bear. Renters merely pay a fee for temporary shelter. They accumulate no interest in the property. Which is why for a very long time the smart financial move was home ownership. That is no longer feasible for far too many. And there are no simple fixes that I see. But boomers did not create the problem and those that own their homes should not be taxed out of them to benefit others. Which is what is happening.
The store is the one who writes the check to the state government, just like the landlord does.
"I have some control over it by not using (buying) as much."
And you have control over where you live, home much house you buy, etc.
"I do not know the source of the funds landlord property owners use to pay property taxes and neither do you."
Yes we do. Their only income on the property is from the monthly rent.
"But boomers did not create the problem and those that own their homes should not be taxed out of them to benefit others."
Yes the boomers did. Boomers were playing the housing bubble, and demanded that politicians prop up the housing market when it crashed. We should have let the bottom fall out of the housing market so that prices returned to a sane level.
"And you have control over where you live, home much house you buy, etc.".
Yes, but the homeowner has no control over the "assessed" value of his home. If the property values increase by a factor of X, then the property taxes go up nearly by X. Suddenly, homeowners on a fixed income are forced out of their homes by a mechanism they have no control over.
In general, not all "boomers" are well off, regardless of a life of financial responsibility and hard work.
You just quoted me in the first four paragraphs and I stand by the commentary therein. And no boomers did not create the affordability crisis. Boomers neither created nor "played" the housing bubble. That was the direct result of liberal ideoligy to make home ownership available to all resulting in subprime mortgages to people who were not credit worthy. The only way boomers profit from the housing bubble is to have owned the property before, in many cases long before, the bubble and then sell at the higher price. Fof those trying to age in place those higher values mean nothing except for higher property taxes. Others are trapped in houses they would like to downsize out of but the current interest rates would eat of too much of their equity to make it financially savvy to do so. That aspect might influence affordability somewhat as a limitation on availability but as neither the bubble nor the financial policies that created it nor the moderately high interest rates were created by boomers the fault does not lie with them. Some of it lies with private equity/capital entities buying up residential property and gaming the system to inflate market values to increase rental value. Those dastardly Snively Whiplashes are even buying trailer parks and jacking up rents for azPete's sake. Some of it, in my area for sure, is blue state refugees snatching up residential real estate at what for them are bargain basement price. They then demand and voting for the same foolhardy "services" which forced them to flee onerous blue states to begin with, thus increasing my heretofore reasonable property taxes. Some of it is over- and mis-regulation which drives up the cost and complexity of new builds. There are lots of reasons for this mess. Little of it has to do with people born between 1946 and 1964 who are guilty of nothing more than fiscal responsibility and stability. But all this boomer blame has absolutely hardened my heart towards those do it.
It’ll be better to start calling the property tax something other than that since a lot of people make the annoying argument “then I don’t own my property if I have to pay fees on it!” Call it more of a community upkeep tax or something along those lines. If they still complain and respond “I shouldn’t have to pay for schools and roads” it’ll better show others on the fence the true nature of the debate
It's called a CDD or HOA. I pay far less then I pay in property taxes and get far more in services back because its the private market where people need to work for a living.
But what about those who benefit, mightily, for little to no contribution? I could take that same shifty attitude and say pay for it all with sales tax but that would hurt those who do not own property more than it would me and I am.a far better human than that. Boomers and property owners are being taken advantage of.
You’re always going to have that, doesn’t mean you throw away society and it’s upkeep because of it. There’s ways to improve the disparity such as depriving them of the vote or forcing a community tax on them even if they don’t have property
I did not say or suggest in any way, shape, form or fashion that society and its upkeep should be thrown away. Nor, to be clear, do I support depriving citizens of their right to vote. I support fiscally responsible government.
I heard about a stat last week that the average age of a homebuyer in the US is 61. Maybe this is being skewed by boomers buying vacation homes/second homes, but that is crazy.
If we're talking about the empowerment of non whites, I'm all for criticizing boomers and their complicit role in that suicidal endeavor. However, that isn't what we're talking about here and there's a lot wrong with Scott's argument (and I'm someone who usually goes against the no taxes libertarian cringe). Let's take a look.
1. Entitlement reform is not a serious concern in an all white society, which is what we should be focused on. There are plenty of wealthy white people who will be just fine if they are taxed to fund entitlement, provided those entitlements go to white people alone. Whites represent a small fraction of the entitlement spending. Most of it goes to irresponsible violent blacks. Cut them off and ship them back to Africa, and quit talking about selfish boomers. Scott no doubt thinks this is impractical, but cutting off vulnerable white people living paycheck to paycheck, or turning them against rich white boomers somehow is practical. Makes no sense. And one of the major reasons poor whites need entitlements as much as they do is because of the cost of living and the major driver of that is everyone subsidizing the cheap brown labor employed by the wealthy at everyone else's expense in the form of housing made expensive because the cheap labor is put up in hotels for free. None of this has anything to do with entitlements or rich boomers not wanting to pay property taxes. Like all the crap about taking on the zionists and the civil war on the right, a major distraction from the racial issue.
