Follow

Your City Taxes are a Moral Issue (But Not in the Way You Think)

The Saint Kolbe Studios Podcast

Felix Landry is back to argue that a property tax bill is a justice question, in the plain Aquinas sense of each party getting what it is due. His claim is that a citizen who demands lower taxes while expecting the same roads, fire, and police is the one committing the injustice, and that almost no campaign to cut a rate ever names what gets cut with it. Also included: why a utility district prices like a business and a city does not, why every department spends its entire budget, and what a ten-year tax abatement for a corporate business actually returns. Main Ideas: * A municipal utility district sets its rate to cover what the service costs, the way a business does. A city’s general fund rate is set by public sentiment first, and the budget gets squeezed to fit afterward. * Because revenue is projected before costs are, a department that comes in under budget gets that money reassigned or cut next year. Everyone spends everything. * Every city publishes a budget in the spring and a certified annual financial report showing what was actually spent. What no city publishes is the number that would tell you whether yours is high: what the town next door charges. * Two cities in the same metro, and their tax rates. The higher one was carrying debt and deferred capital work; the lower one had cash-flowed everything for decades. Candidates in both ran on cutting spending. * A ten-year abatement for a warehouse gets covered by everyone else’s tax bill, on the theory that the jobs bring residents who buy homes and spend locally. Nothing guarantees they live in your city. Around year nine the company calls to renegotiate, holding a competing offer from the next town over. Resources: * Is Your City Making You More Virtuous? w/ Felix Landry (Part One of this Convo) * Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford * Aquinas on Justice, Summa Theologiae II-II Q. 58 * The Woodlands Township Chapters: * 00:00: Introduction * 02:22: Welcome back, and the question the episode asks * 05:19: Justice in Aquinas, and the two parts of a property tax bill * 08:49: How a utility district sets its rate, and why cities don’t * 14:39: Why every department spends its whole budget * 20:42: How an ordinary person could actually find out * 24:09: The booming town that was angry at the wrong jurisdiction * 30:56: Social programs, subsidiarity, and who decides * 35:25: Transportation, the ADA, and who else is owed access * 46:02: Overcrowding, sanitation, and what regulation fixed * 54:55: Philanthropy, proximity, and belonging to a place * 65:14: The ten-year tax abatement, and what it returns Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saintkolbestudiospodcast.substack.com