They really do not like government not getting its tithe from the peasants
Climate change demands a long-overdue reform of the property tax system
The wildfires in California have destroyed thousands of homes and businesses and displaced tens of thousands of people—and the crisis is far from over. Man-made climate change is already provoking mass migration, and as environmental conditions worsen, tens of millions of Americans will likely respond by moving. The United States must do much more to prepare our political institutions for the domestic displacements that will result from climate change—as we will discuss at our upcoming event “How to prepare for climate migration in the U.S.”
One urgent area for action is fiscal policy. Climate change will destabilize local property taxation. What is more, the fiscal system built upon the housing market—already a major source of inequality in America—will, unless reformed, be a primary mechanism by which climate change exacerbates economic injustice.
Because localities rely heavily on property taxes, it will become increasingly difficult to raise regular and adequate revenue for local governments where climate change is taking a heavy toll. The massive dysfunction in the market for home insurance should serve as a bellwether for this looming fiscal threat. The U.S. local tax structure is built around homeownership. Nationally, property taxes make up nearly half of local own-source general revenue, and nearly three-quarters of local tax revenue. This percentage has declined slightly over the last 50 years, but American government remains exceptionally dependent on property taxes compared with other OECD countries.
The feudal lords need their tribute, so, what to do, what to do
The good news is that the local property tax is immensely overdue for reform. The spread of property tax limitations and tax competition between fragmented localities has made this source of revenue particularly constrained and inflexible. California’s property tax cap, for example, provides a huge windfall to longtime property owners by tightly constraining assessment increases. A study of California’s wildfires between 1990 and 2015 found that property tax revenue actually increased after the disasters, even though many homes had been damaged or destroyed. Why? Because more properties were sold, and it is only at sale that property assessments are adjusted to their actual market value. That’s right: Property taxes were so absurdly low that wildfires raised revenue. These kinds of distortions in the tax code are well worth revising, even if climate change were not endangering the stability of local public finance.
Reforming the property tax is a decades-long project—but of course, so is responding to climate change. As communities develop their climate adaptation plans, part of those plans must be a fiscal strategy that can weather the coming storms.
So, instead of governments spending money responsibly, the cult wants taxes completely revamped to make sure government gets its due. Weird how people say I was nuts when I said that the anthropogenic global warming (called that at the time) was really about increasing the power of government while taking more money from the people.
The neighbor is a teacher as well as a high priest in the religion of global warming. Challenged him to name one GW prediction that has become true in the last 40 years. A freshly jilted 19-year-old girls with PMS is less emotional.
Teach,
Govermments are not our enemy. Together, we build our roads, schools, fire and police departments, sewer systems, parks, trash collection, water and gas lines, street signs, food banks, street cleaning and snow removal through our governments.
Global warming is real, but we’ve chosen as people not to address it, so we will be forced to adjust to it. Reevaluating the long-term unfair property tax system is part of the adjustment, just as we must reevaluate the homeowners insurance system.
For decades, much local support including school funding, was completely based on local property taxes. This is the recipe for maintaining slums and poorly performing schools in impoverished areas.
Local property taxes are progressive in spirit but result in regressive outcomes. Perhaps they could go into a state ‘kitty’ and be distributed on a per capita basis.
If global warming is real, why does the federal government only fund grants that claim global warming is real? Why does the federal government withhold grant money from researchers who question global warming???
Because the grift would end.
Mr Wylie,
Do you have evidence to support your claims?
Scientists submit grant applications to various public and private funding sources. Most of these are neutral – intended to measure air and water temperatures, CO2 levels, ice extent and depth, cloud coverage, sun brightness, distribution of plants, animals, bacteria and viruses etc
Governments would be pleased to find out that global warming is a (hoax) or (scam), in which case we wouldn’t have to adjust to it.
Global warming skeptic John Christy, PhD… $1.95 million DOE grant funds UAH effort to better understand climate change
Professor Christy is a protege on Dr Roy Spencer and together they developed the UAH satellite system for measuring surface temperature.
Certainly you’re familiar with Professor Judith Curry, former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and famously a climate change skeptic. Dr Curry’s research has been funded by several organizations, including NASA, NOAA, NSF, DOE, and DOD. She also runs the Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN), which receives funding from private sector companies, non-governmental organizations, and federal agencies.
Dr Roy Spencer funding sources (when he presented to Congress):
FUNDING SOURCES:
– NASA Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-E Science Team Leader (NNG04HZ31C)
– NASA Discover Program
– NOAA Microwave Temperature Datasets (EA133E-04-SE-0371)
– DOE Utilization of Satellite Data for Climate Change Analysis (DE-FG02-04ER63841)
– DOT Program for Monitoring and Assessing Climate Variability & Change (DTFH61-99-X-00040)