2. Until schools are explicitly pro white, celebrate our history, are available to whites only, funding them is dangerous. The people who run them are scum, they endanger children, schools are dangerous places run by women who in most cases should be either in jail or mental institutions and shouldn't be within a mile of any child. Scott sidesteps this for some boiler plate civics lesson about "we need public schools" ignoring the reality of what public school means. Between the pill pushing, calls for white genocide, abuse of boys, and general insanity, not only should we not be funding schools, we should be shutting them down and most of the people who work at them should face incarceration or the death penalty. Greer says that less funding will mean illiterate children, ignoring that some of the worst performing schools were/are the ones that spend the most. Funding is not what matters. The race of the children in the school is.
3. It might sound good on paper to say "It's wrong to punish the young to reward the elderly" but let's think about where we are. Many post boomers think it's okay for non whites to be in our society. Many Zoomers aren't even white. Why should we want them to reproduce? Do we really want to facilitate the promulgation of people who think, and presumably teach, their children that the deportations that are finally happening, and are still too few in number, are actually too high? Do we want such people to be property owners? Do we want such people to have homes? Do we want to put pressure on people (boomers) who despite their faults, are less likely to believe this crap, to sell their property to such people because the world belongs to the living, or some such? No thanks.
4. You can share all the stories of some famous rich boomer disinheriting his kids and giving all his money to some shithole country in Africa over and over again, it doesn't change the fact that many vulnerable millennials, some of whom are now middle aged themselves, rely on their sturdy boomer parents. Putting financial constraints on these boomers will merely embolden a class of upwardly mobile yuccie types who might be vance pilled and do some trad flexing but are fine with screwing America up with diversity and turning it into an awful place if they can raise church attendance and get their precious porn ban. Such people belong in the incinerator along with homosexual groomers and non whites who are stabbing another Iryna every day of the week. Entitlement reform will not discourage diversity. It will hurt poor whites in the name of, ironically enough, making rich boomers pay up? Much of what Scott is saying would only make sense in a post diversity scenario. But in terms of where we are now, his proposals are a suicidal as any crazy boomer idea, which, in comparison, are much saner than crazy zoomer ideas.
Xer here. TBH I don't know where I land on this - I agree with taxes in principle as they keep civilization going and even welfare is good, even moral. But as in everything else, demographics determine everything.
I have no doubt that a libertarian bootstraps paradise does well with *certain* ethnicities, but this isn't 1986 anymore, and we have a lot more people that are open to a) socialist policies, or b) zero-sum tribalism. I don't want my tax dollars going to entities that are completely mismanaged and/or run by people that hate me.
Ironically, both Florida and Texas are well-managed states so I would think that if any states cut loose the bloat and jump-started their economies with boomer populism, it should be Illinois or Louisiana.
Well reasoned and well said. Stay cognizant because, absent meaningful course correction, your generation will be disadvantaged worse than boomers are now or were in their youth.
Slogan? It's literally having to pay the government rent for land you bought, and buddy we get taxed on what we earn, when we spend, and when you sell investments. There are plenty of other ways for a state to bring in income. I'd be open to it if it covered only second homes and more including landlords, that would free up inventory for a lot of first time buyers.
"There are plenty of other ways for a state to bring in income." Yes, and you go to jail if you don't pay those. Are you renting your body in that case?
I agree with Scott that we need to find a balance, but I politely ask Scott to come and live in suburban Texas for one year. Some of the newest masterplanned communities actually have 3.7-3.95% value of your home annual property taxes.
I am a mid-Boomer, born in '55. I've generated more tax revenue in 1 year than I will ever owe in 55 years of work. I'm a carpenter, and government taxes and regulations have kept me poor all my life.
I don't want more benefits. I just want the government to leave me the hell alone. I still work. I don't get sick. I have never had to pay for another person's car in an accident. After Medicare and car insurance, I receive $500 per month in Social Security benefits.
I want the easy money scams that are going to destroy this government to go away. Trump is the closest President to helping that happen. Congress and state governments stand in his way.
My property is 60 years old and has been bought and sold 9 times in the last 60 year. The state has collected sales tax EVERY time.
I like the people before me have paid property taxes, now over 4k year. The state reviews 1/3 of the state each year which equates to a new tax increase every six years.
I bought my suv and paid sales tax, I put gas in my suv and pay gas tax, license plate tax yearly, and drivers license tax every four years.
My other suv is a lease, I paid sales tax upon signing, a lease tax every month along with gas tax, license plate tax, and driver license tax.
The state increased gas taxes three years ago to pay for “road improvements”
I pay Federal taxes, state taxes, and local taxes.
Food being an exception, I pay a state sales tax on everything I purchase including something I may purchase used.
I pay federal tax, state, and local taxes for my cellphone.
I have a small dog and pay the state a license tax yearly.
I’ve watched the city services decline while public sector unions (not employees) make billions from us.
I’ve watched “public education” decline.
I’ve watched our armed forces decline.
Our jobs have left (they’re not coming back).
I sit back and watch the states “rainy day fund” grow into the billions. All while demanding I pay even more taxes.
I watch our federal government bail out other countries while our county continues to fail apart.
Endless wars around the globe drains our treasury and our children, and grand children’s blood spilled for some other country somewhere in the world instead of defending our borders.
There is so many examples of waste, fraud, and excess I can go on forever.
In my State there’s a grass roots effort to have a constitutional amendment to ban property taxes. When the state learned of this effort, they immediately started a working group to try to appease us pheasants. However, an independent commission reviewed the States senate recommendations and quoted its lipstick on a pig.
