It seems that the main point of the article is to label the writer as "conservative". I originally read the article on the BBC site and it was simply a conservative-bashing screed. A lot of "dog-whistle" phrases as the left likes to put it.
“I pay $7200 per year in property taxes (NJ), 65% of which goes to fund the local schools. I have no kids. If anything; I should probably get a property tax reduction on the amount of my tax bill that funds the schools.”
This is killing the housing market here in NJ amd radically changing the state demographically. People who don’t plan on having children don’t want to buy a house with those high school taxes, while those who would need a house for their children can’t pay the high taxes so they look elsewhere. Those taxes were bearable when NJ had good jobs, but now they are a deterrent to companies and individuals who head to greener pastures elsewhere.
When Jon Corzine was governor he admitted that we’d lost population without the illegals in the state (and we lost an electoral vote); it has only gotten worse since then. The state is ending up with large populations of “replacement Americans” (Hispanics & Asians), the permanent underclass, and the government worker class to administer them.
Programs to “freeze” property taxes for seniors are failing because they are being frozen at high rates already; if your taxes were frozen you’d still pay $600 per month in property taxes alone. How many retirees can do that? I like Christie’s cap of 2% increases, but that brings different problems where nothing can be paid for. Our government retiree class is bankrupting the state, and much of your $7,200 is being used to pay people who retired a long time ago.
I once asked the two spinster sisters living next to me growing up if it bothered them to pay taxes for the schools.
They said “Oh no! If I want the future of America to be as good as it was for me, I want you kids to get good educations, etc.”
Made sense to me then. Now, when I see the waste involved, I have willed myself to vote NO on any school budget increases. With all of the fancy open architecture, pavilions and stuff at the 2-year old local high school, they are already saying they are “out-of-room” and need to add on! (Not to mention the sculptures, the award winning home-econ area with four complete, state of the art industrial stainless steel kitchens, four assistant principals, etc.)