Texas Republican Party Platform Thread 125 (Property Taxes)

Brown County GOP Website ^ | June, 2002 | Republican Party of Texas

[Bigun]

The Republican Party of Texas Platform has been MUCH in the news of late because it is a CONSERVATIVE document and, as such, VERY controversial. I thought it would be an instructive exercise, for those of us who wish to do so here, to go through it plank by plank and see where we stand on these issues. Pursuant to that, I will post ONE plank of the Platform, every few days and anyone who wishes to can state their views as to that particular part of the platform.

Today, under the heading Strengthening The Economy Of Texas And America sub-heading Tax Burden we find the following plank :

[Bigun]

I have decided to score myself by assigning a score of between 0 and 10 points to each of the planks! 10 means I agree with EVERYTHING in it. 0 means I agree with NOTHING in it.

10 more points brings my running score to this point to 1136 of a possible 1250.

[Bigun]

Here's the part that , somehow, got left out!

Property Taxes - The Republican Party of Texas is in favor of abolishing property taxes. Until ad valorem taxes are abolished, we recommend that property valuations be fixed for a period of not less than three years following each revaluation.

[Bigun]

P I N G ! ! !

Previous Thread

[PetroniDE]

9 points. Only problem is what would replace property tax. Need a specific to augment the property tax elimination. No problem with property value fixation, except five years between revaluation.

1045/1250 (0.836)

[Dog Gone]

Everybody would love no taxes, but how do you pay for schools, fire trucks, and cops?

[PetroniDE]

That is why I deducted one point. What replaces the property tax?

[dd5339]

How about letting folks opt out of paying school taxes if they aren't using them? My wife and I are going to home school. We don't plan on using the public schools for anything.

Let us opt out and school property tax and we'll be more than happy to pay user fees for any use of a public school we might need.

Semper Fi

[Dog Gone]

That's not going to happen. If we put the entire burden of public schools on parents with kids, it would essentially be charging tuition, and most parents couldn't afford it.

[Bigun]

Property taxes are a hold over from a time when one had to prove property ownership in order to vote. In other words, those who were paying the freight elected their represenatives in government. This system worked well with regard to taxpayers having the ability to hold elected officials accountable for what they did but citizens were being excluded from the political process simply because they did not own property and the courts rightly said that we could no longer do that and the entire equation changed. Citizens are no longer excluded from voting due to lack of property but the FUNDING mechanism is still the same!

The ONLY proper way to repair this, IMHO, is to switch to a broad based consumption tax!

[Dog Gone]

If there were a tax imposed on each plank in a state party platform, we'd be running a huge budget surplus.

[PetroniDE]

If that was added to the plank, I would have given it a 10.

[Bigun]

If there were a tax imposed on each plank in a state party platform, we'd be running a huge budget surplus.

LOL! I can't argue with you there!