Disagree. I'm Generation Jones. If it wasn't for Prop 13 here in California I would have left a long time ago. I can barely afford to send my child to private school. And yet every year property taxes go up for public schools which I am also paying for. I read BATTLE FOR THE AMERICAN MIND by David Goodwin and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Being forced to pay for anti-American and anti-Christian indoctrination centers is outrageous enough. But bonds every year which are passed by renters with zero skin in the game? Infuriating. I paid my mortgage. There's no escrow. I have to have the money - thousands of dollars every year - to send to the county to pay my property taxes. For what? A sheriff's office which is focused on DEI? A district attorney who was put in by George Soros? A fire department which makes the department in Pacific Palisades look competent in comparison? At least a sales tax is a choice. The property tax is not. If it were not for Proposition 13 there would be three times as many U-HAULS being rented to leave this state. No thank you.
“However, we need public schools. Not everyone is going to have the time and resources to homeschool their kids or send them to private schools.”
I agree with much of the rest of your piece, but this bit is just wrong.
I happen to agree that taxpayers (the public) should *fund* K-12 education.
But it doesn’t follow that government has to provide those schools. And with the possible exception of some rural areas, it should not.
Any more than the idea that just because we pay for SNAP for food for the less well off, government should grow the crops or produce the food itself.
Publicly run schools in some suburbs might still be ok, but they ain’t great. And as you well know, more and more they are leftist ideology indoctrination programs.
And much of public schooling is demonstrably bad, and done at very high cost.
No, we don’t “need [government-run] public schools” any more than we need government-run grocery stores.
I don’t know where you live, but it’s also not close to a level playing field in most of the country in terms of school funding.
Florida and Arizona come closest - and should be applauded for that - but even there to a lesser extent, and everywhere else even with school choice to a *much* greater extent, public schools get *much* more taxpayer money per student than is available via school choice voucher. Far more than the 15%-20% reasonable to handle the cost of “special needs” / disabled students.
I hate the old and want them to die. We are on the same page.
I have disagreed with your property tax stance vehemently several times, but to re-iterate.
1) Most boomers are already locked into low property tax rates because of laws that limit assessment increases to 3% a year. It's the young that are buying at current day assessments that pay the big property tax bills. In my county a young family buying a property today will see the property tax assessment double compared to a current (boomer) owner.
Any cut in property taxes is disproportionately going to benefit the young over the old.
2) Sales taxes raise funds from our entire society, including the underclass and renter class. Even illegal immigrants have to pay sales taxes. Taxing consumption is a lot better than taxing middle class homeowners for the crime of creating neighborhood people want to live in.
3) Florida has universal school vouchers. I send my kids to a private school with them. This is the path the GOP should be pursuing. Public schools are bloated and ineffective. They basically use property taxes to keep resident hostage.
4) Local taxes don't even serve local schools. Every state now re-distributes tax money so that every school district gets the exact same amount. If you vote to raise you property taxes you're basically a sucker, because in the long run its just going to get re-allocated to other districts.
"2) Sales taxes raise funds from our entire society, including the underclass and renter class. Even illegal immigrants have to pay sales taxes."
Anyone who pays for housing, whether through rent or ownership, pays property taxes by proxy. The landlord has to pay the property tax, which he pays out of the renters monthly payments.
Don't overlook how many states "fund their schools" by the fucking PowerMillionMegaBrawndo lotteries. Likewise the understand of the property tax as funding for schools is a piece of unkillable, womanly pander-rhetoric. Alaska doesn't have any of this, and the cities run the public schools.
The long-term Republican strategy would be better attacking the parasite structure instead of wedge-issuing revenue device itself. But as we've seen with cheap-labor immigrationism and market-making wars in the Mid East, the party is hopelessly compromised
Re: your comment 1), while it’s true that many states covering a lot of the population - CA, MA, FL in particular, and now OR - your claim that most people have those low limit increases on property taxes is not correct.
Yes other states have higher annual increase limits, but given the low inflation of the last several decades their impact is much lower.
Your claim in 4) is also overbroad and so untrue. Most states are not in fact like CA in this regard, and while many (even most, idk) states do indeed have *some* property tax redistribution, your claim that “Every state now re-distributes tax money so that every school district gets the exact same amount” is just blatantly false.
Both those things noted, I do agree with you on what public policy should be here. But making false claims about the reality in all states based on what’s happened in CA is not imo the way to persuade people to your POV.
Even where you don't have an assessment limitation by law, assessments pretty much always run behind actual house price increases. I've seen it literally everywhere I live.
In addition every place I've lived has all sorts of special carve outs from property taxes (and other taxes) for senior citizens. Usually in the form of some kind of special deduction.
BTW, Ron DeSantis has made it clear he does not intend to make this a giveaway fro boomers.
You are directionally correct re: property tax increases, but your extreme claims as stated are as wrong as those of the other side.
I agree that what DeSantis is doing here is basically correct and surely reasonable, and that Scott’s criticism of him is largely unwarranted, and seemingly based on the bullshit, massively misleading leftist news claims that DeSantis wants to *eliminate* property taxes - which like Scott, I would absolutely oppose - even though without doubt DeSanits does favor *reducing* them.
