Renters are paying for local property taxes too, only indirectly.
And it is criminal how costly local taxes are for wasteful public school spending—in part because those with children vote up the spending, since they see it as a subsidy for themselves.
If only we’d get to more non-parent voters to keep a lid on it!
See # 14; tenants do contribute but much less.
Here in NJ we have a 2% property tax cap, which means when teachers get 4% raises other costs are cut (sometimes untenured teachers themselves). Because they have the strongest union, they usually hang on to their jobs while police/fire and public works are cut instead.
Just as all these guys that refuse to get married can’t be ALL wrong, the same for people who refuse to buy homes in NJ. The scales have fallen from peoples’ eyes (in both cases); in NJ (as in CA), you aren’t just buying a huge property tax commitment, you are also buying a share in a massive IOU (public employees’ pensions) payable to people who haven’t worked in years. Current services suck because current revenues have to pay those obligations; it really has come to a head in many cities (throughout the country). Within the past couple of years FReepers posted articles where black urban residents were attacking the system which required that the cities’ dwindling current revenues were being used to pay primarily white former municipal employees (causing cops, teachers, etc. to be laid off). NJ is an illustration of this happening statewide.