Latest / Brian Thomas / Empower U - Greg Lawson - Property Taxes and Data Centers

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Empower U - Greg Lawson - Property Taxes and Data Centers · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: News surgeon to take this storm seriously, Fie.
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  Speaker 2: Let's go all in one, one for all. That's a
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  Speaker 2: good fifty five krs the talk station it was six
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  Speaker 2: to fifty five krc DE talk station happen Friday Eve
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  Speaker 2: empower You America dot orgs refund all the empower You
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  Speaker 2: seminar series. Learn about them. If you miss one, you
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  Speaker 2: want to go back. They have like a podcast version
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  Speaker 2: there to power You America dot Org. Tonight. You are
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  Speaker 2: definitely going to be one to tune in at seven
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  Speaker 2: o'clock empower You America dot org log in from home,
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  Speaker 2: show up at empower You Studio, Scarlett Oaks Campus, three
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  Speaker 2: hundred Scarlett Oaks Drive, and be there in person to
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  Speaker 2: ask questions of Christopher Smithman, who I had on earlier
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  Speaker 2: this week to talk about his future of Cincinnati Point Points.
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  Speaker 2: But also welcome back to the fifty five krs morning
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  Speaker 2: morning show from the Buckeye Institute, Greg Lawson. Greg, good
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  Speaker 2: to have you on this morning. I understand you are
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  Speaker 2: also going to be speaking tonight.
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  Speaker 1: He actually am. I love empower You. They do incredible
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  Speaker 1: work and great subjects, wonderful speakers and definitely happen to
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  Speaker 1: be coming down talking about an issue. I think a
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  Speaker 1: lot of folks here Ohio are pretty interested in.
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  Speaker 2: Very That's an understatement, you know it, Greg, Property taxes
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  Speaker 2: is what Greg's going to be speaking about, primarily just
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  Speaker 2: by way of background for folks may up be familiar
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  Speaker 2: with Greg's background Senior research fellow at the Buckeye Institute,
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  Speaker 2: where he specializes in Ohio budget, local government, state local
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  Speaker 2: tax education, and a munch of other things, serving as
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  Speaker 2: the liaison to state government policymakers, educating them on thankfully
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  Speaker 2: free market solutions for Ohio's challenges. It's got twenty years
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  Speaker 2: experience working on ten state budgets and one of the
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  Speaker 2: Ohio recognized experts on the subject. Also a frequent spear,
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  Speaker 2: a speaker regularly quoted a media outlets, Ohio newspapers and
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  Speaker 2: in national publications, so he's got the chops to deal
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  Speaker 2: with this. My question to you're real quick here. Greg.
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  Speaker 2: I'm a little confused by the empower You America website
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  Speaker 2: which has both you and Christopher starting at seven o'clock.
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  Speaker 2: Are you speaking first or second? There's no way you
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  Speaker 2: can both be talking at the same time.
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  Speaker 1: Speak at seven actually, abut one hundred percent sure. To
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  Speaker 1: be there at seven, and whether he goes or I go.
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  Speaker 2: We're I'm ready to rock and both subject by both
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  Speaker 2: topics and both speakers obviously worth logging in a Powerioamerica
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  Speaker 2: dot org. So what of property taxes? I honestly, I'll
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  Speaker 2: tell you, I feel a little bit like impish or
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  Speaker 2: like a flying the ointment that I almost want, almost
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  Speaker 2: because I appreciate the complications and I don't want complications.
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  Speaker 2: But if the Ohio voters approve the constitutional Amendment and
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  Speaker 2: eradicate property taxes in the state of Ohio, I can
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  Speaker 2: only imagine the chaos that would ensue because almost everything
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  Speaker 2: funded in all of the local governments is based on
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  Speaker 2: property taxes. How would that be dealt with? From your perspective, Greg,
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  Speaker 2: if it went that way, Well, I think.
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  Speaker 1: It'd be very difficult. First and foremost, I mean it
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  Speaker 1: would be And I don't think that's an exaggeration to
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  Speaker 1: say this the most radical thing that has happened in
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  Speaker 1: the state of Ohio history, probably since it actually became
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  Speaker 1: a state, because we do so much here in Ohio
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  Speaker 1: that has funded through property Obviously, schools get a lot
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  Speaker 1: of property tax, but you also have safety services. Those
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  Speaker 1: are the two big things that people probably think about
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  Speaker 1: the most, but there's a whole bunch of other services,
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  Speaker 1: some types of local governments. If you live in a township,
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  Speaker 1: they are almost exclusively funded by property taxes, and a
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  Speaker 1: lot of county services, senior services, children's services, all of
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  Speaker 1: those kind of things are also predominantly funded through property taxes.