And I agree with your earlier take on this point that property tax reductions do indeed benefit younger homeowners relative to older ones. Though separately, it’s also correct to acknowledge that fewer young people are homeowners, and renters will likely get lesser benefits (not zero, but lesser) from property taxes reductions, and surely less than they would from equivalent sales tax reductions.
But bottom line, while I don’t agree with everything DeSantis does, I am indeed with him and you on this subject for FL.
Texas is about to launch the largest school choice school voucher program in American history next school year. The biggest problem with our public schools is discipline problems. So many scary videos of teachers being attacked by students on the news.
Imagine - old people selfishly continuing to live in their homes. Why don’t they just die already? The arrogance of their objecting to skyrocketing property taxes (I don’t think many want to completely eliminate them), which they must figure out a way to pay on fixed incomes - the good thing is, their inability to keep up with property taxes have forced many selfish old people who refuse to die to sell their homes. (Is there *any* inconsistency between “keep paying the ever increasing property taxes and never vote to at least leave them where they are” and “hurry up and die”? Dead people may be able to vote, but they can’t pay taxes.)
People choose to vote or not to vote - it is hardly fair to complain that a greater percentage of old people vote, and at the same time express surprise that they vote for legislation that favors their interests.
Boomers should not be living in 5 bedroom McMansions just with their spouse. I think we should make it easier for people to pass down houses before they die, but many boomers don't want to downsize.
Yeah, let's do the Bolshevik thing like the former Soviet Union and just take over the rooms those selfish old people are not using. Doctor Zhivago much?
No ones advocating taking their rooms. I'm saying if boomers can't afford the taxes on their McMansion that pay for local services they should downsize or let their kids move in.
Yes, high property taxes would encourage singles and couples to downsize into buildings more appropriate to being single or a couple. Or bring their kids back to live with them, to use a house efficiently.
I think its unfair that if you have two identical houses right next to one another and one is a boomer that has been in it for 30 years and one is a young family struggling to afford a home that the boomers property taxes should be 50% of what the young families is.
Scott acknowledges boomers’ interests but highlights the incoherence: “It’s natural for demographic groups to advocate for its own interests, even if these interests make for an illogical combination.”
All these angry boomers in the comments are just further proving the point of the article.
Boomers don’t care about us
That is false. Boomers have children and grandchildren. We care deeply. The country is in a mess. Thank our corrupt government. Don't blame boomers.
Some Boomers care deeply. Many don't.
Yup
I stand with Scott. I wonder how many Baby Boomers are Highly Respected Greerhead members too.
I am closer to Scott on this topic of trying to find a good balance. However, you need to keep in mind that in the suburbs of Texas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Vermont, New York you pay $15,000 on property taxes on a $500,000 house every year. That is without home owners insurance and HOA. When you add those in property taxes, home owners insurance, and HOA on a $500,000 is well over $20,000 every year. Also $500K is not what it once was now that the housing market has gone crazy.
Most of the northeast used bloated property taxes as a way to fleece the federal government via the SALT deduction.
I am a boomer and I tend to agree somewhat, although technically it would not be extracting wealth from the state but rather limiting the ability of the state to extract wealth from property owners. But there need to be common sense safeguards in place. My property taxes in my little burg went up 400% since 2018. Lots of my fellow citizens were priced out of the homes they had lived in their entire adult lives. We all lived simply and within our means but they were eviscerated by governments that do not. In my state property taxes are a main, if not the, source of funds. But we are outgunned politically by non-property owning voters with ever increasing demands who elect politicians who gleefully comply. Then raise property taxes. It is a stunning and vicious cycle. As harsh as this might sound, I begin to understand earlier restrictions on the vote - property ownership, poll taxes, literacy tests. I understand andxagree that every citizen should have a say in their governance. But having a say should not mean taking advantage of those who value, and have achieved, self-sufficiency through fiscal responsibility. The benefit-me-through- use-of-other-people's- money thing is out of hand at this point. Coupled that with the idea that the government(s) should, much less can, fix what ails us and we are in very dangerous territory.
Totally agree that the right to vote should be limited to people who have a stake in the system: land holders, business owners, people with families.
LOL
Do you guys even think for 1 second before spouting some stupid shit? Yes, let’s turn our democracy into an aristocracy.
I think this will probably be up your alley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_Jackass
We don’t have a democracy asshole, we have a republic, and that republic from the very beginning restricted the franchise to people who actually had a stake. It doesn’t need to be property ownership alone, there can be other qualifiers too. But the idea that anyone who falls out of a vagina in America gets to be a part owner operator of it is fucking retarded and leading to total dysfunction
The semantics of democracy vs republic is completely irrelevant to the topic of voter disenfranchisement. The fact that you felt the need to point this out is telling of your need for a gotcha rather than critical thought.
And yeah, let’s rely on the guys who decided only Protestants could vote and that all votes should be public. Those guys definitely had the right idea.
It’s completely relevant, because republics are built upon the idea that universal participation in the political process is a bad idea. If it weren’t, democracies would work better than republics, but they don’t. America was founded by people who thought that if it ever became a “democracy”, it would collapse.
“I don’t want people I don’t like to vote for my laws”
“I don’t want people I don’t like to vote for people who make my laws”
No, please - explain it to me. I would love to see you bend over backwards to explain to me why voter disenfranchisement is bad for democracies but actually good for republics.
