Quote:
Originally Posted by OrdoSeclorum
I think you may have a little bit of a perception issue. NoVA property tax bills are similar to the tax bills paid in Chicago land and in most big cities: https://money.cnn.com/interactive/re.../property-tax/
Everyone in Chicago is concerned about taxes going up. But if taxes go up enough that it would "spell disaster for the city", the taxes would raise less money. There's a natural equilibrium.
One thing we DON'T have to worry about is high taxes pushing the wealthy out of the city. Wealthy folks don't flee to the suburbs in Paris. Wealthy folks in NYC pay a 5% income tax just TO THE CITY to live there. Pro athletes often choose to move to high tax states over low tax states, even though the contract amounts are the same. Once you have more money than you can spend, only the real oddballs move someplace stale and unproductive just so that they can keep a little more of it. If you're an orthodondist saving $5,000 a month and taxes go up and you now save $4,200 a month, these folks don't even notice it. Life feels the same. And if they do notice it, it still feels a lot better than having to live in Northbrook or someplace like that.
I'd like it a lot better of taxes went up and were paying for new bike lanes and better transit and employing Chicagoans. Those investments deliver an ROI. It sucks that they are going up and are going to pay for something that brings no benefit. But the fact is that we should have raised taxes a long time ago and that having artificially low taxes for so long didn't help Chicago at all. |
I think the better way to think about it is that it's already baked into the market prices. It may be part of the reason our home values aren't as high as some other cities.
As a point of reference, New Orleans has just as bad of a crime rate as Chicago (I think it's actually worse). It just doesn't make the news as much because it isn't as big and didn't have a recent President come from there.
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