Increasing property taxes means only poor and wealthy remain Increasing property taxes inflict pernicious effects on island housing and business activities. By raising housing costs, increasing property taxes shifts the housing supply curve leftward and intersects the housing demand curve at a new equilibrium with fewer housing units at higher costs. With similar supply-demand dynamics, the higher housing costs extend to higher commercial rental rates and fewer retail businesses.

Adverse demographics follow. The young, the old, and the talented flee the island for cheaper housing and better services. Among the flight are old-time residents and recent inhabitants who maximized their mortgage payments. For both groups, increasing property taxes inevitably raise living costs above incomes and force liquidation or eviction. Both groups then leave on the ferry rewriting Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” with a cruel government replacing a cruel weather syndrome. Gentrification may be the euphemism for this exodus, but it is the grasping hand of government squeezing tighter than the vampire sucks.

Only the poor and the wealthy remain. The hollowing out of the island’s middle class mirrors the hollowing out of America’s middle class. Desperation and anger inflame the exodus as displacement inflames America. The displaced externalize the source of their anger and seek relief from a charismatic leader who justifies their anger by blaming alien groups such as elites and immigrants. America resembles the Weimar Republic in 1933. Whether America elects a similar chancellor is moot. Reducing inequality and anger by reducing property taxes reduces the likelihood of an adverse 2024 transition. The displaced may also reap some rough measure of justice with assessors on the unemployment rolls after placing so many on the eviction rolls.

John Drake

Friday Harbor