The New York Times reports on a proposition being voted on today in North Dakota to abolish the property tax in that state.
Thanks to the oil boom, North Dakota is awash in state revenues, but it is not clear at all that the measure will pass, with many disparate organizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce and the public-service unions, opposed. It should pass. The property tax is an economic obscenity.
If you want a poster child for the enormous inertia of government, you could hardly do better than the property tax. It’s a relic of colonial times that makes no economic or policy sense today and yet remains in just about every jurisdiction in the country.
