by Pa Rock
Senior Citizen
Someone sent up a trial balloon on Twitter this week suggesting that people over the age of sixty-five should be exempt from paying property taxes - to keep from being "pushed out" of their homes. I am an old fart myself (age 73), and I would like to use this forum to speak out against that idea.
There are many things that "push" us old folks from our homes, and money is undoubtedly one of them, but old folks also hang out the "for sale" signs because of health issues (no longer being able to take care of themselves), loneliness, pressures from family members, changes in circumstances (marriage or widowhood), and the hard work of keeping up a home. Two of my senior citizen neighbors sold out and moved this past year, both, I think, due to the pressures imposed by things like home maintenance and mowing.
And there are undoubtedly hundreds of other reasons people give it up and move into assisted-living arrangements or apartments close to their kids. I knew one older lady who was literally terrorized into moving by neighbors who wanted her property.
Property taxes are an issue, and are undoubtedly more critical to some than to others. In Missouri our property taxes are embarrassingly low, but people still like to complain bitterly about them. Missouri, a state which is seldom described as progressive, does have a provision for giving property tax credits to seniors who are disabled - under certain conditions. I suspect that if Missouri can come up with legislation like that, many other states have similar laws on the books.
The total elimination of property taxes for people over the age of sixty-five sounds like a grand egalitarian gesture, but I suspect many seniors would prefer other grand gestures instead - like total Medicare coverage with complete drug, dental, and vision coverage - or Social Security benefits that actually reflect the needs of modern life. And while doing away with property taxes for the elderly does sound good, it also has the odor of something being bandied about with the ultimate goal of once again lowering taxes for the rich.
America's public schools are funded primarily through property taxes, and some might speculate that a move to grant seniors immunity from paying property taxes might be one more political ruse whose ultimate aim is to defund public education.
If the true aim of this proposal is keep keep Gramma and Grampa from being "pushed out" of their homes, then how about cuts directed specifically at people who are most likely to be hurt by property taxes - the elderly poor? Graduate it like income used to be back when it was more fair - the poorer a person is, the greater the amount of tax relief they receive. And then, so as to not negatively impact schools with the tax cuts, increase the property rates on the elderly filthy rich!
That's tax-tinkering that I could tolerate!
1 comment:
Unfortunately Republicans have adopted a warped idea about starving the beast, that is government. They started cutting taxes at the federal level, moved to the state level, and then the rubber started hitting the road at the county and city level, especially small cities, towns, and rural counties.
Having successfully starved the beast there is no wiggle room in the budget of local governments to provide services. At the same time many seniors are choosing between buying medicine, paying rent, utilities, and or property taxes, and of course food. We shouldn't think it a good thing for grandma to get Fancy Feast cat food on sale and take her medicine every other day.
But rescuing these seniors with property tax relief addresses the wrong problem. We need to get back to basic accounting principles and recognize we need both revenue and expenditures, credits and debits.
The Republican paradigm of we always have a spending problem and never have a revenue problem is just wrong. Sure, government spends more now than when folks like you and me were children. There are more of us, inflation have driven up costs, and we have nicer things like roads, bridges, and interstate highways. We have those things because once upon a time in our lifetime, under a Republican President, the top tax rate was 90%.
I agree full Medicare coverage with full prescription benefits is a better suggestion. Passing the President's Build Back Better infrastructure is another one because infrastructure will stimulate the economy, create good union jobs, and generate more revenue for all levels of government. Another really good suggestion is to do as the President is asking and make the rich pay their fair share in taxes. Finally, taxing all churches is unconstitutional because the power to tax is the power to destroy and that directly impacts the Establishment Clause. But Congress can close the Church Loophole that makes it virtually impossible for churches to be audited. The audit is a necessary prerequisite to revoking the church's tax exempt status.
Post a Comment