Category — Property Taxes

I have a sinking feeling that NYC Mayor Bloomberg and President-elect Obama will be sharing similar tax plans this year:

To illustrate the problem, the mayor said a 7.5 percent increase in income taxes for a family of four earning $50,000 to $70,000 annually would mean they would pay an extra $116 a year.

That “does put in perspective what might have to change,” Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg defines the “rich” as a family of 4 making $70K a year in the world’s most expensive city.  You have got to be kidding me.  But that’s not all by a long shot.  Mayor Mike wants to eliminate property tax rebates, hike property taxes, fire 1,000 cops, raise sundry fees, and hire more meter maids to, as liberals would quaintly put it, raise more revenue.

I’m so glad the Republican Party supported the liberal Bloomberg.  He not only embarrassed the party by turning independent, but he continues to damage the Republican brand with liberal policies.  It would have been better to have a Democrat in office to push these liberal policies and let them own them.

That’s right.  If Republicans are going to rise from the ashes, they have to let liberals own their policies.  This will be especially important for Congressional Republicans.  If they follow the moderate “reach across the aisle” meme and provide a fig leaf for the failed Democratic policies soon to be pushed by Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, they’ll be slitting their own throats.

There’s nothing in Obama’s priorities that Republicans should support.  Are Republicans going to “compromise” on higher taxes?  Is muzzling talk radio via the Fairness Doctrine a good idea after the media just kicked the “moderate” McCain in the teeth?  How about adding 10s of millions to Democratic coffers by supporting card check for the unions?  Will the GOP add 20 million new Hispanic voters after they just broke 2 to 1 for Obama even though John McCain has been front and center on all their issues?

There’s nothing to do now but let the Democrats kill themselves.  They’ll overreach.  They’ll kill an already bad economy with higher taxes.  Be disciplined, take some media flack, get out of their way, and get ready to run against them when even a blind monkey could tell their policies have failed.

A question to everyone who voted for Deval Patrick looking for “change”:

Can you name even one example of positive change since he took office?

While I am awaiting your response, here is yet another negative change to add to the list:

Despite a slumping economy and looming budget crunch, Gov. Deval Patrick has hiked his office budget by an astonishing 80 percent, adding questionable new staff positions like “director of grassroots governance” and pumping millions into an extravagant “civic engagement” program.

“We know the governor had a goal of creating 100,000 new jobs in his first term, we just didn’t know he was going to create them all in the Corner Office,” said Sen. Michael Knapik (R-Westfield).

Added State Sen. Scott Brown (R-Wrentham): “People in my district are asking, ‘What is this guy doing?’ They get 1 to 2 percent increases for their schools, and he gets almost 80 percent? How do you explain that?”

Patrick’s office budget has skyrocketed to $9 million this fiscal year, a boost of nearly $4 million from fiscal 2007, Republican lawmakers said. Much of the increase is due to a $3 million appropriation for Patrick’s new Commonwealth Corps, a volunteerism program aimed at promoting “civic engagement” across the state.

Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll get around to lowering those property taxes eventually.

Together We Can … Increase Deval’s office budget by 80 % while the average citizen gets A 2% salary increase if they are lucky.

Massachusetts voters wanted change, and now they are going to get it.

What’s that? You thought you were going to get lower property taxes? Not quite, but how about we free some convicted murderers as a consolation prize!

Howie Carr has the story (HT: Deval Patrick Watch):

The Parole Board is open Under New Management - liberal bleeding-heart management.

This is splendid news for stone killers and rapists, bad news for everybody else.

This week we got the first of what will no doubt be a long line of murderers being cut loose: Karter Reed, who wept at his Parole Board hearing in March. Of course Killer Karter wasn’t crying at Dartmouth High School back in 1993, when he fatally stabbed a teenager he didn’t even know, laughing and jeering as his victim lay dying on the classroom floor. Even Deval’s Parole Board had to stipulate that.

“The Parole Board does acknowledge this tragic senseless loss of a young and innocent victim but . . . ”

But we’re liberals, and it’s our $90,000-a-year job to fling open the prison doors for murderers. For 16 years, these horrid Republicans would never release any of these poor young men who’ve been turning their lives around, and now it’s payback time.

The vote to let Killer Karter go was 4-3. It was close only because the Parole Board still includes some holdovers not appointed by Gov. Deval Patrick, that great benefactor of rapists. Next year the votes will be 5-2, then 6-1.

“Mr. Reed was incarcerated at a very young and susceptible age,” the limousine liberals wrote. But not to worry, Killer Karter has rehabilitated himself. Here are some of the prison programs he availed himself of: Alternatives to Violence, Training for Trainers, Training for Facilitators and Welcome Diversity, Anger Management, Toastmasters and, my favorite, Barber School.

