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The Boomer War on Property Taxes Is a Mathematical Catastrophe in the Making
There’s an AI-generated album of protest music in Ohio with 20 tracks—plus 10 bonus tracks—dedicated entirely to the abolition of property taxes. In New Jersey, town meetings on the subject have featured breakdancing. These aren't just quirky local news stories; they are data points signaling a coordinated, and deeply misguided, revolt. A movement, led largely by Baby Boomers, is gaining momentum to dismantle one of the foundational pillars of American civic life.
On the surface, the grievance is understandable. The numbers are stark. Home values have exploded, rising by an inflation-adjusted nearly 27% since just 2020. For homeowners on a fixed income, seeing a tax bill jump by hundreds or thousands of dollars feels like a penalty for simply staying put. The visceral reaction is to find the nearest lever of power and pull it.
But the proposed solution—the complete elimination of property taxes—isn't a surgical fix. It’s a fiscal sledgehammer. This isn't just about trimming a budget; it's about severing the primary artery that funds local government. And when you look at the numbers, the plan shifts from being merely impractical to mathematically catastrophic. This movement is a perfect storm of legitimate financial anxiety, generational resentment, and a profound misunderstanding of how a balance sheet actually works.
A Flawed Diagnosis of a Real Sickness
Let’s be precise about what’s at stake. Property taxes are not some minor line item. They constitute the largest single source of tax revenue for state and local governments. In fiscal year 2022, they accounted for 27.4% of total tax collections nationally, and as the Tax Foundation notes, that figure climbs to 70%, 80%, or even higher for many local municipalities. This is the money that pays for schoolteachers, paves the roads, and ensures a fire truck shows up when your house is burning.
To advocate for its wholesale removal is like trying to fix a leaky faucet by dynamiting the city's water main. The collateral damage would be immediate and irreversible. The argument from activists like Brian Massie in Ohio—"I've never sent a child. I've never benefited from the services at all"—is a dangerous fiction. A well-funded school district, a responsive police force, and maintained public parks are all positive externalities that are directly capitalized into the value of his home. You benefit from them every single day, whether you realize it or not.
This is the part of the narrative that I find genuinely puzzling. I’ve analyzed countless municipal bonds and public finance documents, and the correlation between the quality of public services and local property values is one of the most stable relationships in economics. An attack on public funding is, by definition, a direct attack on the very asset these homeowners are trying to protect. What is the endgame here? To save a few thousand dollars a year in taxes while simultaneously cratering the long-term value of your single largest asset? It’s a textbook case of winning a battle to lose the war.
The core of the problem isn't the tax itself, but the illiquidity of the asset it's tied to. Retirees are sitting on record-high home equity, a paper fortune they can't use to buy groceries. The frustration is real. But eliminating the tax entirely is a profoundly inefficient solution that also absolves millionaires in mansions who can easily afford to pay. More targeted instruments, like "property tax circuit breakers" that cap taxes as a percentage of income for seniors, offer a logical, data-driven alternative. So why aren't we hearing AI-generated power ballads about circuit breakers?
The Unraveling of the Generational Contract
This isn’t the first property tax revolt in America. The 1970s saw a similar pushback, which resulted in measures like California's Proposition 13. That policy, however, offers a clear cautionary tale. By capping tax assessments, it created massive distortions in the housing market, effectively subsidizing older homeowners at the direct expense of younger, newer buyers. It locked people in place, reduced housing turnover, and contributed to the very affordability crisis that now plagues the next generation.
Today's movement feels different. It’s more extreme in its demands and more explicitly generational in its framing. We have one demographic, older homeowners, who have benefited from decades of appreciating home values and who are the primary recipients of Social Security—a system funded by the payroll taxes of younger workers. Now, a vocal contingent from that same demographic is arguing they should be exempt from funding the local services that primarily benefit younger families. As one headline puts it, the Boomers Push to Eliminate Property Taxes Would Hurt Millennials, Gen Z.
Cameron Mulvey, the 27-year-old entrepreneur quoted in the reporting, frames it perfectly: "Just because you're not using the benefits that your tax pays for... that's how taxes are supposed to work." The entire system is built on a series of inter-generational transfers. Younger workers pay for Social Security benefits they won't see for decades. Older property owners pay for schools their children no longer attend. This isn't a bug; it's the fundamental feature of a stable, functioning society.
The argument that property valuation has no connection to the cost of services like police and fire departments is a rhetorical misdirection. Of course, a more valuable property doesn't necessarily consume more services. But the tax is based on wealth, not consumption. It's one of the few effective wealth taxes we have, and it serves as a critical mechanism for ensuring that those who have benefited most from a community's growth contribute to its upkeep. To suggest replacing it with, say, a higher sales tax would be a massively regressive shift, placing a greater burden on the very millennials and Gen Zers who are already struggling.
What does it say about our social fabric when one generation, after benefiting from the system, decides to pull up the ladder behind them? The push to "starve the beast" might feel righteous in the moment, but the beast they're starving is the community itself.
A Pyrrhic Victory on the Balance Sheet
The fundamental flaw in the property tax abolition movement is its staggering shortsightedness. It treats a tax bill as a simple expense to be eliminated, rather than as an investment in the ecosystem that gives their primary asset—their home—its value. Saving $5,000 in property taxes is a hollow victory if your home's value declines by $50,000 because the local school district collapses and crime rates rise. This isn't speculation; it's a predictable market reaction. You are, in effect, selling the engine of your car for gas money. It's a transaction that gets you a little further down the road before you grind to a permanent, and irreversible, halt.