There are weeks where I’m so anxious to write this column that I can barely contain my excitement (as lame as that sounds). Other weeks, I look at my Monday obligation to the local political blogosphere as a Sisyphean labor, the sort of maddening task that no person of sound mind would ever volunteer to perform. Most of the time when I feel that way, it’s because I’m going to write something I feel I ought not have to write. This is usually something so unbelievably obvious that even articulating the position feels tedious and unnecessary.
To put it in terms that everyone can relate to, imagine writing a thousand words arguing how horrible it would be to burn to death in a fire, or how nice it is that we have the life-giving rays of the sun to warm our planet. That should give you some idea of what I’m talking about.
This, unfortunately, is one of those weeks, one where I’m stuck making an argument that really just makes itself.
So here it is, and pay attention because I’m only going to write this one time: At a time when South Carolina’s unemployment rate is at an historic high and still climbing, a time when our public schools have slashed their budgets to the bone and are struggling just to stay above water, a time of economic malaise seemingly without end, cutting property taxes for people buying a second home is not something the South Carolina General Assembly should be considering. Of course, in the bizarro world of South Carolina politics, things which shouldn’t even be considered most often end up becoming law.
Technically, the new property tax cut bill was sent back to the Senate Finance Committee after it failed to get the two-thirds majority vote needed to move forward, so for the time being at least, I’m spared the anguish of watching my state representatives do the legislative equivalent of dousing a burning building with gasoline, but according to supporters of the bill, their setback is only temporary. According to Spartanburg’s own Sen. Glenn Reese—a shining example of what passes for a Democrat in our little corner of the state—the bill should be back “in two or three weeks.”
I’m sure the dozens of South Carolinians who can still afford to buy a second house are waiting in rapt anticipation.
This new “point of sale” bill is supposedly designed to fix a problem with Act 388, the so-called property tax cut bill of 2006. The problem, at least according to South Carolina Realtors, is that second homes are reassessed when they are sold and the taxes paid are based on the selling price rather than the assessed value of the home. Supposedly, this has created a “chilling effect” on the sale of second homes.
Apparently, those of us who thought that the collapse of the housing bubble might have something to do with this “chilling effect” on second home sales were way off base. From the picture being painted, we just need to cut those taxes, and we’ll all be living in the land of milk and honey, with home prices soring to dizzying heights rivaling the Tower of Babel. All we have to do is get the government’s greedy taxing hands out of the way, and the all-wise market, with its unknowable ways, will fix everything.
Am I the only one who wonders how conservatives are still able to sell this yarn?
What this bill is not designed to do is fix the problem of school districts being forced to slash their budgets by staggering amounts because of the loss of funding brought about by Act 388. Neither is this new bill designed to fix the gaping hole in our state’s budget caused by slashing taxes on McMansions while simultaneously raising them on homes valued at $100,000 or less.
Those aren’t the problems our General Assembly is concerned with. In their minds, the phrase “public school funding” is just another way of saying “big government spending,” and that stuff should always be cut. As far as raising taxes on less expensive homes to fund a tax cut bonanza for owners of multi-million dollar estates, well that’s just bringing a sense of fairness and balance to our tax system. To the committed conservative, the naysayers have no right to expect the wealthy to pay a greater share of property taxes than the middle and working classes.
For all I know they may have a point. I mean think about it; do you have any idea how much it costs to heat and cool a 10,000 square foot home? I bet the prices gardeners are charging to maintain a respectable looking Victorian garden these days are just criminal. Have a little sympathy.
It’s not the conservatives’ fault really. They’re slaves to their own thinking. To do anything actually meaningful for the great majority of people in South Carolina, they would have to abandon their “Devil take the hindmost” ideology in favor of something a little more human. Don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.
If there is a voice of reason to be found on the subject of Act 388′s real effect on South Carolinians, and the further damage this new bill represents, that voice is almost certain to be found in our local school districts. This new bill would cost school districts and local governments $40 million in its first year. That sort of thing did at least manage to get a rise out of Spartanburg School District 4 Superintendent Rallie Liston, who blasted the new proposal saying that “Once again, they are talking about taking millions of dollars from public school system.” Liston anded, “How do you ever recover from these decisions? I understand they want to move homes, but that’s not going to offset the loss to public education and future generations.”