Together We Can … empty the prisons!

We can expect more of this type of “Change” if Obama wins in November too! The only difference is that it will be terrorists being set free by him.

Oh well, you can’t say we didn’t warn you Massachusetts:

• Together We Can… Put Rapists Back on the Street
• The Gift That Keeps On Giving
• “Free ‘em all” Deval sort of apologizes for his Benjamin LaGuer missteps
• Dukakis Defends “Free ‘em all” Deval
• The Gift That Keeps On Giving - Part 2

This convoluted reasoning supporting Prop 2 ½ overrides is like getting brain freeze after eating a really cold desert too quickly:

“No one likes to pay taxes,” said Jayne Adelman of Lexington. “[My husband] and I struggle each year to figure out how to pay our tax bill. I sometimes think of moving out of Lexington to a community where the taxes might be lower. If I stand on a corner with these people, it is not because I am a mom for more taxes….

Just admit it—you’re for higher taxes because your neighbors are subsidizing your kid’s “private” school education. Moving out of Lexington for lower property taxes can wait until your kid(s) graduate from high school.

More from this “override” mom:

…I would carry a sign because I believe that we as human beings have an obligation to take care of one another and to provide basic human and social services for one another.”

Lexington can’t provide “basic” educational services without an override? I’d like to see Mrs. Adelman make that case. But besides knowing the schools will open tomorrow, aren’t we all a little numb to these Chicken Littles? You can only tell people life will cease as we know it without more taxes a couple of times before the sheep get wise to the fact they’re being fleeced.

However, there are always exceptions that prove the rule. For example, Newton taxpayerssheep are still considering funding the Taj Mahal of high schools. Its “projected” (read not done growing yet) budget is $186 million. Basic educational services indeed!

Deval Patrick is more court jester than governor of Massachusetts. This clown has proposed billions in additional spending, but can only come up with $88 million in property tax relief. Way to keep your major campaign promises, Deval.

How on earth are we going to spend the $20 dollars we’ll get back? Oh wait, I know how. It’ll be eaten up by the minimum 2.5% increases in our property taxes that push our bills up a few hundred each year.

When I posted this about 2 weeks ago, 17 reasons America needs a recession, I still searched for the current post’s data. The title to that post now is “One reason America is getting a recession.” The train wreck is speeding up to a “cornfield meet.” Oh, the pain-the pain! It is not just the citizenry; the government has it’s mammary in the wringer too.

Talk of Worst Recession Since the 1930s

Unpaid Credit Cards Bedevil Americans

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies and defaults surging by double-digit percentages in the last year and prompting warnings of worse to come. [snip]

“Debt eventually leaks into other areas, whether it starts with the mortgage and goes to the credit card or vice versa,” said Cliff Tan, a visiting scholar at Stanford University and an expert on credit risk. “We’re starting to see leaks now.” [snip]

Serious delinquencies also are up sharply: Some of the nation’s biggest lenders - including Advanta, GE Money Bank and HSBC - reported increases of 50 percent or more in the value of accounts that were at least 90 days delinquent when compared with the same period a year ago. [snip]

Investors also are backing away from buying securitized credit-card debt, said Moshe Orenbuch, managing director at Credit Suisse. But that probably has more to do with concerns about the overall health of the U.S. economy, he said.

“It’s been getting tougher to finance any kind of structured finance - mortgages, automobile loans, credit cards, student loans,” said Orenbuch, who specializes in the credit industry.

Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) reported that delinquencies and defaults are highest in regions where troubled mortgages are concentrated, including California and Florida.

Among the trusts examined, Bank of America Corp. (BAC) had the highest delinquency volume, with overdue accounts valued at $5 billion. Bank of America defaults in October were almost 200 percent higher than in October 2006.

A spokesman for Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America declined to comment.

Other trusts - including those linked to Capital One, American Express Co. (AXP), Discover Financial Services Co. and those containing “branded” cards from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), Home Depot Inc. (HD), Lowe’s Companies Inc., Target Corp. (TGT) and Circuit City Stores Inc. (CC) - also reported striking increases in year-over-year delinquency and default rates for October. [snip]

“You’re looking at more and more distress - consumers desperately trying to preserve their credit lines, but there’s nowhere else to go,” said Robert Manning, director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services at Rochester Institute of Technology. “It’s like a game of dominoes.”

When (not if) housing prices drop, many who bought and still make payments will face houses not worth the mortgage, aka being upside down. Do they walk away or continue to overpay? What would you do?

