Home ownership was my road game for many years, although I have not discussed it often enough in the past few years. I decided to give it a go again because millennials do not appear to grasp the importance of real property Rights:
I’ll begin with “. . . (in theory).
Most colonial Americans surely believed they were cutting the umbilical cord tying the New World to Europe’s monarchies. Little did they know how many Americans would still be embracing Euro-drivel centuries later?
The US became a monarchy in everything short of American elitists sporting titles of rank. Just like in a monarchy, Americans do not own their homes because the government can confiscate them at will either through excessive taxation or eminent domain. In addition, the wealthy function as tax collectors for the government as did the land barons of olde. All taxes are ultimately paid by working people —— the serfs. That’s why you hear super-rich guys like Warren Buffett calling for tax increases —— tax dollars end up in his pocket one way or the other.
American homeowners are serfs allowed to live in a private residence only so long as they pay their property taxes; in fact, only so long as they pay all taxes because the government will confiscate a home in lieu of any delinquent tax. And just like a European monarchy, serfs can be forced to work harder for less simply by raising taxes. Fail to pay those higher property taxes and the serfs lose the roofs over their heads.
Parenthetically, media never stops reporting on First and Second Amendments issues. That is because they do not want the American people to notice what Socialists are doing to real property Rights. Never forget that governments and the people governed are natural enemies. No government can tolerate individual liberties, or property Rights; hence, the incremental destruction of both.
Why do I consider absolute homeownership so important? Answer: For one reason:
Homeownership used to be the American Dream in my youth because it freed families from the clutches of the hated landlord. Property taxes were so low on a single family residence in those days working people believed that no matter how tough things became they could always beg, borrow, or steal enough money to keep from being put out in the street by the tax collector.
NOTE: Americans are being forced by way of foreign aid to work for foreign ruling classes (doublespeak for monarchies) as well as continuing to support their own monarchists. One depressing example is foreign aid going to dictatorships where private property Rights do not exist. America’s half-ass democracy is proving to be no better. Believing, as do I, that every worthwhile individual Right flows from constitutionally protected property Rights it’s easy to see why government officials, federal and state, are determined to abolish property Rights before all others.
Every other Right will vanish when real property Rights are gone. That is not true of any other Right you can name.
No one that I knew in my youth ever gave a damn about freedom of the press, or religion, or speech, for that matter. Americans with good sense knew that those freedoms mostly benefitted the government class and the hierarchies of organized religion anyway.
The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval is not required to believe in God. That is why freedom of religion has become a joke because it no longer includes freedom FROM organized religion. Example: The freedom to refrain FROM supporting the Socialist religion.
Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech implies that you can’t speak unless the government gives you permission to do so. Politically correct speech proves that.
Freedom of the press is meaningless unless you own a printing press or a TV transmitter.
It was owning your own home in pre-Socialist America that working people understood and cared about.
Landlords
In addition to monarchists, Americans now have the teachers’ unions who are landlords to the American homeowner. It is one thing for teachers to organize unions in a private sector, private school, environment, it is quite another matter for teachers to promote Socialism with property taxes, or promote any other political philosophy while feeding at the public trough.
NOTE: The American Dream has come to mean landing in a prominent spot at the public feed tub. I heard federal officials say, after being appointed to a high-level federal job, “This is the American Dream come true.” To hear a public official make such a statement is more than disgusting if it turns out to be true because the question arises “Where did everyone else’s American Dream go?”
Socialists have been using exorbitant property taxes to implement Communism’s first commandment. Now, apply Marx’s commandment to tens ns of millions who own their homes (or so they think).
There is also a link between homeownership and Social Security reform. No one can miss government statisticians daily pointing out how many workers contributed to one retiree in 1936 and how many now contribute. Those same statisticians never look at the difference between working homeowners and their property tax contribution to education, and a retired homeowner’s tax bill for education.
