We have all heard the advertisements for Rolaids antacid that say, "How do
you spell relief? R-O-L-A-I-D-S." In Nebraska, politicians left and right wax
eloquent about their commitment to "property tax relief." When I ask the people
I run into every day (not involved with politics), I find they share my mistaken belief
that "property tax relief" means lowering property taxes.
If you look closely at what is going on in Nebraska politics, you will need some
Rolaids because "property tax relief" is like the old carnival shell game where
you are supposed to guess which one of the three shells the pea is under. But, of course,
by slight of hand, the pea is always put under a different shell than you guess -- even if
you keep track of where it was supposed to be. "Property tax relief" in Nebraska
is spelled T-A-X-S-H-I-F-T.
I have before me a report from the state budget office that was released last
January. It shows the direction the government grabs the money out of our pockets and
where they redistribute it. Excuse my sarcasm. I should say the report shows the sources
of tax revenue and how that money is spent.
According to the report (that has a picture of Governor Nelson smiling on the
cover page), 35.9% of our state tax dollars or 708.8 million dollars is spent on
"local tax relief." This "relief" has more than doubled over the last
decade. Thus, it becomes clear that "property tax relief" is not a lowering of
taxes, but a shift in tax collection from one tax to another. The net result is that we,
the taxpayers, don’t get any relief. The amount of taxes we pay remains the same
while the "local tax relief" comes from different state tax sources. If this
so-called "relief" came just from sales taxes, it would use 88% of all sales
taxes collected.
In fact, our property taxes often still go up. We have so-called lids or even
reductions on the levy, but the assessors keep raising the valuation of the property. Last
week, there was a big announcement that property taxes were going down for most everyone.
When I looked closer, I found that the total statewide reduction was one million dollars.
There was a property tax reduction of 10 million dollars covering 60 counties while there
was an increase in 33 counties of nine million dollars. Thus, there was only about 65
cents less of property taxes paid for every man, woman and child in the state. Many will
pay more.
State spending overall is going up this year by over 12% and state aid
("relief") went up by 5½ million dollars. Therefore, to get a million dollars
in "property tax relief," we ended up spending 4½ million more of our overall
tax dollars. Is it any wonder that state spending has grown 142% from 1987-1997, while the
consumer price index/inflation has risen just 43.1%? This would give a real growth rate of
government spending in Nebraska of 99% over that time. With the additional 12% growth this
year, the growth rate goes even higher. During that same time, state aid (made up mostly
of "property tax relief") went up 151% for a real growth rate of 108%.
I don’t know about you, but I am ready to pop a few Rolaids. I am tired of
this political shell game called "relief." I ask that the politicians stop the
fraud that they are lowering taxes when they are just shifting them. I guess I take that
back. It might be too much to ask for a politician to start being honest in the era of
Bill Clinton. As citizens, we need to stop believing the false promise of property tax
relief and demand that we have across-the-board tax cuts, especially with the signs from
Wall Street and down on the farm that we may be in for an economic downturn. If we
don’t hold politicians responsible, they have shown they won’t do the proper
thing and lower taxes. Let’s spell relief -- T-A-X-C-U-T.
