By “homesteaders” I mean people who would assume responsibility for a property, committing to paying 30 years worth or property taxes and mortgage payments while caring for the land and home.
The concept is disappearing, so the residential tax base disappears. In my area (northeastern NJ) few young people buy homes; older single-family homes are demolished for multi-family units in which only one unit (at most) houses the owner - the rest are people with no ties to the area who retain the freedom to pick up and leave (to follow jobs and such). Many of those will never own anything (home, car) but rent everything; they also have no children (hence no need for their own space), and their mobility keeps them one step ahead of the urban sprawl. Where there is land available, huge apartment buildings with accompanying dog parks go up; they are designed to attract non-breeding drones who won’t add children to the public school system (by far the largest expense of any municipality here).
This area is dying because when local government taxed the employers away from the area, the young skilled people could follow them - leaving older people tied to mortgages with high taxes and younger less-skilled immigrants who don’t want to pay for anything. The recent fiscal disaster of Red Chinese flu, in which income taxes on businesses are plummeting due to the lockdown, will show just how destructive these policies have been; there are still no government layoffs/furloughs, but little has been collected.
I am a fellow current resident of the PRNJ. You are spot on with the one-sided approach that government takes with regards to expenditures. They never reduce spending, even when revenues decrease like the rest of us would have to do. They simply increase taxes or add fees because in their eyes, all government spending is absolutely necessary, and must therefore be funded somehow.
I just received an estimated tax notification from my municipality for the 3rd quarter (as you probably have as well). In the notice, they included a letter informing us there is a 'delay' of the adoption of the 2020 NJ state budget (no kidding).
My estimated 3rd quarter property taxes show an increase of 8%. This isn't a massive increase, but for the past 10 years, the annual increase has been a manageable 2%-3%. This jump is obviously due to the decrease in revenue as a result of the government imposed lockdowns, resulting in the closing of many small businesses and the related increase in unemployment claims.
Makes sense fro their perspective I suppose. Who is a more captive audience than property owners when the government needs to bleed some more money to feed their bloated budgets? Government unions are more powerful than tax-paying property owners.
The proverbial 'golden handcuffs' are keeping me here for at least another year.