pudge's Journal: Bad Ad

I saw a really weird ad on Boston TV last night (NESN, watching the Bruins). This guy running for governor of Massachusetts (some independent candidate) was showing that taxes are high. He showed a house, and said in 1990, taxes were $800. In 1998, taxes were $1900. In 2006, taxes were $2100. And he said "taxes are skyrocketing out of control," or words to that effect. But taxes, by his own numbers, have seen only a modest increase in the last eight years, after a huge jump in the previous eight years. That seems to me to argue for the status quo, but he was trying to use those numbers to argue against it.

I think I know who you're talking about

[Timex]

I think you're talking about Christy Mihos [christy2006.com].

There's Mihos running as an Independent, there's Kerry Healey [healeycommittee.com] for the Republican Party, there's Deval Patrick [devalpatrick.com] for the Democratic Party, and Grace Ross [graceandmartina.org] for the Green-Rainbow Party.

Of the four, the only one that I know anything about is Healey, and that's only because the other three (well, mostly Patrick and Mihos) have been ganging-up on her. I don't know much of any differences between Patrick, Mihos, and Ross.

"Go with what you know."

Vote on November 7th!

Re:

[pudge]

Yeah, that's him.

I know nothing about most of them, too. I did get a flyer for Healey in the mail today, though.

And accounting for inflation...

[jdavidb]

If you express the tax on that house in ounces of gold, you get 2.086 oz. of gold in 1990, 6.46 oz. of gold in 1998, and 3.5 oz. of gold in 2006. Definitely moving in the right direction. I'm sure someone else can work it with CPI, but I bet the results are somewhat similar.

Also...

[(trb001)]

...the amount of tax will go up due to a variety of factors, not the least of which being property values. In NoVa (Northern Virginia, outside DC), my property taxes have doubled in the past 5-6 years, but our tax rate has actually declined slightly. Our taxes keep going up because the local economy, fueled by tech and government, skyrocketed and therefore the housing market was hot. The market drove prices/assessments up, affecting taxes.

I guess you can spin a good economy any way you want, but this see