Feeding the parasites

I found this story in my local newspaper this past weekend. I found it quite amusing at first. The more I read though, the more outrageous I found it. Its not the substance of the article that sent my blood pressure through the roof. The idea of a government - at any level - screwing up is hardly surprising. Actually I found it rather surprising that government was able to catch the mistake as early as they did. Of course they only fixed part of the issue, but still, I envisioned this poor guy, steam coming out of his ears, hopelessly trying to convince some mid-level bureaucrat that his modest family home did not jump almost $3.9 million dollars in value over the past year. Maybe I'm dating myself here, but I'm old enough to remember the phrase "computers don't make mistakes."

I own my home. I bought it about twelve years ago. It's mine. All mine. I paid it off a couple of years ago. Even had a mortgage burning party, even though - at our lawyer's suggestion - we didn't actually burn it. She thought it might come in handy in case of lawsuits or other issues in the future. My wife and I took her advice. It really bummed out some of our guests though, they wanted to see flames. Too bad. As I said, it's my house.

But I digress. Since I own my home I know a little something about property taxes, appraised value, tax rates, and dealing with local and county governments over these issues. When I bought my modest little starter house, I probably paid a bit more than I should have, but since I was buying it from friends, we saved huge amounts of money in lawyers and processing the deal, so I believe it came out even. When I received my first property tax bill, it was clearly labeled in on the bill how much the government thought my house was worth. And it was only slightly more than half what I paid for it. Now, far be it from me to say my local government doesn't know what its doing, so I ran (okay, I drove over the speed limit, and walked very quickly through the village offices) and paid it as fast as I could. I was quite pleased with the official stamp on the bottom "PAID IN FULL."

Since then, the appraised value of my house has continued to climb while the value of my house has dropped thanks to the village government's inability to handle the most basic of services, including keeping the peace and making neighborhood business paint over graffiti on their properties. So, since I explained my problem here, I won't bother posting any pictures or directions, since I'm sure no one in their right mind would want to buy it.

But back to the story. Here's the part that really burned my ass.

"Most local officials did not learn about the mistake until Tuesday, when 18 government taxing units were asked to return a total of $3.1 million of tax money. The city of Valparaiso and the Valparaiso Community School Corp. were asked to return $2.7 million. As a result, the school system has a $200,000 budget shortfall, and the city loses $900,000."

Particularly the last sentence. So the government screwed up, thought it was getting more money than it was, and now the various branches are in agony over their "losses"? When the government over-appraised the value, it thought nothing about handing out additional cash to its various branches, but when the money isn't there, its a loss?

How exactly does one "lose" something they never had in the first place? When exactly did this homeowner's private money become the government's money? I mean, if you own something and it's taken away, then you've lost something. But this additional money does not belong to the government, it's appropriated from property owners under threat of kicking them out of their homes if it is not paid. Now that's a loss.

What gets me the most is the way government views tax money. We The People pay them, in return (hopefully) for services. The government does not view this relationship this way. To the government, it's "revenue". As if they were selling a product or service, and in return we willingly agreed to pay. No. That's the way the free market works. The relationship between the government and the taxpayers is completely backwards. That is, you pay or you lose. Be it your property, your freedom, or both. That's what the government considers its "revenue stream".

To quote the eminent economist Walter E. Williams: "Three-fifths to two-thirds of the federal budget consists of taking property from one American and giving it to another. Were a private person to do the same thing, we'd call it theft. When government does it, we euphemistically call it income redistribution... Income redistribution not only betrays the founders' vision, it's a sin in the eyes of God. I'm guessing that when God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal,' I'm sure he didn't mean 'thou shalt not steal unless there was a majority vote in Congress'."