Liston’s mistake is that he thinks our state’s legislators care about public education or future generations. For the most part, they don’t. They care about being the most conservative guy in the room, striking Reaganesque poses for the reactionary, Glenn Beck-loving neo-fascists back home. Expecting anything more from South Carolina’s elected officials is like waiting for Roland Emmerich to make a movie that doesn’t suck. It’s not completely outside the realm of possibility, but it’s about as unlikely as a thing can possibly be.
So there it is, the obvious, stated plainly so that anyone can read it. Are there those who disagree with my take on this? I am certain that there are. Is it plain to any thinking person how insane it is to be cutting taxes on second home purchases when our state can’t even afford to pay it’s own unemployment benefits? It should be, but I doubt it.
That’s the central point of this column really. I started out complaining that I had to spend yet another Monday explaining something obvious, but the truth is that as much as I want it to be obvious, it’s not. It’s not obvious to everyone that we should be more concerned about public education funding and job creation measures than we are about taxes on the sale of second homes. It’s not obvious to everyone that market-driven solutions are not the answer to every problem facing us as a state. It’s not obvious to everyone that allowing government at every level to wither on the vine from lack of funds only paves the way for corporate feudalism without any democratic protections.
None of those things are obvious to everyone, no matter how much I want them to be. So maybe it’s not the thought of arguing the obvious that makes these columns so frustrating. Maybe it’s the fear that making the argument against the reactionaries won’t do anything at all to stop them, that even trying to stop them is like trying to stop a tsunami. Still, it’s probably best not to think that way. If the work of progressives in South Carolina is a Sisyphean labor, it might be best if we all just push our stones and shut up about it.
Christopher George
Good stuff, Chris.
Act 388 is absolutely atrocious, and this sort of further tinkering with the tax structure in our state is exactly the sort of thing I campaigned against in 2008. We need a complete overhaul of our state tax structure — repealing Act 388 would be a good start until that overhaul happens.
Of course, my position on that got me hit with a last-minute attack mailer from Bobby Harrell’s PAC stating that if elected, I would vote to “double your property taxes.”
Thanks Will.
I think we’d all be much better off right now if you’d won that election in ’08. At the very least, we’d have another voice of reason to stand in opposition to this sort of nonsense.
I believe Act 388 may go down as one of the worst pieces of legislation passed in South Carolina in the last 20 years, and as much as I’d like to see it repealed, I’m not holding my breath. I’d like to lay all the blame for that at the feet of the General Assembly, but the truth is that we have a serious problem of voter ignorance in South Carolina. Smear campaigns like the one used against you only work when so many of the voters themselves don’t really understand what government even is.
We’ve had decades of very successful conservative propaganda telling people that government is the cause of every one of their problems, that it can’t do anything right, which of course becomes a self-fulfilling belief. If the people have no confidence in government’s ability to do anything, then we shouldn’t be surprised when government isn’t able to do much of anything.
Step one towards a more sane, reasonable system here in SC is fighting that perception that government is the problem. I have no idea how to go about doing that, other than the sort of reasonable door to door politics that you tried in your campaign. That’s really the sort of Sisyphean labor I was bemoaning in my piece though. We’re fighting a battle that just doesn’t look winnable from our current position. I hate sounding defeatist like that, but looking at it rationally, that’s what I see.
“That’s really the sort of Sisyphean labor I was bemoaning in my piece though.” Oops! You used the same $10 word twice in one discussion…you’re out.
I know what I will be doing. Writing my state legislature. Something I think more people should be doing, and I encourage more to do so.
I saw the tax value on my home go up 3 grand so that my property taxes essentially didn’t wiggle any direction but slightly upwards. My house is in the less then 100,000 category. Thanks for the “tax break”….
Second homes, vacation homes etc. SHOULD be taxed at a higher rate. One certainly doesn’t get any break at the federal level when selling one, as they don’t get the capital gains deferments as one does with a primary residence, so why should there be breaks on the state level? (unless they’ve changed that since I left the job as an income tax filer).I do not see how that benefits anyone at all. If it is to help spur the flagging housing market in hopes of getting people to buy or sell those pricey lake or beach front properties, they are really barking up the wrong real estate tree. All that does is give people who really don’t need a financial break, a financial break, and leaving more of the rest of us footing the bill, or doing without….again. And regular houses still sit on the market.
On a secondary note, I just discovered that the state legislature has many of the same non-participation by challenging candidates as we do here in Spartanburg county. Many house seats in the state ran unopposed, most being held by republicans..What is wrong with that picture??
