I have to chuckle inwardly when I hear someone whine about property tax as unfair because it amounts to paying rent to the government on a house that is owned free and clear.
Horseshit! That line of reasoning is simplistic, naive and reveals a deep misunderstanding of both government and property law, not to mention history. People should know better.
I think we can all agree that property ownership is included in the “bundle of rights” guaranteed to every American citizen by our founding. These are natural rights, not endowed to us by any earthly government.
However endowed, those rights are tenuous unless they are secured, and it is the role of government in the United States to secure those rights for us citizens through the operation of laws. Without that security, our natural rights could be taken from us by someone or something stronger than the individual.
Take real estate, for instance.
The “real” in real estate derives from the Spanish term for “royal” and hearkens back to feudal Europe, when all land belonged to the crown. A king would grant parcels of land to aristocrats in exchange for them defending the king’s realm against invaders.
Thus, the people of medieval Europe secured the government’s right to land ownership, not the other way around.
Our Revolution and Constitution turned that notion on its head. Now we acquire our property not through the generosity of a sovereign, but through free enterprise and the sweat of our brow. Now our government is charged with securing the people’s property rights.
How is that security accomplished?
Your deeds and titles to property are recorded by the government in county courthouses, so that nobody else can claim what is yours. Those ownership documents are your defense of property in government courts of law.
Beyond that, government secures your property through protection by government employees. Sheriffs, police and fire departments all have sworn responsibilities to protect your property.
Even if you are the crustiest, most anti-government Wyoming cowboy, you still rely on government to secure your property rights.
Your livestock all carry your brand, and that brand is recorded by a public agency.
Brand inspectors, public employees, are responsible for enforcing brand laws and making sure your critters don’t end up in the hands of rustlers.
And your rights to your personal ingenuity and creativity, your intellectual property, are secured through patent and copyright laws, and adjudicated in government courts.
This security for your property comes at a price.
After all, we are not communists and, in America, all goods and services must be paid for somehow. Hence, property is taxed to pay for that security.
Proposition 1 will appear on your ballot on election day. This initiative, if passed, will reduce property tax in Wyoming by half.
Prop 1, while draconian, is driven by marketplace inflation of property values and other factors that place a clear burden on property owners.
That burden is made heavier by local governments that have come to rely upon property taxes to fund operations that have little or nothing to do with securing property rights.
Has government grown too big for it’s britches in Wyoming?
Hell yes! I’ll go to my grave preaching that a government big enough to tell me to pick up dogshit at the park, or that tells my political party how to go about it’s business, has outgrown it’s intended role.
So its easy to understand the ire of taxpayers and the motivation behind Prop 1.
But blindly cutting property tax revenues in half poses unseen and dire risks to Wyoming counties and communities. And it might jeopardize the security of your property itself.
It is clear to me that Wyoming’s system of property taxation must be examined and reformed.
But that work must be done by scalpels in the deft hands of legislative surgeons, not by chainsaws in the angry hands of populist lumberjacks.
That’s why I will vote “Hell No” on Prop 1.
