Should Only Landowners Vote?

Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas is making a convincing argument I didn’t expect to hear in the 21st century. ABC 7 Chicago reports:

CHICAGO (WLS) — A new study released by Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas showed a drastic increase in property taxes over the last 20 years.

The study revealed the properties in Chicago and the suburbs with the largest property tax increases since 2000.

Pappas said the only way to change the property tax rate is to vote.

“If you don’t exercise your right to vote, then you have no right to complain about how property taxes have climbed since 2000,” Pappas said.

She’s talking about the 29% voter turnout we’ve seen in Chicago in recent elections.

Okay, let’s hypothesize 100% voter turnout. In Chicago 45% of people own their own homes. Although renters are affected by high property taxes, too, it’s generally transparent to them because it’s indirect. If all property owners voted only for candidates who opposed property tax increases while renters supported people who wanted to raise property taxes, raising taxes would still prevail.

And not all property owners are opposed to property tax increases. A sizeable fraction are public employees who actually benefit more from the increases than they lose.

But wait. There’s more. The present mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, ran, essentially on two planks: reforming the police and not raising property taxes. I feel comfortable in predicting that by the end of her term she will not have engaged in reforming the police materially and will raise property taxes. Her opponent, Toni Preckwinkle, ran on raising property taxes.

Chicago voters did the best they could and it still wasn’t enough. For whom should we have voted?

How much have property taxes risen in Chicago? Right now we’re paying about ten times in taxes what we did 30 years ago and roughly five times as much as we did 20 years ago. Our house is presently worth almost exactly what it was worth 20 years ago. In other words that fivefold increase is confiscatory. Those lavish lifestyles for aldermen, city officials, and union officers don’t pay for themselves, you know.

As I see it Ms. Pappas is making a compelling argument for limiting the franchise to property owners