A dramatic reenactment of a blog conversation between Doug Craig and jhwygirl for your enjoyment. The subject has been changed to project the incoherent.
“All your evidence says is ‘Bob didn’t turn right.’”
“Well, not turning right is turning left.”
“Not really; I’d need to see evidence that Bob didn’t go straight.”
Me: Huh?
Well, there she goes again.
Explain to me, then, how taxes won’t go up on people who’s property reappraises at a higher value. Or do you believe that there is no property in the state that increased in value over the last 6 years?
As Craig explains, you’re dancing on semantics. What you’re referring to is inflationary pressure on tax liability. I’ve never heard of this described as a tax increase. It exists completely independent of government action.
An individual’s tax liability may increase independent of any government action. They may earn more, inherit assets or win the lottery which means they owe more. You wouldn’t call that a tax increase since it’s the taxable income and not the tax rates that change. Similarly, you wouldn’t credit government with a tax cut if someone owed less because they lost their job or took a pay cut.
It’s a bit ridiculous to credit or blame government for that increased or decreased liability if there is no change made to the actual tax rate. The point of Craig’s post - and my support of it - is that your post credits Schweitzer with a tax cut but you have absolutely nothing to substantiate that claim.
She can’t help it, the girl can’t help it,
She can’t help it, the girl can’t help it…
It’s called deductive reasoning, folks.
The bread and butter of deductive reasoning is the syllogism. Here’s yours:
Not raising property taxes is reducing property taxes
The Governor is not to propose raising property taxes
Therefore, Governor to Propose Reduction in Property Taxes
It may be valid, but it’s not true because the premises are not true. Can you spot the inaccurate premise?
The newspaper reports “Governor Schweitzer has promised that there will be no statewide increase in property taxes as a result of the reappraisal.”
The act of reappraisal does not increase the tax rate. The act of reappraise does increase one’s tax bill (liability) because of the increase in valuation.
The governor knows that reappraise does not increase the tax rate. Most people, I dare say, know this.
So what was the newspaper saying? Unless you believe that no one’s property increased in value in the last 6 years, then reasoning would suggest that the rate of taxation is going to decrease to ensure that no one’s taxes (as the paper put it) increase.
Yeah, I would agree with her on this point Cody, your syllogism had a premise that she isn’t advocating. Hers might look more like this, although it starts with the observation that the tax amount is the tax rate applied to value, which I would think is a pretty unarguable observation:
1) The value of property has gone up in the past 6 years.
2) Tax amounts are not going up.
3) Therefore, the tax rate must be lowering.
Any problems with that logic?
