Property Taxes

I don’t know how, in such an otherwise normal, conservative, Republican city such as San Diego, we have amassed a majority of City Council members who are good old-fashioned, tax-and-spend, liberal Democrats.

The problem with liberal Democrats (and other mediocre politicians) is that they cannot say no. They are completely unable to control spending, so their solution is to raise taxes and spend some more. The most bothersome is the council meeting of Feb. 8. They raised property taxes $44 per $100,000 valuation. Plus they want to raise property taxes more for other programs, notably $54 million to help the housing problem.

Here’s my beef: The assessment on my house is nearly $170,000, whereas the man across the street, who has owned his house since 1958, is probably assessed at less than $30,000. That means I pay a tremendous amount more in property taxes than my neighbor, and each tax increase the City Council imposes hits me, and other new home buyers, much harder. The net effect of these property tax increases is to make home buying harder for new buyers.

Ergo, the City Council’s “solution” to ease the housing crisis makes the problem worse. (Plus we’ll have another bloated bureaucracy that will never die--it’ll always need more and more money.)

The San Diego City Council requires adult supervision. Since we, the taxpayers, are Dad, we’ll have to tell the City Council, the children, “No, you cannot have any more money until you learn to control your spending.”

KEVIN CHIARAVALLE

San Diego