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Originally Posted by RangerDick
Good point. Perhaps this is a topic for a another thread, but unfortunately, not only can people who own no property vote on property taxes, they can vote on issuing debt in the form of bonds (general revenue) which are guaranteed by the issuing municiipality. In other words, people who own no property can vote on issuing bonds against those who pay taxes which back the debt, and who will eventually, pay for it. Amazing.
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To continue the threadjack:
This comes up in Libertarian circles a lot, but I'm not so sure it is a good idea to disenfranchise a large group of citizens like that and may cause revolution eventually. This gets close to being an Aristocracy which I guess isn't too far from the way it was originally set up. I do wonder though what would happen if 99% of the people voted instead of just 60% or so now.
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"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship." - Alexander Fraser Tyler, "The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic"
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