Ask any homeowner what their house’s value is; you’ll get answers like $200,000, perhaps $400,000 or some other number. The correct answer is “Whatever someone else is willing to pay for it.” Will that be what you owe?

Town clerks become inundated with reappraisal requests to lower property taxes; what’s that going to do to the school budget, road maintenance and fire/police protection? From where does the money come for all the liberal programs so dearly loved? Lost tax revenue curtails borrowing for essential projects. The impact on the local, state and federal level leaves bad choices. Raise taxes and kill the goose. Print money and produce inflation rivaling Zimbabwe. Cut spending and kill the socialist programs. (Well, that’s not a bad choice)

On the corporate side, somehow the money lost through credit cards needs correction. Do companies go bankrupt, downsizing or closing altogether? Either way, people are let go which contributes to more delinquencies in mortgages and unsecured debt. Then the stocks take a hit wiping out investments unless you are ahead of the curve and sold.

Since the Federal Government is the worst offender, would someone enlighten me as to how the Feds can solve the problem?

Welch caters to flatlanders over long time residents. Sanders waffles better than an IHOP cook.

Let us not forget the campaign donations benefiting the elected position.

Earlier this week, by a 52-42 margin, senators voted to table an amendment (SA 3277) sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) to the commerce, justice, and science (CJS) spending bill (H.R. 3093), which, if adopted, would have prevented Federal Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants from being awarded to states and municipalities with sanctuary policies in place. It is believed that if the Vitter amendment had been adopted, most cities would have stopped providing sanctuary to illegal aliens in order to retain COPS funding.

Recently, Illegals ran from the Lowe’s construction site in South Burlington over to the Hannaford parking lot were ICE arrested them. Contractors deny hiring them instead of Vermonters, yet they are on the job site. How does that happen?

By hiring illegals, the contractors avoid Workmen Comp payments, income tax thus increasing the bottom line. Pay them in cash; if they get hurt, tough darts. According to Bernie, this is a UGE! problem, because, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” He still votes for the program however.

Farmers are crying poverty, hire illegals and now collect high milk prices. Again, Vermonters take the hit from two directions, more costly milk, and fewer jobs. Illegals get housing and low wages, again no worker comp or income tax. Vermonters cannot afford to work for wages that low; we’re required to pay taxes and pay rent; we have to buy our own health care. The illegals aren’t paying taxes and high rents and don’t have to pay for health care. For them IT’S FREE! We pay for them.

We have Senator Leahy coming back to Vermont, getting on the WVMT Charlie & Ernie talk show, telling us how the pork is benefits the state. Am I not a swell guy he asks?

Meanwhile, the state is losing good jobs and pay, students leave the state after school, never to return and taxes go up because of that compassionate gang called a legislature gives away your tax dollars.

Giving affront to the workers still left in Vermont, our Congressional poobahs vote to allow illegals to acquire their jobs, while the state legislature raises the sales and property taxes.

This next amnesty allows illegal children to become legal, AND THEN bring all the relatives who promptly get every social benefit existing and anything more the Donks can fabricate. All compensated for by the tax dollar of residents who are put out of work by these self same illegals.

How will this help Vermont? Ask Leahy and Sanders how; they will vote for the Dream Act coming up in the Senate just as soon as Harry Reid can sneak it on to the floor. Welch said he will vote for the bill in the House. Each vote cuts the bottom line for businesses by allowing cheap labor to enter the work force as farm labor without going through H2-B.

The high tech employers desire fast track green cards for skilled workers through H1-B which push our college post grads out of their field of work by age 30. The reason is lower wages and employees that are more compliant.

Liberals can never do enough for people who aren’t doing the right thing. Give the hard working citizens a break by lowering their tax burdens? Not on your life. They’d rather bend over backwards to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses. Help out responsible parents by not giving their kids secret birth control? No, sir! They’re too busy cheerleading defeat in the War on Terror.

So it’s not surprising that Governor Patrick wants to gut the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) system. Lower property taxes? More efficient government? Less crime on the streets of Boston? Nope, nope, and nope when it comes to implementing all 3 of those campaign promises. His main concern is making sure that employers can’t see criminal records. And he wants to ram it through before election time next year. After all, it wouldn’t do for the taxpaying, law-abiding citizens to get in the way at the ballot box.

The liberal heart never bleeds for the good guys. It’s too busy wrecking society by lowering the bar for everyone else.

Is anybody buying Governor Patrick’s story that he carefully studied the effects of casino gambling on the state before deciding we needed 3 of them? Apparently, the Boston Globe isn’t buying it either:

Advisers to Gov. Deval Patrick urged him to enlist outside experts to check estimates about jobs and tax revenues related to bringing casinos to Massachusetts, which Patrick didn’t do before unveiling a plan to license three resort casinos.

