The state in which we live is becoming very diverse. There are many people coming here that are being sponsored by various churches and other organizations. Some people are frustrated by this and others feel that this is what the United States is all about. Recently there was an editorial in the local paper about the fact that the property tax laws have not been explained to many of the immigrants and our local government is losing out on revenue. If the revenue from a property tax is not collected then social services that are funded through taxes are not available. The author of the article summed this up by stating that the immigrants were draining our social service revenue and also benefiting from many of the services themselves due to the low paying jobs they hold. The author suggested that immigrants should not be allowed to own or rent property until they have a better understanding of the property tax system.
This editorial has caused a great stir in our area. I never knew so many people read the paper. I think that part of the issue is that the property tax in our area is quite high because we live in an area with many lakes. The lakes area is taxed higher than other areas of the county and also there are many people that have a second home here so they do not get the homestead tax break. We are also close to election time so there are many local politicians that are being challenged to take a stance on their thoughts and feelings about the issue. This is causing many of them to make tax statements that the constituents have not heard before. This is heating up the voters and has many incumbents worried about the election results.
The election side issue was getting more press than the immigrants thought was fair, so they have started holding demonstrations about how inflammatory the comments of the editorial were. All of this has made for some exciting times in our small community. The newspaper is stuck in the middle and many people have cancelled their subscriptions because they feel the property tax editorial should never have been printed. Now there is discussion of the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press.
I am sure that none of this is going to affect the amount of the property tax in our area, but it certainly makes for interesting discussions. For the first time in many autumns the weather and the professional football team is not the center of discussions.