The formula for calculating property taxes to pay for education is the same for everybody. Hence, excessive property taxes force elderly homeowners living on fixed incomes to sell their homes in well-established neighborhoods. A large number of the people being squeezed out by excessive property taxes have lived in their homes for decades, and in many cases their entire lives.
Despite the astronomical increase in the cost of government-funded education between 1936 and today, Social Security is portrayed as the economic villain threatening to bring the country to rack and ruin —— not government growing government, not Wall Street, not coerced charity, not socialized medicine, not bailouts, not public sector unions, and certainly not property taxes, but only Social Security.
Eliminating a retired person’s property tax is a state issue; nevertheless, it should be included in the dialogue surrounding Social Security reform rather than Washington’s obvious fixation on SS benefit cuts only. Eliminating the education tax burden on retirees, especially tax dollar funding for higher education, would at least be a beginning toward helping the elderly who own a home, yet rely on Social Security, and/or fixed incomes, to remain independent. The argument that says people with low incomes do not pay income taxes anyway hardly applies to property taxes for those homeowners with modest incomes.
NOTE: Social Security came about because banks, and bankers, could not be trusted. SS should have been set up as a voluntary pension plan administered by the government instead of an insurance program. Incidentally, monarchists hate Social Security because it is the only tax known to man that benefits the people who pay it.
Something could also be worked out for the non-home owning retiree. After all, both political parties always brag about new-home sales while raising property taxes in many parts of the country. Rising property tax rates tells retirees that they can no longer afford to live in a private residence now that their income-earning years are over.
Here’s one for number-crunchers
Figure out the total amount of money an older house has generated in property taxes. Homeowners come and go, but they all pay property taxes on the same property. You’ll be shocked to learn just how much of a cash cow most private residences has been to the education industry. Especially those homes located in the desirable suburbs built after WWII. It’s no wonder “compassionate” politicians want to uproot retirees and replace them with income earners. The government gets them both ways; the state gets them on property taxes, while federal parasites gets them on the income tax.
The real estate industry and the open borders crowd also contribute much to the practice of churning homeownership. Keeping upward pressure on private home sales benefits Realtors. Few realize it, but Realtors would lose hundreds of billions of dollars in commissions, trillions in the decades ahead, should the real estate market tank because the borders were secured.
There is another piece of evidence to support my claim of monarchy. The reports of how elected officials are routing big bucks to their kinfolk by going through lobbying firms, passing legislation favorable to themselves, influence peddling, and so on, amounts to an American variation of ancient nepotism. Nancy Pelosi, Senators Di Fi and Harry Reid are noted practitioners of the new nepotism. And of course the Kennedys pioneered the federal version of nepotism. When magazine publisher John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash, one report of the tragedy mentioned, in passing, that there were eighty-five members of the Kennedy family in “government service.” You might say that John Kennedy, Jr. was the black sheep of the Kennedy clan because he did not have a government job.
Idiots born to govern is inherently offensive. Interestingly, the concept of civil service was a solution to the evils of nepotism that thrived in European monarchies. Contemporary nepotism not only usurped the procedure for becoming a civil servant, civil service itself has turned into a joke every time anyone claims they are going into government because they want to give something back. Many immigrants dive into the public trough as soon as they get here; often higher education; so I have to ask just what it is they give back? From the things I’ve heard educated immigrants say on the talkies over the years, I’d just as soon they not give anything back.
I would be remiss if I failed to include coerced charity in relation to private property, America’s monarchy, and the tax code.
There has never been a priesthood that did not yearn for tax dollar tithing. There is no evil done by monarchists worse than coerced charity; that is the misuse of tax dollars. American monarchists and Socialists/Communists formed an unholy alliance when they instituted coerced charity; politely defined as the welfare state.
The propaganda aspect of coerced charity should not be underrated. Go back to the Prohibition era for a comparison. Everyone knew that police, judges, elected officials, etc., were on the take. The story was that Bootleggers were successful because civil servants were underpaid; ergo; they were susceptible to bribes.