This decision was a done deal. Patrick needed a revenue source that didn’t look like new taxes to justify kicking off the billions in additional spending he’s proposing. But, like most things in the Patrick administration, the numbers simply don’t add up.

Taking Patrick’s estimates at face value, the state gains $5 billion over 10 years. However, the governor already has 2.5 times that proposed in additional spending. And don’t forget that the state was $1 billion over budget last year. That gap was closed by dipping into the rainy day fund with little effort to control or cut spending, so expect that budget gap to keep growing.

Of course, the governor will point to the estimated 5,000 jobs created by these resorts, but last time I checked, casinos weren’t paying their hotel staff and dealers six figure salaries. This means a lot of those employees will be partaking in MA programs like the Health Connector along with adding their children to the state’s educational rolls. My guess is those costs aren’t reflected in the study or poorly understood. Additionally, the high cost of state government and social programs here makes direct comparisons with other states very tricky indeed.

When you add it all up, the $200 the governor is proposing as a rebate on your property taxes, assuming you qualify, is still going to get eaten alive by the tsunami of spending he wants to kick off. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the taxpayers are still going to get slammed.

Sometimes a proposal’s title can give you unintended clues into its real purpose. At DevalPatrick.com, there’s a webpage dedicated to the “Governor’s Working Group on Property Tax Over Reliance”. An impressive sounding title to be sure, but the phrase “over reliance” sticks out like a sore thumb. They aren’t trying to reduce the overall tax burden, cut spending, or create government efficiencies. They’re trying to circumvent Proposition 2 ½.

Our politician’s “over reliance” on property taxes has always been a problem for us, but as the governor’s web site explains, we’ve only recently begun making it a problem for them:

Last year, 59 overrides of Proposition 2 1/2–which limits how much a municipality can raise through property taxes–were rejected, while 30 were approved. According to the Boston Globe, 2006 marked the first time this decade that more overrides failed than passed, making it the lowest passage rate since 1999.

At first glance, our politicians seem stuck between a rock and a hard place. They still want the money, but they know challenging Proposition 2 ½ would incite a homeowner rebellion. But these people aren’t politicians for nothing. They market their new tax proposals as “revenue diversification”, which sounds a lot less scary, and they promise homeowners tax “relief” to drum up support. And the real kicker is these new taxes can be raised at will with no pesky voter approval requirements.

In essence, we’re just shifting the burden to taxes where voters can’t block the increases. Additionally, the governor will claim credit for doing something about high property taxes while taking those funds from other parts of your wallet. That doesn’t seem like progress to me.

It looks like the teachers unions are getting a return on their Patrick campaign investment after all:

The plan, which he will outline during commencement at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, would also provide preschool for all children, extend the school day and year, and guarantee two years of community college paid for by the state. 

But how will this be balanced against the governor’s promises to address skyrocketing property taxes?  And before you say “diversifying” revenue streams, which in common English means new taxes, property owners will be paying into those streams as well.  Taking a little less out of our pockets with one hand isn’t beneficial when you create 2 or 3 more to grab more.

It’s time to face some cold hard facts.  The state is struggling to pay for the education system it has today, so muddying the waters with billions in additional spending and new programs is irresponsible.  However, addressing today’s problems is difficult because somebody’s toes are going to get stepped on, which is why it’s better to trot out a grandiose vision of the future to shift our focus off of today’s problems.  

Sometimes leaders need to step in and plug the holes in the existing dike before they start building on top of it.  Governor Patrick said he was going to make the hard decisions and cuts, but I haven’t seen any yet.

MA residents are rejecting Proposition 2 ½ overrides in greater numbers.  These overrides are so common now that the Boston Globe has a blog dedicated to tracking them.  Governor Patrick has 2 solutions (Well, technically 1 since he stole the other from Kerry Healey):

Governor Deval Patrick has invoked the increasing failure rate of Proposition 2 1/2 overrides as he stumps for proposed legislation that would allow towns to assess a new local tax on meals and hotels, and give them access to reduced-cost state pension and health insurance networks. Dozens of select boards and other local officials have endorsed the proposals, collectively called the Municipal Partnership Act. 

I’m still wondering where the $700+ million in efficiencies the governor saw during the campaign went.  There hasn’t been a lot of talk about them since he took office.  However, government is an inefficient beast, so numerous opportunities, like those highlighted by the Healey campaign in pension and health insurance consolidation, are available to a politician with guts.

