Dakota Beacon

Recently I had a conversation with a co-worker.  “Have you voted yet?” I asked her.  “No, not yet,” she answered.  I told her to be sure she votes YES on Measure 4.  This hard-working, middle-aged lady just finally and proudly paid off her house.  She could lose it tomorrow if she finds for some reason - illness or injury, job loss, whatever - that she can’t pay her taxes.  

Property taxes (especially with the possibility of seizure of said property by the state) should be regarded as unconstitutional.  We are supposed to have the right to own our property.  This includes the enjoyment and use of it.  When we pay off the lender or seller it should be ours until we want to dispose of it.  Any tax which clouds our true ownership of our property should not be legal. In effect property taxes reduce American citizens to serfdom.  Just as with Robin Hood’s Merry Men in Sherwood Forest, our land does not really belong to us - we all sort of rent it from the government.  Which is why the Merry Men ended up in Sherwood Forest in the first place.

We hear from people who lease or rent that they don’t have any stake in this.  Of course this is downright silly.  Anything which increases the cost of property ownership will directly impact the rent.  If not immediately, then as soon as the lease is up.  If we make landlords miserable enough they will simply stop being landlords and rental property will become scarce and as with every case of supply and demand, the “unseen hand” as it were, will raise the cost of renting even more.  Renters have a huge stake in eliminating property tax!  If you are a landlord, do your tenants a real service and explain this and remind them to vote.  

Unfortunately, a compliant, mentally weak electorate in almost every state has succumbed to this stupid state of affairs.  It is just easier to pay the tax than to get up the energy to ppose it and push their viewpoint home through the process of initiative - or harder yet, the legislative machinery.  North Dakota has already blown off a great chance to clean up the election process by ignoring Lydia Gissele’s timely effort to remove the voting machines and extra-election day voting.  Now they have another opportunity to blow it by failing to vote yes on the measure to end property tax.  

Of course the usual suspects are piping up - the teachers’ unions, the politicians who control the various slush funds, the Democrats who can never be satisfied with the amount of control they exercise over the rest of us.  The scare tactics are familiar - we won’t be able to fund our schools!  (What a shame, no access to indoctrination and transgender counseling - what a terrible consequence of selfish people wanting to keep some of what they have earned.)  

This is the moral argument.  There is another argument - investment.  North Dakota has had a shrinking population.  Our climate is not an enticement. Our cultural attributes don’t beckon anyone.  Maybe a few cross-country skiers.  But the cost of living here is high enough.  Our winters take a real chunk of our change just to keep our cars going and our homes warm enough to survive.  Add property taxes to this and you definitely lower the interest level in people investing here, in companies locating here.  Instead of falling back on public works on a grand scale, our air bases, pipelines, etc., we should be developing a more economically diverse climate for business investment.  

By eliminating property taxes we could see a boom in economic development in the state - perhaps enough to keep the indoctrination centers we call schools in business despite allowing homeowners to actually own their homes.  

It would seem to be a no-brainer, even for the teachers’ unions and the grasping politicians.  Much as with any other form of taxation, the smaller bite the government takes from each taxpayer, the more it will have in hand.  Not that any money in government hands is a good thing, but by leaving more on the table for the hard-working taxpayer who owns property or the renter who is paying it equally, there is more there to support local businesses and encourage investment in our communities.  

By all means, get out there and VOTE YES on Measure 4!