This is such bullshit anti government article wrapped up in millennial "we can't afford anything" writing.

We need taxes to pay for government services. They go to more things than what we use. The notion that we should only pay taxes for things we use is literally what rich people want so that they don't have to pay taxes on their mansions.

It’s bullshit propaganda from property investors. TL;DR they want a tax break while the rest of us will have to pay more elsewhere.

People and businessess that have bought up or hoarded properties.

They don’t want to pay property tax, it cuts into profits. They’ve squeezed everyone into rentals because we can no longer afford homes. They’ve squeezed the renters for more and more rent. Now the only way to make the line go up is to get a tax break at the expense of municipal services.

And people will still have to pay for things like roads, sewer, libraries, school, snow removal, fire, etc. So the State and municipality will just increase taxes elsewhere.

Either that or we have to pay a subscription to more services. Want the fire dept. to show up if your house is on fire? $50/mo and max 1000 gallons of water, $10/for every additional 100 gallons used. Want them to rescue people upon arrival? $50/mo add-on.

Anyway, the whole point of this hellish corporate dystopia is the wealthy are aiming for yet another tax break while telling the rest of us that we shouldn’t pay property tax because a bunch of us are too stupid to realize that they still have to pay for the services the tax provided.

Massie dismissed the warnings as alarmist. (“We’re not anarchists,” he said.) Government needs to shrink, he argued, and he assumes the Legislature will find alternatives. A fairer system, he argued, would make people pay for the government services they use, but not those they don’t.

Ugh, I just cannot understand how people think this way. How on earth can you expect government services to be there when you need them if they're not funded when you don't need them? It's almost a corollary to the terrible "don't tax millionaires because one day I might be a millionaire" argument.

Of course this is in Ohio... people here have been bitching about our property taxes for years.

You want cheaper cost of homeownership? Encentivize solar installation, abolish HOAs, restrict corporations from buying up homes for "investment", subsidize new affordable housing, and crack down on Airbnb landlords.

But no, it must be the gubbmint's fault. You know, the one Republicans have been in control of for decades.

This is the same effect that we saw with localities that repealed their gas tax to provide relief to drivers in the face of rising gas prices due to the US attacks on Iran -- the price rose to match the cost including the tax, so government revenues went down, corporate profits went up, and the public gets no relief from high prices

And the relief for homeowners provided by lowering property taxes may counterintuitively make housing less affordable. A 2024 study led by researchers from the federal government and Yale University found that property tax reductions in Georgia led to home price increases. The cuts enticed prospective buyers into bidding wars and encouraged homeowners to hold onto their properties longer, lessening available supply. The rising prices particularly harmed younger, prospective first-time homebuyers while disproportionately benefitting older residents who had owned their homes for long periods, the researchers determined.

Similar generational disparities have long played out in California because of Proposition 13. A Los Angeles resident who has owned a home for 50 years that’s now worth $1 million pays less than $500 annually in property taxes. Yet if their neighbor spent $1 million to buy the house next door last year they would owe $10,000.