Yet today’s government propaganda tells us that overpaid government officials are as pure as Snow White.That image does not stand up to scrutiny.
Property values
Taxes and high prices mean nothing to wealthy monarchists who buy their homes, and pay their property taxes, with tax dollars. It’s not exactly a Ponzi scheme, but it will do until something better comes along.
The political goal for Americans should be protecting homes against confiscation coming from every quarter. It was not the Kelo decision that triggered my position. I posted a great many messages on the subject of homeownership prior to Kelo.
Here is my suggestion
By Constitutional Amendment, neither tax collector, nor trail lawyers, nor the courts should have the legal authority to confiscate a primary residence. The only way to neutralize the tax collector is to eliminate property taxes and repeal the XVI Amendment (it was never ratified anyway).
Mortgage lenders and creditors would scream bloody murder not to mention the outcry from government economists.
The absolute protection I am suggesting only comes into play for the actual deed holder; that is after the mortgage is paid off. That protects the mortgage industry. Run of the mill moneylenders, credit card companies, etc., will soon learn they cannot confiscate a person’s home through the courts; hence, there won’t be much benefit in lending money at usurious interest rates when there is not a chance of collecting the debt by attaching real property.
Nothing in my suggested Amendment would affect buying and selling real estate for profit. Let’s say that you and your wife own two homes. Put your name on one deed as your primary residence, and your wife’s name on the other deed as her primary residence. That way they would both be protected. Both names on both deeds would nullify protection on one of the homes. The overwhelming majority of American homeowners own one home so deeds will generally be in the names of both spouses as they are now.
Anyone can own as many properties as they’d care to buy, but the primary residence is the only property that is beyond confiscation. Everything remains exactly as it is now on every other real estate transaction; commercial; investment; rental, etc. The purpose of my suggestion is to provide security to as many Americans as possible; the security of knowing they will keep a roof over their heads through hard times so long as their deed remains unencumbered.
If protecting a primary residence from confiscation ever becomes a reality, the amount of land that is also protected should be determined by local communities. Protecting that Right should be the limit of the federal government’s involvement.
A grandfather clause will easily cover the amount of land that existing homes sit on. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I believe the vast majority of private residences rest on a building lot approximately a quarter acre to three quarters of an acre in size. Some local building codes require much more land, but a grandfather clause will cover that, too. Whatever land-size requirement local communities decide on for new construction is good enough. Deciding at the local level is the important factor.
Condo owners and gated communities where some land is held in common ownership would also be protected and should not be a problem. Again, a grandfather clause will cover existing condos. The local community can handle the land requirements rules for new construction in these situations.
Using grandfather clauses as a foundation should not cause implementation problems that might to pop up that can’t be resolved with commonsense.
Savings
Every economist complains that most Americans should save more, but can’t save, because their personal debt load is too high. Cutting off moneylenders at the pass will go a long way towards reducing personal debt while encouraging saving for the retirement years. In turn, that should relieve the pressure on the demand for immediate reforms in the Social Security system. My expectation is that SS will fix many of its projected problems by attrition as more Americans save for retirement, combined with retired Americans living in homes freed from property taxes.
In addition, Americans will further reduce their debt load by working all the harder to pay off their mortgage in order to activate the absolute protection offered by a Constitutional Amendment.
NOTE: I realize that the Amendment I’m suggesting, if adopted, will cause a major disruption in America’s economy. I firmly believe that in a few short years Americans will have worked their way through the upheaval. I further believe that Americans will see that the benefits acquired in a new Right for all will far outweigh any economic adjustment required to access that Right.
Bear in mind that funding government with property taxes —— OR THE INCOME TAX —— is not chiseled in stone. There are other ways as long as necessary limited government is the objective.
The enemies of absolute homeownership are formidable. The wealthy, the education industry, trial lawyers, Realtors, and moneylenders to name a few. Their combined number does not come anywhere near a majority although their amalgamated political clout is staggering in that they will always discourage absolute homeownership.
