Being a senior, I see the dark side of property tax foreclosures. There comes a time for many, especially those on fixed incomes, when they get taxed out of their home. There has to be a better way. We pay taxes for services that we don’t use. If we do keep the property tax, some adjustments need to be made.
Thanks to millages, many thousands of seniors who do not drive and can't afford meals receive meals on wheels. That would be one of the first things to go if property taxes were abolished, causing orders of magnitude more suffering than the very rare senior property tax foreclosure.
Have you watched my interview with Matt Wilk yet? He explains the math quite simply. This utopian non-solution proposes eliminating $17B in local property tax revenue and replacing it with a 10% additional allocation from the state, which at best adds up to $2.8B. The entire state general fund is only $14B, and most of that goes towards voter-approved programs.
The only mathematical solution to eliminating property taxes is to cut all millages and local government expenses by 70%.
Yes, Meals on Wheels, parks, courts sheriffs and even fire departments, roads and drains would see tremendous cuts.
Seniors would literally starve to death if this passes. Crime would go through the roof. Fire departments would fail. Insurance rates would skyrocket, most likely overcoming any savings from property taxes.
All built on the sand of a false emotional belief that property taxes are the most immoral of taxes. They're not, actually. Income is more immoral, then sales tax, then property tax.
If you can't overcome emotions to examine why that might be, you're not thinking clearly.
Emotions don’t have anything to do with it. Bloated government at all levels is the first place to look. Then look at revenue sources. In my opinion, a sales tax exempting basic food , clothing and shelter (with limitations) is far less immoral than the property tax. It allows citizens to make economic choices.
I’m not really a proponent of the “Fair Tax”, but some of its features might be one part of the solution.
The basic rule is that dollars left in the hands of taxpayers will be more wisely spent than dollars filtered through a government bureaucracy. I go back to my initial premise that government spending at ALL levels should be the starting point for a complete restructuring of spending and taxation. Education at all levels should be the place to start. Opportunities for reducing the size and scope of governance exist just about everywhere. Then let’s talk about how we want to pay for what is left, or what is the next expenditure to forgo.
His math appears to support the bloated budget as it now exists. My opinion is that all levels of government expenditure should be re-evaluated. Sort of a DOGE chainsaw approach. I guess you can call me a very frugal economic conservative. Your notation that as governmental levels expand, the rate of bloat increases is correct. Just like our federal government, Michigan must resolve its spending problem, and then look at how we pay for what we really need. Counter productive agencies like MEDC should be eliminated. Our education system needs a total restructuring. That would just be a start. We need a governor and legislature willing to do for Michigan what Trump is trying to do for the country.
Being a senior, I see the dark side of property tax foreclosures. There comes a time for many, especially those on fixed incomes, when they get taxed out of their home. There has to be a better way. We pay taxes for services that we don’t use. If we do keep the property tax, some adjustments need to be made.
There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
Thanks to millages, many thousands of seniors who do not drive and can't afford meals receive meals on wheels. That would be one of the first things to go if property taxes were abolished, causing orders of magnitude more suffering than the very rare senior property tax foreclosure.
Tradeoffs are “choices”. Your assertion of “meals on Wheels” being the first thing to go sounds just a little too much like a “scare tactic”.
There are other sources of revenue to be explored. There are also other programs less hurtful to cut. It’s called responsible budgeting.
Have you watched my interview with Matt Wilk yet? He explains the math quite simply. This utopian non-solution proposes eliminating $17B in local property tax revenue and replacing it with a 10% additional allocation from the state, which at best adds up to $2.8B. The entire state general fund is only $14B, and most of that goes towards voter-approved programs.
The only mathematical solution to eliminating property taxes is to cut all millages and local government expenses by 70%.
Yes, Meals on Wheels, parks, courts sheriffs and even fire departments, roads and drains would see tremendous cuts.
Seniors would literally starve to death if this passes. Crime would go through the roof. Fire departments would fail. Insurance rates would skyrocket, most likely overcoming any savings from property taxes.
All built on the sand of a false emotional belief that property taxes are the most immoral of taxes. They're not, actually. Income is more immoral, then sales tax, then property tax.
If you can't overcome emotions to examine why that might be, you're not thinking clearly.
Emotions don’t have anything to do with it. Bloated government at all levels is the first place to look. Then look at revenue sources. In my opinion, a sales tax exempting basic food , clothing and shelter (with limitations) is far less immoral than the property tax. It allows citizens to make economic choices.
I’m not really a proponent of the “Fair Tax”, but some of its features might be one part of the solution.
The basic rule is that dollars left in the hands of taxpayers will be more wisely spent than dollars filtered through a government bureaucracy. I go back to my initial premise that government spending at ALL levels should be the starting point for a complete restructuring of spending and taxation. Education at all levels should be the place to start. Opportunities for reducing the size and scope of governance exist just about everywhere. Then let’s talk about how we want to pay for what is left, or what is the next expenditure to forgo.
I assure you, the farther away government gets from its constituents the more boost there is.
There will always be more bloat at the federal than the state level, and more at the state level than the local level.
So the place to start is at the federal and state level. Solutions need to start with protecting local government.
if you think income or sales tax would be a better solution for your county, then by all means give it a go!
Matt did the math and he said we would have to raise the sales tax from 6 to 29% to replace property tax.
The place to start is with real math, and this proposal has none of it.
His math appears to support the bloated budget as it now exists. My opinion is that all levels of government expenditure should be re-evaluated. Sort of a DOGE chainsaw approach. I guess you can call me a very frugal economic conservative. Your notation that as governmental levels expand, the rate of bloat increases is correct. Just like our federal government, Michigan must resolve its spending problem, and then look at how we pay for what we really need. Counter productive agencies like MEDC should be eliminated. Our education system needs a total restructuring. That would just be a start. We need a governor and legislature willing to do for Michigan what Trump is trying to do for the country.
So, how is Florida going to handle these problems? How do other states with no property tax fund their programs?
In Florida they get 142M annual visitors from out of state. They are generating massive tax revenue from sales tax, gas tax, bed tax, etc.
They have opportunities that we just don’t have.
There are no other states with no property tax that I know of. Where it’s been tried, in Nebraska and California, it has been a miserable failure.