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Originally Posted by The Jolt
Imagine a ballot measure to raise property taxes to build a new campus for the local Community College. Say this is in a town of 100,000 people, but only 40,000 own property and pay property taxes.
For the sake of simplicity, we'll say that everyone votes.
The 40,000 property owners are more likely to research the issue, find out what the CC has done with previous tax increases, evaluate if the money will be spent wisely.
Most of the 60,000 are not as likely to do research, but just show up at the polls and think "a new CC campus, that sounds like a good idea" without any idea how the money is spent or would be better spent. In this example, NO TAX INCREASE WOULD EVER BE TURNED DOWN. The property owners would eventually be taxed out of existance.
Believe it or not, our country was founded on the principle that only property owners should vote.
The above post was written by me alone without any help from Ann.
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Actually, if you assume that the non property owners are indeed living somewhere(not exactly a foolhardy premise), you have to also assume a large number of them pay rent.
Your example is currently playing out in my hometown, oddly enough of about 100k. A vocal non property owning group is against the Colleges bid for 46 mil. The reasoning? As property taxes raise,the debt will be passed onto, not the owners, but the renters. This in the form of raised fees, rents, etc.