Sunday, August 03, 2003

USA: State of Decline: "California's slide into irresponsibility, in which politicians refuse to acknowledge any connection between the government services the public demands and the taxes that pay for those services, is being replicated all across America.... The key factor in rising California spending has been the effort to rebuild a crippled education system. Proposition 13, the 1978 cap on property taxes, led to a progressive starvation of California's once-lauded public schools. By 1994, the state had the largest class sizes in the nation; its reading scores were on a par with Mississippi's. the people now running the country are every bit as irresponsible as those blocking a serious response to California's crisis. And sooner or later that irresponsibility will have the usual consequences. California, here we come."

Property taxation is the only realistic basis for local and state revenue. But the fundamental dogma of neo-classical economics, that capital and labor are the only two factors of production, means that the merit of land value taxation cannot be seen.

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