Austin Provides Good Lesson for Gun Owners
The Austin Statesman reports that Austin’s taxing entities increased property taxes 38% over the past decade (2000-2010), with the average tax bill reaching $5,590 in 2010. Austin Community College led the way with a 184% increase (nearly tripled).
The Statesman claimed the reason ACC ran up the tab “was largely in response to a growing civic emphasis on educating the area’s workforce, particularly those who did not attend a four-year college or needed new skills to keep pace with a changing world.”
Only 5% of Austin Community College students graduate within six years (page 8). While the Statesman theory on educating those “who did not attend a four-year college” feels good, the truth is that Austin Community College’s performance is questionable, especially when previous research showed that the average community college graduated 20% of its students.
Austin Community College carries $726.4 Million in debt. Two years ago, its debt load was $444.6 Million. The college is 63% further in debt, yet increased its graduation rate only one percentage point (they graduated 4% in 2008).
In DeShaney v. Winnebago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that government entities aren’t required to provide the services that taxpayers must pay for. Austin Community College, via its legislative territorial grant, proves this truth once again.
The Statesman noted that while property taxes increased 38%, “the median income remained stagnant.”
In plain English, this means that while taxing authorities grew the government — creating more buildings, bureaucracies and government jobs — the real work force that pays for all this became poorer, since their discretionary income was consumed by more taxes.
This means that with all the feel-good but unproductive tax-and-spend, more Austin residents are faced with choosing between feeding their family or buying ammunition and practicing their shooting skills.
There’s more than one way to effect a gun ban. In America, taxation is the quickest.
This is a powerful story and indeed a strong indictment of the education bureaucracy, the illegitimacy of public education in general, and the corrosive power of taxation. But am I missing something? The tie-in to gun rights seems distant and convoluted. You could as easily make a metaphorical tie-in to numerous needs. I hate to see this blog post put forward in support of gun rights.. We can do a lot better than this.
We can do a lot better by understanding the historical framework from which this is placed. The most common socio-economic system is feudalism. The best way to return us to feudalism is to disarm us and destroy economic freedom. Taxation accomplishes both at once. Without understanding this point, taxes and Second Amendment seem disconnected. But remember the Revolution began over taxes and quickly proceeded to firearms freedom.
You should point out that Austin is a little pocket of leftism in an otherwise great state.
As one Austinite said on Yahoo answers regarding a question about Austin, they believe they are the coolest people in Texas.
I see no reason to save Austinites from themselves, just as I see no reason to save Californians from themselves.
If you asked these Austinites about raising taxes to make it harder for paople to afford firearms, they would say that sounds like a good idea. To win the war against Liberty, we have to be smarter than them.
Unfortunately that ‘pocket of leftism’ affects the surrounding counties as they have managed to spread their tax base. One of the main campuses, an elaborate one as well, is in Round Rock, Williamson county.
How does the tax expense compare with the property value? Without that context, it’s a fairly meaningless stat.
Good point, if I was focusing on taxation alone. But when taxes go up and your income doesn’t, your discretionary income decreases, no matter the price of your property.
Typical property tax burden on a 150,000 home would be around $6000/year. That is all property taxes totaled, not just education taxes.
I think I’m over-estimating that. The property tax burden may be closer to $4000 on a $150,000 home, which is probably about average. Typically a mortgage payment of $1200 a month is going to be about $800 for the loan and 400 for the escrow to pay the taxes and other expenses.
In Texas, there is no state income tax. So, it is made up for by higher property taxes than a lot of neighboring states. The taxing authority deems what your property is worth every year and you have the ability to dispute it. Some districts are higher than others. Dallas county and Travis county are some of the highest in the state and they are both deep blue islands in a conservative state, excepting the Rio Grande Valley to which the Democrats control with massive hand-outs.
to the author, your headline is poorly served by including gun owners. For a throw-away tag line at the end, this has nothing to do with it. And you couldn’t find a more anti-gun city in the state to joke about than Austin. They just want to wear their berkenstocks, smoke pot and go to festivals, when they’re not bitching about what a backwards state they call home. Ok, not fair… there are some good Texans in Austin. But they put up with a lot of leftist crap for the privilege of living in that beautiful city.
See my response to #1. It’s not a left/right issue. The Texas budget has grown faster than inflation since the GOP took control. The Bush administration ran up the budget 67%, 6 of those years with a GOP Congress. This issue is about regular folks wanting to be free, and elites wanting to return us to being peons.
Should have said Texas budget increased faster than inflation and population.
I’m with John Key and RobM. I just drove by the gun shop just a few blocks from my central Austin home. It’s still doing a robust business. It’s certainly taken some of my money, along with the requisite sales tax. What this has to to with guns is beyond me.
Furthermore: I think it’s a bit disingenuous for the article and this blog post to claim Austin’s taxing entities raised our property taxes by 38%. Our property taxes rose 38%. Property taxes are a function of the tax rate and the assessed value, and it is the latter that is responsible for the rise. In fact, in 2007, our property tax rates were cut significantly. Assessments can be manipulated, but they remain roughly a function of the market value (and can be challenged if they are not, as I have done).
I’m actually not a fan of property taxes. They are a tax on illiquid wealth, which means they have the potential to drive people out of their own homes. I’d take a solid, revenue-neutral trade for income tax any day, if I could trust it would be a true one-for-one trade. But I can’t, so I won’t.
But whether we tax property or income, we do it by setting rates that are a percentage of value. In order to lower or even level people’s tax burdens as values rise requires the active reduction in rates. We can rightly criticize our taxing entities for not lowering our taxes in response to high growth, but that is the appropriate way to describe the failure.
You forget that income remained flat. That means you have less discretionary income than in 2000. How do you know the people at the Austin gun shops live in Austin?
I think you made your case about the apparent ineffectiveness of the Austin Community College in graduating students while accumulating substantial debt. But surely you’re not serious that all this debt and inefficiency has been engineered PRIMARILY to reduce gun and ammunition purchases! That’s just silly.
It’s like saying the primary cause of the attack on Pearl Harbor was for Admiral Yamamoto to get more exercise.
People hiding their heads in the sand while insisting that taxation has nothing to do with Liberty are either shilling for the feudalists taking over our government, delusional, haven’t read history, or are plain lying.
Let’s put it another way: Are you doing better financially now than in 2000? Your friends, neighbors? Do you think the 21 new taxes in Obamacare are going to make people more or less affluent?
The Texas Public Policy Foundation website has a must-read paper on “The Future of Higher Education”. Ineffective colleges will rapidly disappear as virtual is already displacing brick and mortar. After MITx is fully implemented, many colleges will disappear. Just as the auto displaced the horse and buggy, there is a better model in software.
Couldn’t come soon enough for taxpayers. I’ll look that up and circulate it. Thanks.
http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2012-06-RR03-FutureFaceofHigherEducationOnlineLearning-CHE-TomLindsay.pdf