Property taxes effectively eliminates real property Rights for private sector Americans. Don’t pay your property taxes and you’re out on the street faster than you can say “Property Rights.” Only people who pay their taxes with tax dollars can be said to have any property Rights at all.
Doing away with all property taxes on a primary residence is essential if Americans are ever going to dismantle the welfare state —— financed in large part by property taxes.
Taking Marx and Engels at their word and applying Communism’s foundation principle to contemporary America, it is clear that strengthening private property Rights through absolute homeownership is the most effective way to attack Communists and Communism as they function in America.
American Communists have turned homeownership into an ever-increasing, never-ending tax liability. Homeownership is also the tightest grip Socialists/Communists have on the individual’s throat. Try breaking that grip by not buying a home and you are left with the choice of paying exorbitant rent, living in a slum, or go find yourself a clean room outdoors. Under the present system of taxation there is nothing but subservience to one entity or the other.
Home ownership in America only allows Americans to live in a private residence so long as they pay their property taxes. That is why it is so sickening to hear Socialists say things like “Homeownership is up.” What the hell does that mean under Socialism? To Socialists it means that more Americans have real property the government can confiscate.
Incidentally, you never hear politicians of any stripe brag about property taxes being up, too. Big government monarchists do not want homeowners in communities where taxes are still relatively low to notice Socialism slowly creeping its way towards them.
It is the 21st century, so it’s time the Constitution protected homeownership from nineteenth century Socialism. After all, private property is supposed to be protected by the Constitution anyway; so the legislative task shouldn’t be too difficult. If it ever does happen, absolute homeownership on a primary residence will be the most substantial constitutional Rights that Americans have acquired since the Bill of Rights was ratified. It will be a Right that every American can enjoy —— not just an entitlement designed to benefit one group over another and then calling it a Right.
Absolute home ownership on a primary residence should be a secure castle surrounded by a Constitutional moat.
Before anything is done, the government’s Right of eminent domain has to be reevaluated. The government will retain the Right to confiscate property for government use. The government’s Rights should be clearly enumerated; leaving no wiggle room. Things like building roads, building or expanding existing military installations, building government structures to be used by government employees serving the public and so on would be acceptable. Once the government takes private property, that property must be used exclusively by the government for a fixed period of time, say fifty years, before it can be sold at PUBLIC AUCTION. .
The government should not have the authority to confiscate a person’s home in order to increase the tax base and/or enrich a commercial enterprise as was done in Kelo and others v. New London, Conn., and elsewhere. I think that most Americans agree with me on that. Since the Kelo decision was handed down from on hight, a few states have passed legislation discouraging eminent domain abuses, but not totally eliminating the possibility.
Exactly how can it be changed at the federal level? Answer: The best way to break Communism’s back in this country is to do it at the state level, but it will take an Amendment to the Bill of Rights to get it done. The whipsaw between federal and state authority is cleverly orchestrated to further Socialism/Communism. The minute that a communist goal is threatened at the local or state level, Socialists run to the federal government and get their way.
NOTE: The bigger the government becomes, the less effective it is against this country’s detractors. At the same time that America’s big government is being manipulated by the “international community,” it is tightening its grip on American citizens.
Finally, the scene in this link is the heart and soul of the movie The Grapes of Wrath —— and Muley didn’t even own the land:
In America, a person’s home is his or her “castle,” and the government exists to protect the property rights of others (in theory). The “American dream” of owning a home has long reflected an important characteristic of the people of the United States: the hope that one day each of us will be our own little kings and queens of our own little castles. Owning land is, in many ways, the purest form of liberty.
But for many millennials today, the dream has changed. Millennials are no longer looking at home ownership as the new American dream, and this generation’s changing desires are affecting how younger people live, work, and consume in the free market.
One of the most obvious changes is millennials are far more interested in renting apartments and living in urban areas compared to previous generations. They rent property for practical reasons. The difficulty millennials have experienced recently in the U.S. job market is compounded by crippling student debt and a housing market that still caters to families with children (even though many millennials are waiting until their mid-30s before considering the possibility of having children).