"But we are outgunned politically by non-property owning voters with ever increasing demands who elect politicians who gleefully comply."
Renters pay property taxes as well. Their landlord prices that cost into rent.
No. The property owner pays the tax. It is no doubt part of their calculation in setting the rent, as are mortgage, maintenance, casualty insurance, etc..
That's like saying the store pays the sales tax so you don't actually pay it. If property taxes increase, rent will increase, and the landlord uses a portion of the rent money to pay the property taxes.
No it is not. Nowhere near. I pay the sales tax, the store does not. Sales tax is a use tax. I am the user. I pay the tax. I have some control over it by not using (buying) as much. Property tax is tied to the existence of property and the ownership thereof, not the use. Property taxes are set by a governmental entity that I as a property owner have no control over. I said property taxes were calculated, along with other costs of ownership in setting rent. I do not know the source of the funds landlord property owners use to pay property taxes and neither do you. Property ownership is a burden renters do not bear. Renters merely pay a fee for temporary shelter. They accumulate no interest in the property. Which is why for a very long time the smart financial move was home ownership. That is no longer feasible for far too many. And there are no simple fixes that I see. But boomers did not create the problem and those that own their homes should not be taxed out of them to benefit others. Which is what is happening.
"I pay the sales tax, the store does not."
The store is the one who writes the check to the state government, just like the landlord does.
"I have some control over it by not using (buying) as much."
And you have control over where you live, home much house you buy, etc.
"I do not know the source of the funds landlord property owners use to pay property taxes and neither do you."
Yes we do. Their only income on the property is from the monthly rent.
"But boomers did not create the problem and those that own their homes should not be taxed out of them to benefit others."
Yes the boomers did. Boomers were playing the housing bubble, and demanded that politicians prop up the housing market when it crashed. We should have let the bottom fall out of the housing market so that prices returned to a sane level.
"And you have control over where you live, home much house you buy, etc.".
Yes, but the homeowner has no control over the "assessed" value of his home. If the property values increase by a factor of X, then the property taxes go up nearly by X. Suddenly, homeowners on a fixed income are forced out of their homes by a mechanism they have no control over.
In general, not all "boomers" are well off, regardless of a life of financial responsibility and hard work.
You just quoted me in the first four paragraphs and I stand by the commentary therein. And no boomers did not create the affordability crisis. Boomers neither created nor "played" the housing bubble. That was the direct result of liberal ideoligy to make home ownership available to all resulting in subprime mortgages to people who were not credit worthy. The only way boomers profit from the housing bubble is to have owned the property before, in many cases long before, the bubble and then sell at the higher price. Fof those trying to age in place those higher values mean nothing except for higher property taxes. Others are trapped in houses they would like to downsize out of but the current interest rates would eat of too much of their equity to make it financially savvy to do so. That aspect might influence affordability somewhat as a limitation on availability but as neither the bubble nor the financial policies that created it nor the moderately high interest rates were created by boomers the fault does not lie with them. Some of it lies with private equity/capital entities buying up residential property and gaming the system to inflate market values to increase rental value. Those dastardly Snively Whiplashes are even buying trailer parks and jacking up rents for azPete's sake. Some of it, in my area for sure, is blue state refugees snatching up residential real estate at what for them are bargain basement price. They then demand and voting for the same foolhardy "services" which forced them to flee onerous blue states to begin with, thus increasing my heretofore reasonable property taxes. Some of it is over- and mis-regulation which drives up the cost and complexity of new builds. There are lots of reasons for this mess. Little of it has to do with people born between 1946 and 1964 who are guilty of nothing more than fiscal responsibility and stability. But all this boomer blame has absolutely hardened my heart towards those do it.
Taxing boomers is not going to get us out of our problems.
Neither is cutting their taxes while they get SS and Medicare, while younger families get a pittance in state benefits.
It’ll be better to start calling the property tax something other than that since a lot of people make the annoying argument “then I don’t own my property if I have to pay fees on it!” Call it more of a community upkeep tax or something along those lines. If they still complain and respond “I shouldn’t have to pay for schools and roads” it’ll better show others on the fence the true nature of the debate
Only an Ancap would make the argument that a tax on something makes it no longer owned
Unfortunately I’m seeing endless amounts of non ancaps try that argument lol
Which if you are an Ancap that's fine I guess just don't be a boomer about it
It's called a CDD or HOA. I pay far less then I pay in property taxes and get far more in services back because its the private market where people need to work for a living.
Your CDD and HOA aren’t paying for the Cops, emergency services, etc etc. Have fun saving your own ass next time there’s a hurricane, Wild fire, etc
But what about those who benefit, mightily, for little to no contribution? I could take that same shifty attitude and say pay for it all with sales tax but that would hurt those who do not own property more than it would me and I am.a far better human than that. Boomers and property owners are being taken advantage of.
You’re always going to have that, doesn’t mean you throw away society and it’s upkeep because of it. There’s ways to improve the disparity such as depriving them of the vote or forcing a community tax on them even if they don’t have property
I did not say or suggest in any way, shape, form or fashion that society and its upkeep should be thrown away. Nor, to be clear, do I support depriving citizens of their right to vote. I support fiscally responsible government.