As for the governor’s options tax push, there are a number of flaws that I haven’t seen addressed yet.  1^st, taxing meals and hotel rooms in Boston would raise substantial revenue, but what about the Western portions of the state?  Many communities simply won’t benefit substantially from this change.  2^nd, the “option” in these taxes really means at the option of local politicians and not the voters.  Creating government efficiencies takes a back seat to giving local governments tax sources that don’t require voter approval.  3^rd, none of the proposals I’ve seen provides offsets for traditional property taxes from the proposed options taxes.  There should be a dollar for dollar offset in property taxes with revenues generated by options taxes otherwise this becomes just another way for our politicians to get their hands in our pockets.

Wondering why MA property taxes are so out of control? The $154.6 million plan for the new Newton High School is a prime example:

It is already tagged as the most expensive high school in Massachusetts: a $154.6 million showplace, designed by an internationally renowned architect and awaited with some anxiety by the residents of Newton.

The new Newton North High School’s design features a new outdoor stadium, an indoor swimming pool, state-of-the-art vocational education workshops, a glass-walled cafeteria, a restaurant, and an architecturally trendy zigzag shape. At 1,040 feet, the building is 200 feet longer than the Mall at Chestnut Hill.

No Starbucks? This is an educational facility. It’s not supposed to be a mall. Did they really need a glass-walled cafeteria and trendy zigzag shape? And don’t forget the gas, electric, and other operational costs of this monster. Construction costs are probably the easiest to fund; it’s the recurring opertional costs that’ll kill you.

There has to be some balance between the taxpayers needs and the need for a new high school. Deval Patrick’s incremental funding increases for cities and towns won’t fix the underlying problem–that the cities spend recklessly with little regard for the taxed.

Buy “Humane” Eggs

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Two bills in the Vermont Legislature are calling for the state to buy eggs from cage-free hens.

A bill proposed in the Senate would require the state and public schools to buy eggs produced by chickens that are not locked up in cages. A House measure calls for a partial ban on eggs from confined chickens.  [snip]

New Hampshire and Connecticut are considering similar legislation.

Once this enormous problem is solved the House and Senate can tackle the issue of creating another victim group, the gender confused who at times is offended by imagined slurs and overt glances.

Meanwhile, Vermonters driven out of their homes by rising property taxes, run away school costs (teacher salaries) and more taxes created by removal of the capital gains deduction, get no relief. 

And they wonder why their approval rating is about 24%. 

Give the tax and spend Democrats in this state credit for being clever. Governor Patrick is leading a push to give local cities and towns the ability to create local option taxes. These new taxes could include a meals tax, rental car tax, town income tax, etc., etc. But they’ve added a new little twist to deflect criticism.

Local option taxes are required for growth. That’s right—we’re going to tax our way to prosperity. Growth cities like Atlanta and Chicago get a much lower percentage of their overall revenues from property taxes because they lean on other tax streams. MA cities are not allowed to pound us with option taxes because of antiquated laws, but if they could institute new taxes, they’d lower property taxes and fix the housing affordability issue. The end result will be people flocking into a newly affordable MA.

But there are an awful lot of unanswered questions here. First, how much are they planning to lower property taxes by? A 10% reduction in my property taxes is only $40 a month and pales in comparison to my monthly mortgage payment. Let’s be generous and say they can cut everyone’s property taxes by $1,000 a year. Although the savings would be nice, it doesn’t really put a big dent in the housing affordability issue.

Second, you’ll notice there’s no linkage between option tax revenue and property tax reduction. In fact, they only imply that property taxes would come down; nobody promises it. And interestingly enough, you’ll notice they use percentages to compare Boston’s property taxes to those of other cities. What’s to stop them from instituting option taxes, keeping property taxes the same, and claiming victory as increased option tax revenue lowers the percentage of property tax revenue in the overall budget?

Third, how do they plan on attracting businesses? Even if I believed they were actually going to lower property taxes, people still need jobs. And some of these option taxes are likely to hit business a bit harder, which makes attracting them more difficult. Next, I want to see overall comparisons. How much is Atlanta collecting in tax revenues per person compared to Boston? Is it high, low, the same? And why just focus on property taxes when state taxes play a key role as well?

Last, why no mention of addressing environmental regulations that keep housing supply artificially low? There’s no question that supply is constricted by conservation committees and other environmental concerns. If you are really trying to address the affordable housing issue, mortgage and rent payments dwarf property taxes. But nobody on Beacon Hill wants to take on the wacko environmentalists.

So, in summary, it’s a clever tax plan disguised as a growth initiative. Governor Patrick loves it because it removes responsibility for raising taxes from his shoulders while holding out the elusive carrot of property tax relief everyone knows we aren’t going to get.