Questioning the property tax "circuit breaker"

A couple of years ago I was talking informally to a local politician, a conservative Republican, from a rural county in the Adirondacks.
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He was lamenting the fact that he was constantly being harassed by people wanting the government to pay for the care of their elderly parents.

They were looking for ways to hide the parents’ assets, so that they wouldn’t have to spend their private wealth for essentials like medicine, housing and nursing home care.

Instead, taxpayers would be forced to step in with Medicare and Medicaid payments.

These are exactly the kind of costs that are kicking a huge hole in county budgets and driving up property taxes.

(Health care is the single biggest chunk of every North Country county’s budget.)

It was a private conversation, but it stayed with me as a kind of microcosm of our current dilemma.

Americans want the government to do far more for them and their families. And we don’t want to pay taxes to fund those services.

We want government to provide jobs, health care, safe roads, inspected meat, farm subsidies, plowed roads, great schools, and on and on.

But we want someone else (foreign lenders? our children? fatcat millionaires in New York City?) to pick up the tab.

In the past, this kind of freeloading — let’s call it what it is — was enabled by massive Wall Street bonuses, which translated into outsized tax revenues for New York state.

Those revenues were passed along to local governments and school districts — and to property tax payers via the STAR program.

And now, despite the massive fiscal crisis, the hunt for the free lunch continues in Albany.

The legislature is working to create a “circuit breaker” provision for property taxes that would allow people under a certain income level to pay far less for local government and local services.

On the face of it, it sounds fair and progressive: Only those with the ability to pay are forced to pay.

The danger here isn’t that the property tax burden will be shifted to fewer and fewer wealthy New Yorkers. (Though I think we are approaching a breaking point there.)

The real risk is that more people will grow complacent with the idea that their government services should be provided free-of-charge.

What incentive do we have to keep costs down if someone else keeps picking up the tab?

The solution to New York’s soaring property tax problem is really very simple:

Local people have to force their own governments to cut costs. Yes, that includes limiting mandates from Albany and Washington.

But the biggest challenge will be ending our small-town addiction to public sector (i.e. taxpayer supported) jobs.

We’ll also have to wean ourselves from all the freebies. Heck, we may even have to use our own money to pay for our own parents’ care.

What a radical idea. Families caring for their own.

The bottom line? We’ve been living beyond our means. Far beyond our means. And the only honest way to get to lower taxes is to demand fewer services.

(Sounds kind of weird doesn’t it? Demanding less.)

So it’s time to get involved. Go to local government meetings. Show up during budget review sessions. Ask questions.

And be sure to volunteer some things that you are willing to sacrifice.