I heard about a stat last week that the average age of a homebuyer in the US is 61. Maybe this is being skewed by boomers buying vacation homes/second homes, but that is crazy.
If we're talking about the empowerment of non whites, I'm all for criticizing boomers and their complicit role in that suicidal endeavor. However, that isn't what we're talking about here and there's a lot wrong with Scott's argument (and I'm someone who usually goes against the no taxes libertarian cringe). Let's take a look.
1. Entitlement reform is not a serious concern in an all white society, which is what we should be focused on. There are plenty of wealthy white people who will be just fine if they are taxed to fund entitlement, provided those entitlements go to white people alone. Whites represent a small fraction of the entitlement spending. Most of it goes to irresponsible violent blacks. Cut them off and ship them back to Africa, and quit talking about selfish boomers. Scott no doubt thinks this is impractical, but cutting off vulnerable white people living paycheck to paycheck, or turning them against rich white boomers somehow is practical. Makes no sense. And one of the major reasons poor whites need entitlements as much as they do is because of the cost of living and the major driver of that is everyone subsidizing the cheap brown labor employed by the wealthy at everyone else's expense in the form of housing made expensive because the cheap labor is put up in hotels for free. None of this has anything to do with entitlements or rich boomers not wanting to pay property taxes. Like all the crap about taking on the zionists and the civil war on the right, a major distraction from the racial issue.
2. Until schools are explicitly pro white, celebrate our history, are available to whites only, funding them is dangerous. The people who run them are scum, they endanger children, schools are dangerous places run by women who in most cases should be either in jail or mental institutions and shouldn't be within a mile of any child. Scott sidesteps this for some boiler plate civics lesson about "we need public schools" ignoring the reality of what public school means. Between the pill pushing, calls for white genocide, abuse of boys, and general insanity, not only should we not be funding schools, we should be shutting them down and most of the people who work at them should face incarceration or the death penalty. Greer says that less funding will mean illiterate children, ignoring that some of the worst performing schools were/are the ones that spend the most. Funding is not what matters. The race of the children in the school is.
3. It might sound good on paper to say "It's wrong to punish the young to reward the elderly" but let's think about where we are. Many post boomers think it's okay for non whites to be in our society. Many Zoomers aren't even white. Why should we want them to reproduce? Do we really want to facilitate the promulgation of people who think, and presumably teach, their children that the deportations that are finally happening, and are still too few in number, are actually too high? Do we want such people to be property owners? Do we want such people to have homes? Do we want to put pressure on people (boomers) who despite their faults, are less likely to believe this crap, to sell their property to such people because the world belongs to the living, or some such? No thanks.
4. You can share all the stories of some famous rich boomer disinheriting his kids and giving all his money to some shithole country in Africa over and over again, it doesn't change the fact that many vulnerable millennials, some of whom are now middle aged themselves, rely on their sturdy boomer parents. Putting financial constraints on these boomers will merely embolden a class of upwardly mobile yuccie types who might be vance pilled and do some trad flexing but are fine with screwing America up with diversity and turning it into an awful place if they can raise church attendance and get their precious porn ban. Such people belong in the incinerator along with homosexual groomers and non whites who are stabbing another Iryna every day of the week. Entitlement reform will not discourage diversity. It will hurt poor whites in the name of, ironically enough, making rich boomers pay up? Much of what Scott is saying would only make sense in a post diversity scenario. But in terms of where we are now, his proposals are a suicidal as any crazy boomer idea, which, in comparison, are much saner than crazy zoomer ideas.
Xer here. TBH I don't know where I land on this - I agree with taxes in principle as they keep civilization going and even welfare is good, even moral. But as in everything else, demographics determine everything.
I have no doubt that a libertarian bootstraps paradise does well with *certain* ethnicities, but this isn't 1986 anymore, and we have a lot more people that are open to a) socialist policies, or b) zero-sum tribalism. I don't want my tax dollars going to entities that are completely mismanaged and/or run by people that hate me.
Ironically, both Florida and Texas are well-managed states so I would think that if any states cut loose the bloat and jump-started their economies with boomer populism, it should be Illinois or Louisiana.
Well reasoned and well said. Stay cognizant because, absent meaningful course correction, your generation will be disadvantaged worse than boomers are now or were in their youth.
You should not have to rent your property from the government. Fuck you
Your stupid little libertarian slogan is irrelevant. You need to pay for the general services of the community someway.
Slogan? It's literally having to pay the government rent for land you bought, and buddy we get taxed on what we earn, when we spend, and when you sell investments. There are plenty of other ways for a state to bring in income. I'd be open to it if it covered only second homes and more including landlords, that would free up inventory for a lot of first time buyers.
"There are plenty of other ways for a state to bring in income." Yes, and you go to jail if you don't pay those. Are you renting your body in that case?
I agree with Scott that we need to find a balance, but I politely ask Scott to come and live in suburban Texas for one year. Some of the newest masterplanned communities actually have 3.7-3.95% value of your home annual property taxes.
I am a mid-Boomer, born in '55. I've generated more tax revenue in 1 year than I will ever owe in 55 years of work. I'm a carpenter, and government taxes and regulations have kept me poor all my life.
I don't want more benefits. I just want the government to leave me the hell alone. I still work. I don't get sick. I have never had to pay for another person's car in an accident. After Medicare and car insurance, I receive $500 per month in Social Security benefits.