But then I am not your average voter. I voted anti-incumbent in 2008 for state house, and I will be doing it again on a grand scale this time around.
Sylvie,
Re: the number of unopposed incumbents: Well, it’s just really hard to run a campaign as a first-time candidate for the General Assembly. Really hard. It requires an enormous amount of hard work and organization and fundraising to even give yourself a puncher’s chance. Most folks don’t even pay all that much attention to where national and statewide candidates really stand on issues. So when it comes to state legislative candidates, the electorate really has no idea and so they reflexively vote for either the incumbent or the Republican.
That our state is one of the last ones in the country that still allows straight ticket voting is another major problem — it allows voters to spend even less time getting to know what each candidate in each race is about, since they know they can just go in and push the “R” and be done with it. In a state where voters are conditioned to pull the straight ticket, you have to give them a reason to split their ticket. In my case, I had to convince a whole bunch of people who were going to vote for McCain/Palin at the top to scroll through a few pages and vote for me — someone not from here with a funny last name and a D after it — at the bottom.
Dems know the math just doesn’t add up in most districts, so they don’t even bother, so the election in those districts essentially comes down to who can out-right wing the field in the Republican primary, which increasingly means the most radical — and radically out of touch — candidate wins — hence Shane Martin over Jim Ritchie, Lee Bright over Scott Talley, and Joey Millwood over Bob Walker in 2008. It’s an awful scenario.
Voting “anti-incumbent” as the other commenter suggested is certainly a valid method for selecting candidates, but it really requires a voter to suspend his or her own ideological views on issues, if he or she has any to begin with. If I’m a Democrat or I an aligned more with the Democratic platform and I am voting “anti-incumbent”, then I would have had to vote for Mike Gardner over Glenn Reese in 2008, as well as whatever sacrificial lamb the GOP puts up against Harold Mitchell (if they even did that). I think there is a differece between voting “anti-incumbent” in the primary and “anti-incumbent” in the general, or at least from the perspective of someone who has a set of ideological beliefs.
On the issue of straight-ticket voting–conditioning voters to vote straight ticket in South Carolina happens on both sides of the aisle. It benefits Democrats in certain circumstances as well as Republicans. I don’t think I’d be giving away any trade secrets here to say that Democrats regularly wage campaigns to condition African-American voters to vote straight ticket Democrat. I’ve seen the flyers printed and distributed and the radio ads produced saying as much. What strength the Democratic Party enjoys in South Carolina is largely attributed to straight-ticket voting by the large African-American population in the state.
I hate to even bring this up argument, God knows I’m shoveling feces on my own feet here but, where is the logic in any property tax? Before we get into the nonsense of public schools, roads, blah blah blah and our governor’s sexual promiscuity, I have to ask that everyone remain calm and think this through. Scenario; I buy a home. Now, having acquired this little piece of the pie that is ALL mine, I have to pay the state government a tax every year for owning this home. I shouldn’t have to go any further but I doubt you all will follow me very far. Let me just break this down into crude terms we can all understand. Why the fuck do I have to pay for something that I have already paid for? What business does the government have in my living quarters? (Even more so if you did not receive any government assistance in buying that home.) I don’t expect anyone to stand behind me on this one. That’s okay. If the property tax isn’t hideous to you, I don’t expect you and I to agree on much of anything. I say screw helping those with more than one home by cutting the property tax on their behalf. Cut the property tax itself, completely. Now gargle on minions.
“…where is the logic in any property tax?”
That’s a little like asking why we print currency or why we have a written code of laws, really the sort of question better at home in a high-school civics class than in a blog comment, but what the hell. I’m feeling charitable.
Property taxes exist for the same reason that private property itself exists. Both are government creations. Without government there is no private property, because without government protections your right to “your” property only extend as far as your ability to prevent others from killing you and claiming that property for themselves. At least until somebody comes along and kills that person, and so on, and so on, and so on.
At some point, people formed a government to invent and then protect these things we now call “rights.” Apparently, it worked better than the despotic (that one’s not quite a $10 word, more like $3.75) chaos that we had before, and apparently the people back then thought the taxes paid to ensure those new special protections were worth it.
As far as paying those taxes in the form of property taxes, what better way to pay them? The people who own the most property obviously have benefited from the artificial “rights” and property protections provided by the government the most, so logically, they should pay higher taxes. The value of the person’s property is a good way to determine that sort of thing.
