“No one in their right mind except politicians would not vote to abolish property taxes.”
Not true at all; here in NJ (where our property taxes are among the highest in the nation due to the public school teachers’ unions) we’ve had thousands of people laid off in Newark, Camden, Paterson, etc. because we HAVE property taxes instead of a centralized redistribution model (that North Dakota would have ended up with). Under the centralized system, the suburbs and rural areas would have lost the jobs (because they have less votes) while they’d still be paying into the urban cesspools. You would be amazed at how many members of the permanent underclass can be subsidized under the centralized system; with property taxes, they either pay up or do without police and fire protection.
I’d love to do away with all taxes, but that isn’t going to happen; until a better solution comes up (user fees or the like), local property taxes ensures the money is spent locally.
Local property taxes ensures that the money is wasted and used to grease the right palms locally...