Abolish property taxes for seniors? Bad idea. 

Rep. Nancy Mace is calling for the abolition of property taxes for seniors. 

The congresswoman is running for governor of South Carolina, and she has made similar statements in the past. She is passionate about decreasing taxes for seniors. I understand this impulse, of course. I hate taxes. I’m against them, full stop. In fact, I’ve never met a tax I’d like to keep. So you would probably expect me to be all in favor of Mace’s proposal. 

But I actually disagree with her.  

Now, to be clear, I’d be fully in favor of eliminating property taxes for everyone, no questions asked. I would also be tentatively on board with reducing property taxes for people below a certain wealth threshold, although the details of that would have to be worked out. But just getting rid of property taxes for all seniors is a terrible proposal that disproportionately hurts younger people. 

First, we need to dispense with some false notions. Yes, a hundred years ago it was the case that there were many impoverished senior citizens, and thus we designed the Social Security System to make sure elderly people were not starving on the street. We also crafted Medicare to pay the considerable medical costs of old people. 

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