The Chronicle‘s lefty metro/state editorialist and gossip columnist wants readers to think he’s got the pulse of Republicans and taxes.
Really!
Here’s the start of Rick Casey’s most recent column of (mostly) unsourced gossip:
A friend of mine is a Republican precinct chairman and a skilled engineer who retired as a high-level executive with one of the big oil companies.
He is a very smart man with a very sharp analysis of his tax situation.
Like the rest of us, he has watched taxes on his home rise at a rate higher than inflation, and certainly higher than his income from pensions, Social Security and investments.
Yet he knows that the appraisals of his home that lead to the higher taxes are accurate. Houses in his neighborhood keep selling for more and more.
He could sell his house and net a nice profit. But it’s his neighborhood, his home, with room for his children and grandchildren when they come to town for happy visits.
So he won’t cash in. He just gets taxed as though he did.
“They’re taxing me on my unrealized capital gains,” he says of the property tax.
[snip]
My friend the precinct chairman, not worrying about election to higher office, offers a solution that actually would work.
“Rather than have them tax my unrealized capital gains,” he says, “I’d rather have them tax my income. Then the tax would be based on what I could actually pay.”
As the baby boomers begin joining him in retirement in about two years, when their incomes shrink as their homes become more valuable, my bet is a whole lot of folks will start thinking like my friend the precinct chairman.
If Casey’s unnamed friend is as self-centered as many baby boomers, of course he thinks shifting the tax burden to income from property ownership is the way to go! Why not shift his tax burden to a younger generation of workers if he can get away with it, as his own income drops?
Casey continues:
Already, many elected officials, including Republicans, talk off the record about the need to consider an income tax.
Has he been canvassing Republican officials at those Democratic brown bag lunches he speaks at? Or is he just engaged in the usual gossip?
It’s really hard to take Casey seriously when he starts telling stories.
We are not yet in a climate where discussing it openly is safe for those seeking office.
Yes, those pesky voters continue overwhelmingly to reject the income tax proposals that are floated by liberal gossip columnists and bloggers!
