In 2003 New York state collected $39,799,848,868 (39.8 billion) in taxes 59.5% from personal income - 23.7 billion 26.4% from sales/excise/use (retail, tobacco, gas, those weird charges on your phone bill) - 8.4 billion 11.1% from corporations/business - 4.4 billion 2.9% from property tax (people who own property) - 1.1 billion 0.1% other (I'm not sure what other is yet)

Http://www.tax.state.ny.us/pdf/stats/Stat_FY/2002_03_Annual_Statistical_Repo Rt_of_NY_State_Tax_Collections.pdf

Two economists: Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, great friends and terrific polemists (they liked to argue, often disagreed, but ultimately had similar goals)

Malthus was religiously educated and Ricardo was a hands on savvy businessman who didn't go to school really

Both Malthus and Ricardo wanted to eradicate "the poor" - not kill them, no, it's probably better to say they wanted to eradicate poverty. Important components of this debate centered around "the corn laws" in England 1830's and the "poor laws" (16th century to present day welfare system) - and ultimately comes down to concepts of rent and taxes.

The corn laws: England wanted to impose huge tariffs on corn imported from France (which was cheaper for France to make than it was for England to make). If England imported the corn without tariffs the cost of corn would go down, fewer people would want to lease land to grow corn (as profits dropped), and the land owners would be f*cked. The merchant class (bourgeoisie) wanted to repeal the corn laws (remove the tariffs) because they saw it as an opportunity to make more cash, import it cheap without renting land and sell it at profit. Most people (left and right) in England didn't want to repeal its "poor laws" which offered welfare assistance to families based on the number of children in a household which some believed encouraged poor families to have more children. (Sound familiar?) England was worried that if it stopped public assistance the economy would fail because no one would have any money to buy any goods. (This should not be an automatic assumption)

Both Ricardo and Malthus wanted to repeal the corn laws and the poor laws for different reasons. Both wanted to make the poor richer and the rich poorer, not just in their home state England but internationally. In a sense they were concerned with global (as they understood it) sustainability and an increased quality of life for all, or at least more, people.

Malthus was obsessed with population control. He believed the world would outgrow its food supply and encouraging families to reproduce would just worsen the epidemic. (He was very wrong, but whatever). Ricardo saw a relationship between less profit for landowners and more profit for merchants; merchants would be able to hire workers away from farms into new trades, invent new technologies and create new industry, heralding England as a sort of manufacturing center for all sorts of goods instead of trying to grow corn in that miserable weather. Ironically Ricardo's views most negatively impacted his class of landowners and made him a sort of uncle tom of the upper classes. Malthus, traditionally a "for the people" kind of guy, was trying to eradicate welfare, brandishing him with the same Uncle Tom status.

Keep reading, there is relevance here. I hope.

The issue at hand is rent and what should be taxed.

Http://homepages.uel.ac.uk/M.deangelis/213ln4.htm

Economists of the day and still today believe that there is more money to be gained via property tax than a flat or even floating renters tax. I have yet to find the latest statistics but i think it's something like 65% more revenue is anticipated via property tax. Except if you look at the statistics at the top of this missive from New York State I'm not so certain property taxes are all that relevant or useful. I'm stretching my very naive understanding of all this but it seems that personal tax on income and wages far supersedes tax from property ownership thanks to the many loopholes created by our government to protect land owners. And I'm not sure it would be *that* difficult theoretically to convert some of what we call "income tax" into what we could call "renters" tax.

There's another consideration in regards to "rent" Many economists believe that rent includes renting the environment. So a tax on renters does not just mean taxing us on what we pay for our apartments or land, it also means taxing corporations (who by legal definition are "individuals" - see 'the corporation' film for a quick summary of this) for the pollution they emit and the external costs of the environmental impact of the products they make. Jonathan Hadler is a good person to read for this stuff - he's an eco lawyer type. Http://home.earthlink.net/~jhadler/

If property taxes decrease it may seem that landowner's profits will increase - less taxes for them to pay! However, if the burden is placed on the renter (individuals and corporations) renters will have less money, sales of goods will go down, wages will decrease, rents will further decrease, and landowners will sink in the quicksand of their greed (and have to actually learn a trade besides arbitrage - the making of money off money's fluctuating value). Meanwhile, as history has proven, people will adapt and innovate new ways to pay for/exchange/maybe even barter for needed goods, and perhaps there is a small crack in the sidewalk of economic and cultural reform that could promote economic & environmental sustainability and a higher quality of living via less need for damaging products. Ever the optimist...



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