By Selwyn Duke ——Bio and Archives--June 12, 2012
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An unusual coalition of forces, including the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce and the state’s largest public employees’ unions, vehemently oppose the idea, arguing that such a ban would upend this quiet capital [Bismarck]. Some big unanswered questions, the opponents say, include precisely how lawmakers would make up some $812 million in annual property tax revenue; what effect the change would have on hundreds of other state laws and regulations that allude to the more than century-old property tax; and what decisions would be left for North Dakota’s cities, counties and other governing boards if, say, they wanted to build a new school, hire more police, open a new park.Ah, the old “where will the government get the money?” line. Frankly, I don’t worry about such things because that should never be the first question when pondering tax issues. It should be: where will the people get the money? It is, after all, theirs, and isn’t this supposed to be a government of, by and for the people? Of course, the elimination of property taxes would mean that governments would have to adjust their tax structure. But so what? Doesn’t the citizen who falls on hard times (often due to bad government policy, mind you) and whose home is seized by Big Brother of the Manor have to adjust? Does government worry how the people will adjust when making some sweeping policy change (e.g., ObamaCare)? It’s time for the government to do some adjusting for a while. Unfortunately, the elimination of modern-day Manorialism is a tough sell even among many conservatives. To be “conservative,” after all, is to oppose big changes and preserve the status quo. As an example, the Times writes, “For his part, Gov. Jack Dalrymple, a Republican, said he opposed the property tax ban. ‘It’s mind-boggling, really,’ he said, in an interview, of the effects of such a ban. ‘We’d be changing everything, frankly.’ All I can say is that were it not for a willingness to change “everything,” our nation would never have been founded (see Washington, Hamilton, Paine, Madison, Adams, Henry et al.). The First Continental Congress’s Declaration on Colonial Rights stated that by “the immutable laws of nature” we are “entitled to life, liberty and property: and… have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without…consent.” Shouldn’t the same apply to a domestic power? And then we have to ask: how foreign have our domestic powers become?
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