But for many millennials today, the dream has changed. Millennials are no longer looking at home ownership as the new American dream, and this generation’s changing desires are affecting how younger people live, work, and consume in the free market.
One of the most obvious changes is millennials are far more interested in renting apartments and living in urban areas compared to previous generations. They rent property for practical reasons. The difficulty millennials have experienced recently in the U.S. job market is compounded by crippling student debt and a housing market that still caters to families with children (even though many millennials are waiting until their mid-30s before considering the possibility of having children).
Millennials’ New American Dream
Justin Haskins | Wednesday Nov 25, 2015 1:21 PM
Millennials’ New American Dream | Human Events
Justin Haskins | Wednesday Nov 25, 2015 1:21 PM
Millennials’ New American Dream | Human Events
I’ll begin with “. . . (in theory).
Most colonial Americans surely believed they were cutting the umbilical cord tying the New World to Europe’s monarchies. Little did they know how many Americans would still be embracing Euro-drivel centuries later?
The US became a monarchy in everything short of American elitists sporting titles of rank. Just like in a monarchy, Americans do not own their homes because the government can confiscate them at will either through excessive taxation or eminent domain. In addition, the wealthy function as tax collectors for the government as did the land barons of olde. All taxes are ultimately paid by working people —— the serfs. That’s why you hear super-rich guys like Warren Buffett calling for tax increases —— tax dollars end up in his pocket one way or the other.
American homeowners are serfs allowed to live in a private residence only so long as they pay their property taxes; in fact, only so long as they pay all taxes because the government will confiscate a home in lieu of any delinquent tax. And just like a European monarchy, serfs can be forced to work harder for less simply by raising taxes. Fail to pay those higher property taxes and the serfs lose the roofs over their heads.
Parenthetically, media never stops reporting on First and Second Amendments issues. That is because they do not want the American people to notice what Socialists are doing to real property Rights. Never forget that governments and the people governed are natural enemies. No government can tolerate individual liberties, or property Rights; hence, the incremental destruction of both.
Why do I consider absolute homeownership so important? Answer: For one reason:
Homeownership used to be the American Dream in my youth because it freed families from the clutches of the hated landlord. Property taxes were so low on a single family residence in those days working people believed that no matter how tough things became they could always beg, borrow, or steal enough money to keep from being put out in the street by the tax collector.
NOTE: Americans are being forced by way of foreign aid to work for foreign ruling classes (doublespeak for monarchies) as well as continuing to support their own monarchists. One depressing example is foreign aid going to dictatorships where private property Rights do not exist. America’s half-ass democracy is proving to be no better. Believing, as do I, that every worthwhile individual Right flows from constitutionally protected property Rights it’s easy to see why government officials, federal and state, are determined to abolish property Rights before all others.
Every other Right will vanish when real property Rights are gone. That is not true of any other Right you can name.
No one that I knew in my youth ever gave a damn about freedom of the press, or religion, or speech, for that matter. Americans with good sense knew that those freedoms mostly benefitted the government class and the hierarchies of organized religion anyway.
The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval is not required to believe in God. That is why freedom of religion has become a joke because it no longer includes freedom FROM organized religion. Example: The freedom to refrain FROM supporting the Socialist religion.
Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech implies that you can’t speak unless the government gives you permission to do so. Politically correct speech proves that.
Freedom of the press is meaningless unless you own a printing press or a TV transmitter.
It was owning your own home in pre-Socialist America that working people understood and cared about.
Landlords
In addition to monarchists, Americans now have the teachers’ unions who are landlords to the American homeowner. It is one thing for teachers to organize unions in a private sector, private school, environment, it is quite another matter for teachers to promote Socialism with property taxes, or promote any other political philosophy while feeding at the public trough.
NOTE: The American Dream has come to mean landing in a prominent spot at the public feed tub. I heard federal officials say, after being appointed to a high-level federal job, “This is the American Dream come true.” To hear a public official make such a statement is more than disgusting if it turns out to be true because the question arises “Where did everyone else’s American Dream go?”
