Property Tax and the Death of the American Dream

While the primary catalyst for the original English pilgrims to venture to America was religious freedom, a strong desire for independence followed closely behind. They desired to be independent of two things: poverty and government meddling. This spirit carried into the American Revolution and informed domestic policy for many years. The Homestead Act of (FIND YEAR) was enacted to allow citizens a type of independence those who first fled Britain could only dream of. Remote settlers earned their own homes by proving their merit to Mother Nature. It was fairly easy to live as one wished without violating rules and regulations. The law was a fairly small framework that attempted to allow lives free from violence and evil. The two curses they fled were now powerfully refuted. The poverty caused by government oppression of the past was replaced by success or failure based upon individual action. 

While poverty enabled and created by tyranny guided pilgrims to leave, it was no easy road in the new land. Settlers often dealt with great hunger and lack because they knew it was better than the guaranteed squalor they would have faced in Europe. Americans had to bet on their futures using their competence and capabilities. They received the fruits of their labor and often lived far better than they could have before. The American government was in place to protect their ability to live a private life in which they received the benefits of their labor.

The whole American vision was built upon delayed gratification. There was no guarantee that a homesteader’s crops would thrive in any given year. Individuals who were less competent were forced to settle for a life that, while far better than before they emigrated, was below the standard of other more competent settlers. Homesteaders who wanted to fill their stomachs in winter would find they had no seed to plant in the spring. Months and years of hardship were endured to secure ownership and the ability to rest.

The government’s primary role was to protect people against anyone who desired to intrude on their hard-earned peace, whether foreign nations or malicious citizens. People worked for security and the ability to give their children security. Land was a constant investment that directly reflected its developer’s work ethic and rewarded their competency. Unlike in Europe, land was very accessible to the common man. Rather than working for lords and barons, land distinguished Americans and allowed them to work for themselves.

At the beginning of the 19th century, property taxes were small, primarily by the acre, and did not rise often. As administrative bloat and government corruption grew, property taxes gradually grew and morphed into something powerful and harmful to the core of the American dream. Property taxes became not just on the acre, but also on the valuation of the property. In some states, this tax is higher than 2% yearly. A 500,000$ house, a great deal in many locations, would force the owner to pay over 10,000$ yearly just to live on the land that they own. In complete opposition to the vision of the past, inflation and increasingly high valuations mean that as time goes on, landowners will be forced to work more just to make ends meet.

If a family worked hard to make a life on a humble piece of land and became surrounded by a luxury housing development, the resulting higher valuation would drive them to live somewhere else. This incentive to move shifts Americans towards a consumer culture rather than a culture of creation. There is less reason to put effort into any piece of land or community if an indeterminate amount of “rent” must be paid every year. That “rent” used to be primarily the sweat of the brows of the owners of that land as they worked tirelessly to cultivate it. That vision has been replaced and land seems more like a luxury for the ultra-wealthy than any meaningful part of the American identity. Even small bits of land are not often loved and held for long. Moving constantly has become a favorite pastime of many families as they cannot seem to escape high taxes and inflation. Families continually downsizing or moving to other states cannot be sustainable as a national strategy. We must either make urban living far more appealing or face many families forced to choose between unappealing apartments or paying through the nose for ever-smaller houses. Property taxes exacerbate the attack on the root of American identity.