Of course, then we’ve got to deal with the whole idea of anybody actually “owning” anything, let along a piece of property.
I mean…wait…this is fucking stupid!
You’re just here to antagonize, as usual. You’re not going to buy any of what I have to say, and I know that really, you’re just the kind of guy who’s only against things because its cool to be against them. That shit was already old back when Peggy Maley asked Marlon Brando what he was rebelling against in “The Wild One,” and Brando was all like “Whaddya Got?,” but I get it. It’s your thing. Cool enough.
So fuck it! You win. I’m the big government-loving square and you’re the super-cool libertarian hipster guy. Fun times and all that. Viva libertarianism!
Well that was easy enough. The sad thing is, while we’re on the topic of hipsters, I recall you throwing “anarcho” before socialist in a description of your beliefs. Let’s talk about pretentious hipster lingo…anarcho-journalist. You’re either an anarchist or you’re not. What was it that Goldman said? “Anarchism without adjectives.” As far as being a hipster goes I supposed that would mean that I believe the things that I do, because they’re cool or something? If my ideas were cool that dip shit wouldn’t be president right now and the dip shit before him wouldn’t have either. I don’t have to prove that the majority is most often wrong. Miley Cyrus. I’m not even disagreeing with you on this just to disagree.I genuinely think that, across the board, your beliefs are ridiculous. So this may be a discussion better suited for a high school civics class but kids say the darnedest things and they often hold far more validity than the scholarly delusional semantic nonsense that everyone spends so much time arguing over. Keep up that dribble about being free.
“Let’s talk about pretentious hipster lingo…anarcho-journalist.”
Umm…yeah. I roll around in giant posse’s of one, and all the kids want to be just like me. I’m a totally bad ass, fat, bearded, unemployed, high-school dropout turned college dropout who writes a weekly political column for practically no money on some guy’s blog, and that column probably has something like 20 regular weekly readers. I’m so fucking cool I can barely stand myself.
Of course your shit isn’t popular. If it was, you wouldn’t believe it anymore. Did somebody forgot the first rule of being a “Rebel Without a Cause?” Everything about you screams: “I do this just to piss people off.” I can relate, except that I got over that shit when I was about 18 or so. Apparently, it stuck with you for a bit longer. Like I said before, cool enough.
“I genuinely think that, across the board, your beliefs are ridiculous.”
And you are 100% entitled to think that. Right back at you man!
The difference between the two of us is that when I’ve stumbled across that half-baked, pseudo-intellectual bullshit you’ve written out there on the Internets, I’ve left it alone. Your shit isn’t worth my time. I got over arguing with people like you a long time ago. It’s much more fun, not to mention less stressful, to spend my valuable Internet time looking at porn or something.
You however, have a hard-on for disagreeing with people, so we find ourselves here. Like I said, fun times and all that.
Also, It’s pretty funny that you mentioned Emma Goldman. She’d find that economic libertarianism of yours disgusting, to say the least.
That quote of hers that you’re misusing was meant to stop the anarchists in her day–who were all socialists by the way, not a capitalist among them–from spitting into smaller and smaller groups, thereby diluting their collective power.
Shit man, at least supply the context if you’re going to use the quote.
It’s not a bad question at all Daniel. In Texas (and Nevada I think too) you can buy land in what’s called allodium, or allodial title, where you’re free and clear from taxes on that land or property. It’s actually like what we’d think of as owning your own land (private property) as opposed to buying real estate, which is registered.
If there were no government people wouldn’t necessarily be constantly trying to steal your land, kill you, and rape your chickens or whatever, lol. Protection of private property is completely viable in a voluntaristic society void of government. It’d be just another service you’d buy rather then paying for it through forced taxation.
There are many types of anarchy, the term just means lack of government. After that the big question would be if there is or is not private property, which is where collectivists and individualists part ways. Emma Goldman was definitely a leftist (collectivist/socialist) anarchist.
Chang, I admire your faith in humanity, but history and personal experience make believe otherwise.
So this “voluntaristic society” has all the functions of government but nothing to make sure they happen?
Why do we pay property taxes? Here are a few reasons, oh and fair warning, I let my satirical side out to play.
1. fire stations and the people who staff and operate from them. Without those we’d have to put our own house fires out, sorry no hydrants available, grab a bucket and the water hose that is attached to that burning house.