The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. Karl Marx (1818-1883) Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
Socialists have been using exorbitant property taxes to implement Communism’s first commandment. Now, apply Marx’s commandment to tens ns of millions who own their homes (or so they think).
There is also a link between homeownership and Social Security reform. No one can miss government statisticians daily pointing out how many workers contributed to one retiree in 1936 and how many now contribute. Those same statisticians never look at the difference between working homeowners and their property tax contribution to education, and a retired homeowner’s tax bill for education.
The formula for calculating property taxes to pay for education is the same for everybody. Hence, excessive property taxes force elderly homeowners living on fixed incomes to sell their homes in well-established neighborhoods. A large number of the people being squeezed out by excessive property taxes have lived in their homes for decades, and in many cases their entire lives.
Despite the astronomical increase in the cost of government-funded education between 1936 and today, Social Security is portrayed as the economic villain threatening to bring the country to rack and ruin —— not government growing government, not Wall Street, not coerced charity, not socialized medicine, not bailouts, not public sector unions, and certainly not property taxes, but only Social Security.
Eliminating a retired person’s property tax is a state issue; nevertheless, it should be included in the dialogue surrounding Social Security reform rather than Washington’s obvious fixation on SS benefit cuts only. Eliminating the education tax burden on retirees, especially tax dollar funding for higher education, would at least be a beginning toward helping the elderly who own a home, yet rely on Social Security, and/or fixed incomes, to remain independent. The argument that says people with low incomes do not pay income taxes anyway hardly applies to property taxes for those homeowners with modest incomes.
NOTE: Social Security came about because banks, and bankers, could not be trusted. SS should have been set up as a voluntary pension plan administered by the government instead of an insurance program. Incidentally, monarchists hate Social Security because it is the only tax known to man that benefits the people who pay it.
Something could also be worked out for the non-home owning retiree. After all, both political parties always brag about new-home sales while raising property taxes in many parts of the country. Rising property tax rates tells retirees that they can no longer afford to live in a private residence now that their income-earning years are over.
Here’s one for number-crunchers
Figure out the total amount of money an older house has generated in property taxes. Homeowners come and go, but they all pay property taxes on the same property. You’ll be shocked to learn just how much of a cash cow most private residences has been to the education industry. Especially those homes located in the desirable suburbs built after WWII. It’s no wonder “compassionate” politicians want to uproot retirees and replace them with income earners. The government gets them both ways; the state gets them on property taxes, while federal parasites gets them on the income tax.
The real estate industry and the open borders crowd also contribute much to the practice of churning homeownership. Keeping upward pressure on private home sales benefits Realtors. Few realize it, but Realtors would lose hundreds of billions of dollars in commissions, trillions in the decades ahead, should the real estate market tank because the borders were secured.
There is another piece of evidence to support my claim of monarchy. The reports of how elected officials are routing big bucks to their kinfolk by going through lobbying firms, passing legislation favorable to themselves, influence peddling, and so on, amounts to an American variation of ancient nepotism. Nancy Pelosi, Senators Di Fi and Harry Reid are noted practitioners of the new nepotism. And of course the Kennedys pioneered the federal version of nepotism. When magazine publisher John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash, one report of the tragedy mentioned, in passing, that there were eighty-five members of the Kennedy family in “government service.” You might say that John Kennedy, Jr. was the black sheep of the Kennedy clan because he did not have a government job.
Idiots born to govern is inherently offensive. Interestingly, the concept of civil service was a solution to the evils of nepotism that thrived in European monarchies. Contemporary nepotism not only usurped the procedure for becoming a civil servant, civil service itself has turned into a joke every time anyone claims they are going into government because they want to give something back. Many immigrants dive into the public trough as soon as they get here; often higher education; so I have to ask just what it is they give back? From the things I’ve heard educated immigrants say on the talkies over the years, I’d just as soon they not give anything back.