I want the easy money scams that are going to destroy this government to go away. Trump is the closest President to helping that happen. Congress and state governments stand in his way.
The median monthly benefit for the things you mention are as follows:
SS: $2k
Medicare Premium: $185
Car Insurance: $200 for full coverage
Either you are a liar or you have paid very little into Social Security.
I have no reason to lie about what I wrote nor defend what I said. I’ll let you figure it out.
One of your best articles yet.
51 comments and 76 likes. Let's just say one of Scott's most Highly Respected articles yet in terms of likes and comments and engagement.
Great article ! Way to keep the masses divided!
My property is 60 years old and has been bought and sold 9 times in the last 60 year. The state has collected sales tax EVERY time.
I like the people before me have paid property taxes, now over 4k year. The state reviews 1/3 of the state each year which equates to a new tax increase every six years.
I bought my suv and paid sales tax, I put gas in my suv and pay gas tax, license plate tax yearly, and drivers license tax every four years.
My other suv is a lease, I paid sales tax upon signing, a lease tax every month along with gas tax, license plate tax, and driver license tax.
The state increased gas taxes three years ago to pay for “road improvements”
I pay Federal taxes, state taxes, and local taxes.
Food being an exception, I pay a state sales tax on everything I purchase including something I may purchase used.
I pay federal tax, state, and local taxes for my cellphone.
I have a small dog and pay the state a license tax yearly.
I’ve watched the city services decline while public sector unions (not employees) make billions from us.
I’ve watched “public education” decline.
I’ve watched our armed forces decline.
Our jobs have left (they’re not coming back).
I sit back and watch the states “rainy day fund” grow into the billions. All while demanding I pay even more taxes.
I watch our federal government bail out other countries while our county continues to fail apart.
Endless wars around the globe drains our treasury and our children, and grand children’s blood spilled for some other country somewhere in the world instead of defending our borders.
There is so many examples of waste, fraud, and excess I can go on forever.
In my State there’s a grass roots effort to have a constitutional amendment to ban property taxes. When the state learned of this effort, they immediately started a working group to try to appease us pheasants. However, an independent commission reviewed the States senate recommendations and quoted its lipstick on a pig.
For the record I’m not a boomer!
Disagree. I'm Generation Jones. If it wasn't for Prop 13 here in California I would have left a long time ago. I can barely afford to send my child to private school. And yet every year property taxes go up for public schools which I am also paying for. I read BATTLE FOR THE AMERICAN MIND by David Goodwin and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Being forced to pay for anti-American and anti-Christian indoctrination centers is outrageous enough. But bonds every year which are passed by renters with zero skin in the game? Infuriating. I paid my mortgage. There's no escrow. I have to have the money - thousands of dollars every year - to send to the county to pay my property taxes. For what? A sheriff's office which is focused on DEI? A district attorney who was put in by George Soros? A fire department which makes the department in Pacific Palisades look competent in comparison? At least a sales tax is a choice. The property tax is not. If it were not for Proposition 13 there would be three times as many U-HAULS being rented to leave this state. No thank you.
“However, we need public schools. Not everyone is going to have the time and resources to homeschool their kids or send them to private schools.”
I agree with much of the rest of your piece, but this bit is just wrong.
I happen to agree that taxpayers (the public) should *fund* K-12 education.
But it doesn’t follow that government has to provide those schools. And with the possible exception of some rural areas, it should not.
Any more than the idea that just because we pay for SNAP for food for the less well off, government should grow the crops or produce the food itself.
Publicly run schools in some suburbs might still be ok, but they ain’t great. And as you well know, more and more they are leftist ideology indoctrination programs.
And much of public schooling is demonstrably bad, and done at very high cost.
No, we don’t “need [government-run] public schools” any more than we need government-run grocery stores.
Even in a pure school choice scenario money will be needed to fund the students, wherever they go.
Agreed.
And so noted near the beginning of the above.
(Though probably less money, though that is still not the key point.)
My fundamental objection was to the claim that we need public schools run by government.
We may not, but they're not going anywhere. I live in a school choice jurisdiction and most people use the local public school.
Yes, we have an inertia problem in part, sure.
I don’t know where you live, but it’s also not close to a level playing field in most of the country in terms of school funding.
Florida and Arizona come closest - and should be applauded for that - but even there to a lesser extent, and everywhere else even with school choice to a *much* greater extent, public schools get *much* more taxpayer money per student than is available via school choice voucher. Far more than the 15%-20% reasonable to handle the cost of “special needs” / disabled students.
I hate the old and want them to die. We are on the same page.
I have disagreed with your property tax stance vehemently several times, but to re-iterate.
1) Most boomers are already locked into low property tax rates because of laws that limit assessment increases to 3% a year. It's the young that are buying at current day assessments that pay the big property tax bills. In my county a young family buying a property today will see the property tax assessment double compared to a current (boomer) owner.
Any cut in property taxes is disproportionately going to benefit the young over the old.
2) Sales taxes raise funds from our entire society, including the underclass and renter class. Even illegal immigrants have to pay sales taxes. Taxing consumption is a lot better than taxing middle class homeowners for the crime of creating neighborhood people want to live in.
3) Florida has universal school vouchers. I send my kids to a private school with them. This is the path the GOP should be pursuing. Public schools are bloated and ineffective. They basically use property taxes to keep resident hostage.
