Thoughts on the property-tax amendment

Republicans have put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would allow legislators to decide property-tax policy for local governments. The measure is another step in the General Assembly’s effort to arrogate virtually all of the power in state government to themselves. The GOP, stern father to the people’s brood, knows better than every other actor in the state.

They are extraordinarily confident in this view. Leading state-level Republicans believe that their conservative “reforms” have led to success so spectacular that it almost defies description. They revel in hyperbole. It’s a “Conservative Revolution.” We’ve had “conservative successes.” And believing their own propaganda, they have brainwashed themselves into the conviction that they have the wisdom to govern every aspect of public policy in the state. Hence the property tax amendment, shifting control over local revenues from county seats to the ugly, angular concrete mess that is our state’s legislative building.

Critics of the amendment have emphasized that it will constrain local governments’ ability to fund core services. They mention schools, roads, libraries, and public safety as some of the likely victims. This is all correct. But I am concerned that the case against the amendment has been too abstract for the public to fully understand the consequences of placing local tax policies in the hands of the arrogant crew on West Jones Street.

Let’s consider. If Republican state legislators are empowered to set limits on property taxes, local public services will quickly begin to resemble the public structures at the state level. Imagine if your local library received funding similar to that North Carolina public schools. Or try another thought experiment, perhaps even more alarming. Say that local police departments became as underfunded and beleaguered as state prison guards. In the GOP era, North Carolina prisons have become violent, ungovernable and cruel.

The NCGOP wants to defund the police.

Yet they are gleefully hurdling toward this constitutional amendment. They are almost certain to limit the growth of local property taxes to a rate determined by inflation and population growth. This is called “TABOR,” and it’s the draconian stricture Republicans have adopted for state government. Confident in their superior wisdom, they will make local governments budget like stingy reactionaries. It’s inconceivable to them that their policies could have detrimental consequences; just look at the juggernaut of prosperity their tax cuts have created in the Old North State.

They believe it but they’re delusional. The amendment, while likely to pass, will inflict another round of harm onto a public sector whose ability to serve the people is already in steep decline.

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