Who needs to compete when places like Florida are actively engaged in secondclass citizen warfare.
But yeah, the right coupling of business and government is as unhealthy as religion.
Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
291–300 of 393 posts
Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
General question related to this: are the spiraling property taxes related to similarly spiraling home values?
Strong correlation, but not exclusively. Plenty of areas regularly vote for bond measures paid by increases in property taxes. So you can get increases of BOTH rate and value.
I don’t know what the alternative is, unless we find a completely different funding scheme. While I do feel for seniors who get priced out of their homes, that feeling it mitigated somewhat knowing they are in that situation because they are sitting on a large asset. If we want to treat housing as an “investment” we have to take the good with the bad.
Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a modern (a 'temporary measure' enacted in WW1) invention to enact a passport-controlled system of travel and residency across the entire world. Border control prior to it was more focused on customs taxes, and in some countries, keeping undesirable races/religions out. We have decided the latter is wrong, so instead of directly banning, say, Chinese or Jewish immigration, we replaced it with quotas on country o…
> It's a modern (a 'temporary measure' enacted in WW1) invention to enact a passport-controlled system of travel and residency across the entire world. I wonder if the same will happen to online travel pre-entry-authorizations. During Covid many countries implemented pre-entry-authorizations, similar to US ESTA or Canadian ETA. Even if the Covid emergency state has been over, some countries that didn't have this form…
That's just an implementation detail. Before COVID, some countries would hand out various visitor visas to most travelers at the border, some require arranging them in advance, almost all differ in their requirements based which country's passport you hold, and based on which kind of reciprocity agreements they have with their counterpart.
Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its called a tax lien. Basically, if you can’t pay your property taxes, you still get to stay in your home, but the unpaid taxes must be paid (with interest) before the home can sold or otherwise transferred (with some rare exceptions for like death of a spouse, etc.)
I was referring to something different. Property taxes are the way local municipalities raise funds. Tax liens are just the same property tax. I’m suggesting there can be other funding mechanisms, from VAT to income or even automation taxes that raise that money without the same tradeoffs.
Sure, you could charge people directly for services.
Want school? Pay for school tuition. Want roads? Pay the toll. Want fire service? Pay for fire subscription.
etc.
I'd be happy to live in such community but others want men with guns to come toss them out of their house if they don't have the money for the extra services. To me that sounds worse but to each their own.
Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
#295I've owned houses in two cities in my life. One called itself "A developer-friendly community" and the other "A healthy community" The cities were organized around their taglines. One was 300 years old and focused on parks, trails, conservancy, and community centers. The other a younger city focused on growth and sprawl, tax abatements, and new businesses. You should live where the government aligns with your phase o…
> You should live where the government aligns with your phase of life and personal goals and be free to choose a new government later. Also, democracies can shift over time but generally it is easier to move somewhere new than to feel entitled to change a municpal culture simply because you got older. I feel like people need to understand this. I'm currently living in Nashville, TN, which you may as well have been re…
Nashville has been experiencing rapid population growth. How do reconcile that with your claim that the governmental situation is dire?
Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's very little correlation between per student costs and performance. It's very common for urban schools to have very poor outcomes with very high costs per student compared to suburban towns with much lower costs and much better performance. The state where I live also equalizes educational funding to some degree with state funding.
Is your suggestion property taxes could go to zero without an impact on schools? Regardless, it’s besides the point. The point is there are different potential mechanisms for raising money that don’t have the same second and third order effects of property taxes.
Obviously there are limits to state co-payments and towns also have expenses other than schools--although schools tend to be the majority from property taxes. But, in general, yes I think it's healthy to have significant local revenue pay for local costs. I really don't want the federal government to be paying for all local elementary and high school education.
Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not the parent you replied to, but the modern passport as we know it goes back only about 100 years. > Migration was generally speaking, unhindered and each emigrant could decide on the time of his departure, his arrival or his return, to suit his own convenience. But World War I brought harsh restrictions on freedom of movement. [0] > The concept of a worldwide passport standard is relatively new, created in the aft…
The original post I was asking for further details is about borders, not passport. That said, passports have been around near as long as borders, just did not have the smart chip embedded in them. Letters of recommendations or safe passage to pass a port have been around nearly as long as the notion of sovereign boundaries. It might have been a parchment with a wax seal, a ring, or a stick with a burn-mark, maybe eve…
I saw that there were passport documents for safety in the past, like you mentioned. I've also heard of documents called passports being used to grant foreigners permission to conduct commerce, and others allowing locals to move between provinces within a country.
I wonder about borders, too. I wonder when they started guarding borders like they do today. I know there were places with minimal border control, like the U.S. before the world wars. Were there places a hundred years ago and earlier where boarders were guarded like they are today? Did they want to keep the serfs in place? Did rulers care about peasants moving back and forth? Weren't boarders usually less populated areas, with nobody keeping track of crossings? Or are modern borders, imperfect as they are, only possible at this time due to modern governments and the military resources they can dedicate to such things?
My guess is that modern borders and modern passports came about around the same time. There's no sense in requiring documentation for every person crossing a border unless a country has the wherewithal to enforce that rule.
Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Governments don't come from the geography, but the people. Living in a small country myself, a place such as China, India, Indonesia, or Nigeria could send (and they would gladly come) enough people to outvote us on any issue 3x over, without even noticing they're missing anyone. We would simply cease to exist first as a sovereign people, and soon after as a distinct people at all, without any territory to call our o…
Initially, immigration served as a means to address specific shortages, but nowadays it appears to be utilized as a strategy to reduce wages. Unfortunately, the political discourse surrounding immigration has become increasingly hostile. This suggests that politicians may be prioritizing corporate interests and a select few economic beneficiaries over the well-being of the general public.
> but nowadays it appears to be utilized as a strategy to reduce wages.
And to swing elections. Notice the completely different treatment of "Dreamers" (illegal immigrants) to that of legal children of immigrants (especially Indians). The former are given special status and can stay in America forever, the later are to be deported on their 21st birthday unless they manage to secure a visa. So much for following the rules...
Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah... I hate property taxes as a concept. That you can lose your property due to simply living another year is kind of messed up. At least, it should be locked to value at purchase adding only inflation. My house (according to the city/county) is worth 3x what I bought it at 5 years ago... If it goes up this much again, taxes will likely reach close to the mortgage payment. It's simply not right. I'd be happy to mo…
This- fixing property tax to purchase price- is exactly what California's Prop 13 did, which has ended up gutting California local governments ( https://edsource.org/2022/californias-prop-13s-unjust-legacy... ). It has resulted in lots of people who aren't paying their fair share into the upkeep of their community, and driving CA house prices insane. It's been a giant fiasco, hurting California's growth, and locking…
California's local governments have hardly been gutted. They mostly operate like local governments in every other state. Public school spending per pupil is above the national average.
The situation prior to Proposition 13 was also a fiasco with rapid increases in wasteful government spending. I would be happy to vote for reasonable reforms but only if they keep effective spending caps in place.
Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is your suggestion property taxes could go to zero without an impact on schools? Regardless, it’s besides the point. The point is there are different potential mechanisms for raising money that don’t have the same second and third order effects of property taxes.
Obviously there are limits to state co-payments and towns also have expenses other than schools--although schools tend to be the majority from property taxes. But, in general, yes I think it's healthy to have significant local revenue pay for local costs. I really don't want the federal government to be paying for all local elementary and high school education.
I think there are valid concerns with an overly centralized funding point. But the counter argument to overly localized funding is that poor areas get less resources because they tend to have lower property values. I don’t think that’s a way to level opportunities.
The current system is a mix, however.