4) Local taxes don't even serve local schools. Every state now re-distributes tax money so that every school district gets the exact same amount. If you vote to raise you property taxes you're basically a sucker, because in the long run its just going to get re-allocated to other districts.
https://dls.maryland.gov/pubs/prod/NoPblTabPDF/2024PubSchoolFundingFY23PerPupil.pdf
You have a very outdated view of how property taxes work. Who pays them. What they go towards.
"2) Sales taxes raise funds from our entire society, including the underclass and renter class. Even illegal immigrants have to pay sales taxes."
Anyone who pays for housing, whether through rent or ownership, pays property taxes by proxy. The landlord has to pay the property tax, which he pays out of the renters monthly payments.
Don't overlook how many states "fund their schools" by the fucking PowerMillionMegaBrawndo lotteries. Likewise the understand of the property tax as funding for schools is a piece of unkillable, womanly pander-rhetoric. Alaska doesn't have any of this, and the cities run the public schools.
The long-term Republican strategy would be better attacking the parasite structure instead of wedge-issuing revenue device itself. But as we've seen with cheap-labor immigrationism and market-making wars in the Mid East, the party is hopelessly compromised
Re: your comment 1), while it’s true that many states covering a lot of the population - CA, MA, FL in particular, and now OR - your claim that most people have those low limit increases on property taxes is not correct.
Yes other states have higher annual increase limits, but given the low inflation of the last several decades their impact is much lower.
Your claim in 4) is also overbroad and so untrue. Most states are not in fact like CA in this regard, and while many (even most, idk) states do indeed have *some* property tax redistribution, your claim that “Every state now re-distributes tax money so that every school district gets the exact same amount” is just blatantly false.
Both those things noted, I do agree with you on what public policy should be here. But making false claims about the reality in all states based on what’s happened in CA is not imo the way to persuade people to your POV.
Even where you don't have an assessment limitation by law, assessments pretty much always run behind actual house price increases. I've seen it literally everywhere I live.
In addition every place I've lived has all sorts of special carve outs from property taxes (and other taxes) for senior citizens. Usually in the form of some kind of special deduction.
BTW, Ron DeSantis has made it clear he does not intend to make this a giveaway fro boomers.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/florida/2025/11/19/non-starter-florida-gov-desantis-says-no-to-seniors-on-property-tax-reform/
You are directionally correct re: property tax increases, but your extreme claims as stated are as wrong as those of the other side.
I agree that what DeSantis is doing here is basically correct and surely reasonable, and that Scott’s criticism of him is largely unwarranted, and seemingly based on the bullshit, massively misleading leftist news claims that DeSantis wants to *eliminate* property taxes - which like Scott, I would absolutely oppose - even though without doubt DeSanits does favor *reducing* them.
And I agree with your earlier take on this point that property tax reductions do indeed benefit younger homeowners relative to older ones. Though separately, it’s also correct to acknowledge that fewer young people are homeowners, and renters will likely get lesser benefits (not zero, but lesser) from property taxes reductions, and surely less than they would from equivalent sales tax reductions.
But bottom line, while I don’t agree with everything DeSantis does, I am indeed with him and you on this subject for FL.
Texas is about to launch the largest school choice school voucher program in American history next school year. The biggest problem with our public schools is discipline problems. So many scary videos of teachers being attacked by students on the news.
They discipline problems because of open borders, single moms, and two income families. But nobody will be addressing those issues.
Great article Scott.
Imagine - old people selfishly continuing to live in their homes. Why don’t they just die already? The arrogance of their objecting to skyrocketing property taxes (I don’t think many want to completely eliminate them), which they must figure out a way to pay on fixed incomes - the good thing is, their inability to keep up with property taxes have forced many selfish old people who refuse to die to sell their homes. (Is there *any* inconsistency between “keep paying the ever increasing property taxes and never vote to at least leave them where they are” and “hurry up and die”? Dead people may be able to vote, but they can’t pay taxes.)
People choose to vote or not to vote - it is hardly fair to complain that a greater percentage of old people vote, and at the same time express surprise that they vote for legislation that favors their interests.
Boomers should not be living in 5 bedroom McMansions just with their spouse. I think we should make it easier for people to pass down houses before they die, but many boomers don't want to downsize.
Yeah, let's do the Bolshevik thing like the former Soviet Union and just take over the rooms those selfish old people are not using. Doctor Zhivago much?
No ones advocating taking their rooms. I'm saying if boomers can't afford the taxes on their McMansion that pay for local services they should downsize or let their kids move in.
Yes, high property taxes would encourage singles and couples to downsize into buildings more appropriate to being single or a couple. Or bring their kids back to live with them, to use a house efficiently.
I think its unfair that if you have two identical houses right next to one another and one is a boomer that has been in it for 30 years and one is a young family struggling to afford a home that the boomers property taxes should be 50% of what the young families is.
Scott acknowledges boomers’ interests but highlights the incoherence: “It’s natural for demographic groups to advocate for its own interests, even if these interests make for an illogical combination.”
He also wrote an article specifically about property taxes as part of this pattern: https://open.substack.com/pub/highlyrespected/p/fk-you-i-got-mine
Also, 110 paid subscriptions... impressive