By Selwyn Duke
When North Dakotans
went to the polls on Tuesday, they had a chance to strike a blow for freedom
and make their state the first in the nation to ban all property taxes. Unfortunately, though, the referendum was
defeated soundly. With such levies
having become a fixture on the American landscape, the proposal was seen as just
being too radical. But was it, really?
I say it is property taxes themselves that
are radical.
I’ve always objected to property taxes
because they do violence to the concept of property ownership. After all, what am I describing when saying
the following: I have to pay a fee on a regular basis to stay in a home or
apartment, and if I don’t I will be evicted from it?
That is the status of a renter—not a landowner.
Any which way you slice it, property tax is
rent you pay to the government. Sure, we
don’t call it that. But if the effect is
the same, what’s the difference? And
government, with its “surcharges” and “assessments,” is infamous for conjuring
up euphemisms for its excessive and unjust taxes.
Note that in my fourth-paragraph question I
wrote, “I have to pay a fee on a regular basis to stay in a home or
apartment….” There’s a good reason why I
didn’t write “my home or
apartment.” After all, if I can be
evicted for not paying rent-by-another name, do I truly own it?
In reality, our property-tax system smacks
of Old World Manorialism,
which became “patroonship” in colonial New York
and New Jersey
Just consider the plight of a responsible
American family that, due to illness, our poor economy or the death of a
breadwinner, can no longer afford to pay rent to the Big Brother of the
Manor. Their home may be paid off; they
may have lived in it for 20 years. But
none of that matters when you don’t really
own it but are just a renter. They’ll be
out of luck and perhaps out on the streets, joining the ranks of the
homeless.
Despite all this, many find it unfathomable
that we should end our modern-day manorial system. As The
New York Times wrote
prior to the vote on the ND proposal:
An unusual coalition of forces, including the North
Dakota Chamber of Commerce and the state’s largest public employees’ unions,
vehemently oppose the idea, arguing that such a ban would upend this quiet
capital [Bismarck
Ah, the old “where will the government get
the money?” line. Frankly, I don’t worry
about such things because that should never be the first question when
pondering tax issues. It should be:
where will the people get the money? It
is, after all, theirs, and isn’t this supposed to be a government of, by and
for the people?
Of course, the elimination of property
taxes would mean that governments would have to adjust their tax structure. But so what?
Doesn’t the citizen who falls on hard times (often due to bad government
policy, mind you) and whose home is seized by Big Brother of the Manor have to
adjust? Does government worry how the
people will adjust when making some sweeping policy change (e.g., ObamaCare)? It’s time for the government to do some
adjusting for a while.
Unfortunately, the elimination of
modern-day Manorialism is a tough sell even among many conservatives. To be “conservative,” after all, is to oppose
big changes and preserve the status quo.
As an example, the Times wrote,
“For his part, Gov. Jack Dalrymple, a Republican, said he opposed the property
tax ban. ‘It’s mind-boggling, really,’
he said, in an interview, of the effects of such a ban.
‘We’d be changing everything, frankly.’
All I can say is that were it not for a
willingness to change “everything,” our nation would never have been founded
(see Washington, Hamilton, Paine, Madison, Adams, Henry et al.).
The First Continental Congress’s
Declaration on Colonial Rights stated
that by “the immutable laws of nature” we are “entitled to life, liberty and
property: and… have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose
of either without…consent.” Shouldn’t
the same apply to a domestic power?
And then we have to ask: how foreign have
our domestic powers become?