2. Emergency response. Nothing like staunching your own wounds or treating that third degree burn after failing to save your burned out house.
3. roads. who needs stinking roads, we will just make our own pathways to drive to the hospital…oh wait, can’t get a car down a footpath too well, now can we?
4. local library. aw who needs books anyway?
5. Schools. well we ain’t go no library so why bother to teach the kids to read.
6. Police protection. well you got no house no more since it burned down,and you are too wounded to keep those looting neighbors who’ve been eying your riding lawn mower all year.
7. health services. I’ll just sit here and bleed, and I think I’m getting used to the pain from those burns now.
Amazing what those illogical property taxes do to help make our lives a little safer and a little more easy to live.
Thanks for clearing that up. I can’t believe that I was so naive to have never considered any of that. Tisk, tisk Daniel.
Any public service you pay for through forced taxation could easily be set up as any other business is, and would probably be a whole lot more affordable too without the whole bureaucratic debacle.
key word “probably”…
It wouldn’t allow me to reply above, so I’ll do it here. What would be the difference in willingly paying for a needed service and being forced to pay for a needed service? It’s not a matter of faith in humanity. Where there is a need for service history and personal experience show entrepreneurs have created a means to provide such a service. The private sector has always shown itself to be more efficient then a government bureaucracy as far as I know, but I’m completely open to examples that show otherwise.
About the key word, “probably” ..I tend to not show a complete certainty on things that I don’t know for certain, or make a good attempt at it anyway. Imagine how many lives would have been spared throughout the ages if people didn’t claim to know what they don’t know for certain, or the unknowable, ie: wars in the name of religious dominance, or over what political ideology is better then another, for example.
Oh I’ve got a secondary rant on our state’s budget woes, based on an article in todays’ Herald Journal, but where to post it? Its all about the legislature’s favorite budget fall guy, our schools.
Sylvie–I could swear that I read a blog post or comment on The Spark a while back where you described yourself as basically a moderate Republican. Am I correct?
I am a moderate and I have usually voted Republican in the past. I also take a good hard look at third party candidates, and have voted for such candidates on occasion as well. My electoral choice is because the candidate in question would seem to best represent my ideas on issues in regards to governing. However I still tend to vote more along the lines of trying to look at each candidate as an individual instead of the party ideals as a whole.
I am becoming increasingly dismayed at the direction the Republican party seems to be heading, as more and more of what I see doesn’t not represent my views. Far right or far left views politically are hard to reconcile to come together and make things work for the benefit of the whole. What is happening in the US congress is somewhat demonstrating that.
Wait a tick.. Your name is Christopher George? Two first names Ricky Bobby and you are trying to school someone on anarchism and taxes? What is your middle name boy? I bet that you have more than just two first names Ricky. I bet you have three. You may want to move on.
Wow…using a redneck joke to imply that I’m dumb. That’s good, never seen anybody do that before. Do you write your own material? If you do I know some guys who might be willing to give you some work.
There its settled. I AM smarter than chris
I always thought so but now i know thanks to Gary P. Simply because i have a last name thats not commonly used as a first. Never-mind the fact George was originally a last name, because that would render Gary P. sound sense of reasoning completely useless. i do have a question though, Does that mean someone with a first name thats normaly a last name is smarter because of it? Im all ears Gary P.
Talladega Nights, huh? I wish I was creative enough reference a name from yet another successfully popular comedy film stereotyping southerners as ignorant, NASCAR-loving, backcountry rednecks.
What’s next, maybe an allusion to Joe Dirt? I mean, the name Christopher George is not exactly in line with something like, “Billy Bob”, now is it? Which reminds me of a quote from a great work of art by Ray McKinnon.
“How many people around here you know named Billy Bob? … Or even the ubiquitous Bubba? … Exactly my point. Gomer, Goober, Cletus, Enis, Cooter, Jethro, Elly May, Billy Bob?! … Don’t insult my intelligence.” – The Accountant
Someone needs to get a grip.
Bravo, Gary.
Thanks Gary, but no thanks. You really could have cooked up something far better than that. Or, could you?
Talladega Nights was funny.
Meh… one of those “leave your brain at the door” comedies. I can enjoy a few comedies like that, but sometimes the little Southern stereotypes here and there get repetitive and kind of annoying. Just gets predictable after a while.