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  Speaker 1: And just put this into kind of a context, if
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  Speaker 1: you look at all the property tax that are raised
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  Speaker 1: throughout the state of Ohio, it's around twenty four billion dollars,
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  Speaker 1: which is more than double what the state brings in
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  Speaker 1: through the state income tax, and is significantly more than
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  Speaker 1: what the state brings in in the state sales tax
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  Speaker 1: as well. So essentially, if you added the income tax
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  Speaker 1: and sales tax at the state level, I think you're
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  Speaker 1: right around there, maybe maybe a little bit ahead. But
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  Speaker 1: basically that's everything that the state does, and there are
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  Speaker 1: two main taxes, and that's what's raised across the whole
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  Speaker 1: state through property taxes. So that's not something that you're
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  Speaker 1: just going to flip the switch and replace overnight.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I know, and that's the train wreck that's going
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  Speaker 2: to inevitably follow because it's going to require a lot
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  Speaker 2: of changes. And one of the problems, at least in
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  Speaker 2: so far as Donovan and Neil from Americans Prosperity has identified,
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  Speaker 2: is Ohio apparently has a lot of local jurisdictions, taxing jurisdictions,
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  Speaker 2: lots of local governments, and there's a tremendous amount of overlap.
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  Speaker 2: And we did it a comparison. We were having a
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  Speaker 2: discussion about this, like the number of local jurisdictions in
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  Speaker 2: Florida versus Ohio. Florida of course has a lot freer,
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  Speaker 2: fewer property and no property tax if I recall correctly.
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  Speaker 2: But how if they can do it, how come we
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  Speaker 2: is sort of the question that needs to be answered.
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  Speaker 2: And his concern is that there are so many overlapping
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  Speaker 2: good services and all these local governments that therein lies
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  Speaker 2: the problem, and you need to fix that by reducing
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  Speaker 2: the number. I see that in and of itself as
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  Speaker 2: an impossible challenge to overcome because everybody used their local
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  Speaker 2: governments as a little feet them and they're not going
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  Speaker 2: to give up their power and control. So is that
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  Speaker 2: even an option, Greg.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I think in the long run it has to be.
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  Speaker 1: I actually think Donovan, who's a good friend, is pretty
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  Speaker 1: much spot on. It's something that I've been talking about
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  Speaker 1: writing about at Buckeye Institute for actually well over a decade.
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  Speaker 1: You really need to think about how we are delivering services.
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  Speaker 1: We need to think about this in the sense of
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  Speaker 1: making sure people get what they want, because there are
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  Speaker 1: definitely services, especially in public safety and obviously schools as well,
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  Speaker 1: that people really do expect, but they want the service
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  Speaker 1: to be delivered effectively, efficiently, and at as limited a
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  Speaker 1: cost clearly as possible. I think there's ways we can
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  Speaker 1: get there because other states, typically southern and western states,
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  Speaker 1: have a lot less layers of local government. This is
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of a legacy of how a lot
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  Speaker 1: of these Midwestern states like Ohio were created. It kind
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  Speaker 1: of comes back to, not to go down the rabbit
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  Speaker 1: hole too far, but the Northwest Ordinance and how we
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  Speaker 1: kind of created the first systems of local government from
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  Speaker 1: townships and kind of building off of there. And so
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  Speaker 1: what happened is we kind of have this legacy that
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  Speaker 1: is a long standing one, and some of these other
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  Speaker 1: states were basically built up and built up their systems
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  Speaker 1: in a much different way. And you know, that is
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  Speaker 1: something you can't just get from point A to point
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  Speaker 1: c without getting to point B first, but it's something
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  Speaker 1: we need to be doing. It won't be easy, but
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  Speaker 1: it's something that we've been pushing the legislation to do.