I would be remiss if I failed to include coerced charity in relation to private property, America’s monarchy, and the tax code.
There has never been a priesthood that did not yearn for tax dollar tithing. There is no evil done by monarchists worse than coerced charity; that is the misuse of tax dollars. American monarchists and Socialists/Communists formed an unholy alliance when they instituted coerced charity; politely defined as the welfare state.
The propaganda aspect of coerced charity should not be underrated. Go back to the Prohibition era for a comparison. Everyone knew that police, judges, elected officials, etc., were on the take. The story was that Bootleggers were successful because civil servants were underpaid; ergo; they were susceptible to bribes.
Yet today’s government propaganda tells us that overpaid government officials are as pure as Snow White.That image does not stand up to scrutiny.
Property values
Taxes and high prices mean nothing to wealthy monarchists who buy their homes, and pay their property taxes, with tax dollars. It’s not exactly a Ponzi scheme, but it will do until something better comes along.
The political goal for Americans should be protecting homes against confiscation coming from every quarter. It was not the Kelo decision that triggered my position. I posted a great many messages on the subject of homeownership prior to Kelo.
Here is my suggestion
By Constitutional Amendment, neither tax collector, nor trail lawyers, nor the courts should have the legal authority to confiscate a primary residence. The only way to neutralize the tax collector is to eliminate property taxes and repeal the XVI Amendment (it was never ratified anyway).
Mortgage lenders and creditors would scream bloody murder not to mention the outcry from government economists.
The absolute protection I am suggesting only comes into play for the actual deed holder; that is after the mortgage is paid off. That protects the mortgage industry. Run of the mill moneylenders, credit card companies, etc., will soon learn they cannot confiscate a person’s home through the courts; hence, there won’t be much benefit in lending money at usurious interest rates when there is not a chance of collecting the debt by attaching real property.
Nothing in my suggested Amendment would affect buying and selling real estate for profit. Let’s say that you and your wife own two homes. Put your name on one deed as your primary residence, and your wife’s name on the other deed as her primary residence. That way they would both be protected. Both names on both deeds would nullify protection on one of the homes. The overwhelming majority of American homeowners own one home so deeds will generally be in the names of both spouses as they are now.
Anyone can own as many properties as they’d care to buy, but the primary residence is the only property that is beyond confiscation. Everything remains exactly as it is now on every other real estate transaction; commercial; investment; rental, etc. The purpose of my suggestion is to provide security to as many Americans as possible; the security of knowing they will keep a roof over their heads through hard times so long as their deed remains unencumbered.
If protecting a primary residence from confiscation ever becomes a reality, the amount of land that is also protected should be determined by local communities. Protecting that Right should be the limit of the federal government’s involvement.
A grandfather clause will easily cover the amount of land that existing homes sit on. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I believe the vast majority of private residences rest on a building lot approximately a quarter acre to three quarters of an acre in size. Some local building codes require much more land, but a grandfather clause will cover that, too. Whatever land-size requirement local communities decide on for new construction is good enough. Deciding at the local level is the important factor.
Condo owners and gated communities where some land is held in common ownership would also be protected and should not be a problem. Again, a grandfather clause will cover existing condos. The local community can handle the land requirements rules for new construction in these situations.
Using grandfather clauses as a foundation should not cause implementation problems that might to pop up that can’t be resolved with commonsense.
Savings
Every economist complains that most Americans should save more, but can’t save, because their personal debt load is too high. Cutting off moneylenders at the pass will go a long way towards reducing personal debt while encouraging saving for the retirement years. In turn, that should relieve the pressure on the demand for immediate reforms in the Social Security system. My expectation is that SS will fix many of its projected problems by attrition as more Americans save for retirement, combined with retired Americans living in homes freed from property taxes.
In addition, Americans will further reduce their debt load by working all the harder to pay off their mortgage in order to activate the absolute protection offered by a Constitutional Amendment.
