Among the generally bad ideas brought by the Freedom Caucus, Proposition 1 may be the worst. Perhaps they should be renamed the “Freedom from Responsibility Caucus”.
Let me be clear, I support and take advantage of responsible, targeted tax cuts.
But reducing the residential property tax base by 50% is fraught with unintended consequences and promoted with false arguments.
And finally, there are far simpler ways for the politicians to address property tax relief rather than monkeying around with the Constitution.
I hope the promoters of Proposition 1 did not really mean to shortchange emergency services such fire, police, medical services and public education.
Perhaps they never even considered other property tax-depending services. Cemetery districts are not in the forefront of mind until we visit our loved one’s final resting place.
It is reassuring to see their resting place is well maintained. Weed and Pest Districts provide a great place for information about invasive species without an accompanying sales pitch.
Libraries are a great place to spend time or take the grandchildren.
All of these and many more rely on property taxes to support them serving us.
Promoters of Prop.1 argued our Forefathers hated property taxes.
A cursory reading of our founding Constitution and debates would have spared them this mistake.
Our Forefathers believed the new state had a promising future but fully expected the citizens to accept responsibility for building our future through property taxes.
In fact, both real and personal property were originally subject to taxation.
A second argument was that paying taxes was like renting your home from the government. This is another falsehood.
Taxes support the services we depend on for our daily lives.
Wyoming citizens are horribly overtaxed was another false argument as demonstrated by Wyoming’s continued ranking as among the least tax burden states in America.
Plus, Wyoming is often touted as an excellent place for retirees. Lurking in the background was the chorus of voices calling for shrinking state government. A particularly irrelevant argument since state property taxes have not been collected since 1969.
Our state politicians could easily address the property tax issue by allocating a portion of the state surplus to K-12 education and reducing the mill levy accordingly.
The school mill levy is the largest single tax levy on our county tax bill.
Wyoming statutes already have multiple targeted property tax reduction provisions, i.e. General Homeowners Exemption, Long term Homeowners Exemption, Veterans exemption, plus a 4% cap on yearly valuation increases.
Prop 1 is an entirely different approach with the greatest benefit accruing to those with multimillion dollar homes who manage to live in Wyoming for at least 6 months a year.
Dave Freudenthal served as Wyoming's 31st governor.