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  Speaker 1: They're starting to take a look at some bills that
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  Speaker 1: can slowly move us in the direction of getting more
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  Speaker 1: efficient in this space. We have a lot of villages
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  Speaker 1: in Ohio, some that are in some cases below a
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  Speaker 1: thousand people that live there. They have an income tax,
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  Speaker 1: for example, but they don't really necessarily do a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of services. They don't. In some cases, they sometimes struggle
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  Speaker 1: to even get people to run for office to fill
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  Speaker 1: out the village council, you know. And yet these are
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  Speaker 1: out there and you have to ask yourself if they
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  Speaker 1: can't get elected officials or people to even run, are
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  Speaker 1: they really delivering services to folks or are they just
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  Speaker 1: a mechanism for collecting taxes and that don't really go
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  Speaker 1: to what people want them to do. It has to
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  Speaker 1: be done from the grassroots level. I don't think the
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  Speaker 1: state can just impose this or anything like that, but
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  Speaker 1: the state can facilitate looking at some ways to do this,
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  Speaker 1: and there's some bills out there that would help. We
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  Speaker 1: would be supportive of those. It's something we need to
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  Speaker 1: look at. And what worries me about just getting rid
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  Speaker 1: of the property taxes in total is that you don't
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  Speaker 1: You may actually force some of this conversation to happen
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  Speaker 1: in a way that's not very strategic. And that's one
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  Speaker 1: thing that always bothers me is when you start doing
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  Speaker 1: things kind of slap dash because you're in a crisis situation,
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  Speaker 1: you're not necessarily thinking through everything as well as you should.
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  Speaker 1: We need to be taking scalpels to this. We should
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  Speaker 1: have done this years ago. By the way, Yeah, it's
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  Speaker 1: really a shame. It's a shame we're having to have
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  Speaker 1: this conversation.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Greg, I laughed as soon as you said that,
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  Speaker 2: because you know, one of the points I almost wanted
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  Speaker 2: to end on, because we're coming close to the end
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  Speaker 2: of the segment, is you know, the Supreme Court here
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  Speaker 2: in Ohio rule that our funding of public schools is unconstitutional.
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  Speaker 2: It's based on property taxes. That was a couple of
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  Speaker 2: decades ago, and I think you know it, I know it.
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  Speaker 2: That hasn't changed.
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  Speaker 1: Well, there have been a few things that have changed
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  Speaker 1: in there. That's a whole complicated can of worms. I
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  Speaker 1: get in but at the end of the day, here's
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  Speaker 1: the thing. We need to be thinking about how we
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  Speaker 1: deliverity services, and we need to be thinking about what
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  Speaker 1: is delivering for the taxpayers and the residents. I think
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  Speaker 1: a lot of times local government officials and I get
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  Speaker 1: it's human nature, right. If you're an elected if your
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  Speaker 1: a township trustee, you get a state you get state
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  Speaker 1: pension system, you get local government paid insurance. You may
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  Speaker 1: have an incentive. But I'm not trying to like cast
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  Speaker 1: negative light on people. There's a lot of well meaning
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  Speaker 1: people who do good work, but I think a lot
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  Speaker 1: of times they are also self interested in don't want
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  Speaker 1: to see things go away, so they don't really want
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  Speaker 1: to think about how do we reform things. It's the
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  Speaker 1: way it's always been, and people get very comfortable in
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  Speaker 1: their sort of patterns of behavior. We need to start
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  Speaker 1: thinking differently or we're not going to fundamentally solve the
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  Speaker 1: problem that's driving these property taxes. And then if you
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  Speaker 1: get rid of them all overnight, one or two things
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  Speaker 1: is gonna happen. You're either gonna have chaos, as you
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  Speaker 1: were mentioning, yeah, or you're gonna have super super high taxes.
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  Speaker 1: In other ways like sales tax that would be doubling
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  Speaker 1: or more, which would be a competitive disadvantage for the
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  Speaker 1: stay of Ohio. People will just shop in other states,
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  Speaker 1: which will happen guaranteed. I mean that's like you're gonna
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  Speaker 1: literally be hanging a every staying around us will be
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  Speaker 1: hanging a sign on there saying here, come here and
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  Speaker 1: buy from our Costco, our Walmart, you know, or higher
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  Speaker 1: income taxes.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, Well break it all down tonight, Greg Lawton for
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  Speaker 2: the Buckeye Instant Buckeye Institute will do so seven o'clock.
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  Speaker 2: Empower Youamerica dot org. Just make sure you register ahead
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  Speaker 2: of time, log in from home, show up at the
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  Speaker 2: campus and talk and ask questions. Today it's also Christopher
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  Speaker 2: Smithman on the future of the city of Cincinnati. So
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  Speaker 2: a great one two punch there local speakers. Greg, I
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  Speaker 2: appreciate you william us to come on the program today
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  Speaker 2: and talk about this and what you do all week
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  Speaker 2: and day long at the Buckeye Institute, and look forward
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  Speaker 2: to having you back on the show soon. I hope
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  Speaker 2: you have a great seminar tonight.