NOTE: I realize that the Amendment I’m suggesting, if adopted, will cause a major disruption in America’s economy. I firmly believe that in a few short years Americans will have worked their way through the upheaval. I further believe that Americans will see that the benefits acquired in a new Right for all will far outweigh any economic adjustment required to access that Right.
Bear in mind that funding government with property taxes —— OR THE INCOME TAX —— is not chiseled in stone. There are other ways as long as necessary limited government is the objective.
The enemies of absolute homeownership are formidable. The wealthy, the education industry, trial lawyers, Realtors, and moneylenders to name a few. Their combined number does not come anywhere near a majority although their amalgamated political clout is staggering in that they will always discourage absolute homeownership.
Property taxes effectively eliminates real property Rights for private sector Americans. Don’t pay your property taxes and you’re out on the street faster than you can say “Property Rights.” Only people who pay their taxes with tax dollars can be said to have any property Rights at all.
Doing away with all property taxes on a primary residence is essential if Americans are ever going to dismantle the welfare state —— financed in large part by property taxes.
Taking Marx and Engels at their word and applying Communism’s foundation principle to contemporary America, it is clear that strengthening private property Rights through absolute homeownership is the most effective way to attack Communists and Communism as they function in America.
American Communists have turned homeownership into an ever-increasing, never-ending tax liability. Homeownership is also the tightest grip Socialists/Communists have on the individual’s throat. Try breaking that grip by not buying a home and you are left with the choice of paying exorbitant rent, living in a slum, or go find yourself a clean room outdoors. Under the present system of taxation there is nothing but subservience to one entity or the other.
Home ownership in America only allows Americans to live in a private residence so long as they pay their property taxes. That is why it is so sickening to hear Socialists say things like “Homeownership is up.” What the hell does that mean under Socialism? To Socialists it means that more Americans have real property the government can confiscate.
Incidentally, you never hear politicians of any stripe brag about property taxes being up, too. Big government monarchists do not want homeowners in communities where taxes are still relatively low to notice Socialism slowly creeping its way towards them.
It is the 21st century, so it’s time the Constitution protected homeownership from nineteenth century Socialism. After all, private property is supposed to be protected by the Constitution anyway; so the legislative task shouldn’t be too difficult. If it ever does happen, absolute homeownership on a primary residence will be the most substantial constitutional Rights that Americans have acquired since the Bill of Rights was ratified. It will be a Right that every American can enjoy —— not just an entitlement designed to benefit one group over another and then calling it a Right.
Absolute home ownership on a primary residence should be a secure castle surrounded by a Constitutional moat.
Before anything is done, the government’s Right of eminent domain has to be reevaluated. The government will retain the Right to confiscate property for government use. The government’s Rights should be clearly enumerated; leaving no wiggle room. Things like building roads, building or expanding existing military installations, building government structures to be used by government employees serving the public and so on would be acceptable. Once the government takes private property, that property must be used exclusively by the government for a fixed period of time, say fifty years, before it can be sold at PUBLIC AUCTION. .
The government should not have the authority to confiscate a person’s home in order to increase the tax base and/or enrich a commercial enterprise as was done in Kelo and others v. New London, Conn., and elsewhere. I think that most Americans agree with me on that. Since the Kelo decision was handed down from on hight, a few states have passed legislation discouraging eminent domain abuses, but not totally eliminating the possibility.
Exactly how can it be changed at the federal level? Answer: The best way to break Communism’s back in this country is to do it at the state level, but it will take an Amendment to the Bill of Rights to get it done. The whipsaw between federal and state authority is cleverly orchestrated to further Socialism/Communism. The minute that a communist goal is threatened at the local or state level, Socialists run to the federal government and get their way.
NOTE: The bigger the government becomes, the less effective it is against this country’s detractors. At the same time that America’s big government is being manipulated by the “international community,” it is tightening its grip on American citizens.
Finally, the scene in this link is the heart and soul of the movie The Grapes of Wrath —— and Muley didn’t even own the land:
