Political Humor | Stop the Land Grabs

I just heard on Rush, Roger Hedgcock announced the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that makes it easier for the government to take private property. This is bad news for the Saha family here in Coatesville. (link to plan of destruction). The Washington Post reports:

Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes By HOPE YEN
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 23, 2005; 5:11 PM

WASHINGTON — Cities may bulldoze people’s homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development, a divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday, giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

Clearly, this is not only a case of Supreme court justices gone mad, but another institutionalization of socialism as well. The use of eminent domain to generate tax revenue is so patently based in socialist ideals that it couldn’t have ever gotten a strong foothold without this Supreme Court Ruling. The article states that “At least eight states _ Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington _ forbid the use of eminent domain for economic development unless it is to eliminate blight. Other states either expressly allow a taking for private economic purposes or have not spoken clearly to the question.”

It’s socialism that believes in the good of the community at the expense of the good of the individual. It’s socialism that wants increased tax revenue, because increased tax revenue means more money to use for social spending programs. It’s socialism that thinks welfare, food stamps, and public transportation are good things. Yes, helping out the poor and disadvantaged is good, but generally not when distributed by a government institution. Of course, socialists do not trust individuals to be good enough people to help each other out. Only government can be trusted to do that.

Don’t fall prey to the “revitalization” argument. These land grabs are purely socialist in motive. Yes, there may be some benefit in terms of economic growth of the area, but that is what separates socialism from communism. In either case, private property ownership is secondary to the will of the state. The idea that economic growth will increase tax revenue is the argument of tax rate decreases. By lowering taxes, more economic activity occurs, spurring growth, and resulting in a greater tax base. Revenues go up, even though tax rates go down. In the case of land grabs, the economic growth is but a positive side effect. The re-zoning of the land to an entity of greater value is the more important part of the process, and the good of the original property owner is less important than the good of the “community.”

Here in Coatesville, the City of Coatesville is a complete slum in the middle of very nice surrounding townships. They want to take land from a family in a neighboring township and make a golf course to “revitalize the community.” I don’t see anything being done to the boarded up buildings that I drive past regularly in the actual city limits, but boy, wouldn’t a golf course in Valley Township be sweet. So, you see, it can’t be about the blighted city itself, because the golf course is not in the city, but it is in the Coatesville School District, which means Coatesville gets the property tax money.

Coatesville School District “lost” a few million dollars a couple of years ago. They just have no idea what happened to the money, and since that time, property taxes have skyrocketed. They want to raise taxes another 26%, and this is on top of tremendous increases that we have already sustained. Meanwhile, the schools themselves completely stink. The residents of my township have literally been attempting to see if we can switch to another school district, petition and all.

My point is all of this really started with the “lost” money. Coatesville has been a slum for decades, but they didn’t want to revitalize by stealing Dick and Nancy Saha’s land until a few million dollars went missing, and the city got into huge financial trouble. So, you see, it’s not really about what’s best for the residents of the city. It’s about what’s best for the government of the city. That is socialism, plain and simple.