Jeff,
I applaud your desire to help those, who want more economically than they have today, reach their economic goals. I also believe you write with good intentions. However, I find the Property Tax plan to which you reference in your article “Progressive property tax reform”, as well as the insight you provided in accompaniment, well…misguided.

This plan is not progressive, it is regressive and it will serve to further hamper Minnesota’s long term prospects for prosperity. We do need some serious reform to the property tax law, heck to all tax laws and it should start with this; “The Progressive Accountability Tax”. We should back that up with a flat tax on the sale of goods and services. The idea being: you know what you’re getting in to when you make the decision to make a purchase (i.e. it is not subject to change when our politician’s appetite for spending increases), everyone that spends money in our economy pays their taxes, and don’t spend what you can not afford to pay. And finally, we should put requirements on our congress to cut state spending by 25% and freeze their spending at that rate until further notice. With all that additional money we can cut income taxes and property taxes across the board and we will put some real coinage back in the pocket of the workers (breadwinners for the government). That will do more to solve many of ills of the state than anything else the government could do. I’m talking Education, Healthcare, Jobs and Transportation.

If you persist in working to shift the tax burden to those with a decent income (the bread winners), you only deepen the problem. Those who benefit from the free ride will have less and less incentives to strive for anything more than what they have today. Further, as you raise the tax burden on the middle class (that is what you are proposing) you put the American Dream of financial independence further and further out of reach of the poor and middle class citizens. As soon as they start to make enough to get ahead, the government takes it. Over time, as the Minnesota tax burden continues to worsen, businesses and individuals will look elsewhere, to States that get it. I know I will. I call that regressive tax reform.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Minnesotan