from the bigdumbHoosier Archive - 06.21.2001
Don't cut PILT
President* Bush has, of late, taken to standing in some of America's most precious wild lands to demonstrate his commitment to our shared natural heritage. But when it comes to land conservation it's not where you stand, it's what you stand for that counts.
On May 31, Mr. Bush proclaimed his support for "property rights" at Sequoia National Park. More recently, he's appeared in the Everglades, proclaiming he's 'funding our priorities' with $900 million. But the proposal includes millions in cuts to wildlife and urban parks protection. What's really bizarre is the proposal to cut $50 million from the Payment-In-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) fund, which compensates local governments for lost revenue when the federal government acquires land for uses such as national parks, forests, or BLM lands.
The whole 'property rights' crusade is a topic for another day. Suffice it to say rights are often associated with responsibilities and many property rights advocates forget about the second half of that equation. But wherever you are on the political spectrum, one property 'right' that never seems to go away is the right to pay taxes to the government.
Here in rural Indiana, kids still attend public schools funded in large part by local property tax. This funding system may be antiquated and fundamentally unfair to both the children and the taxpayers in low income communities like the one I live in, but that's how it's done. Higher income communities have little interest in sharing their wealth with those scummy kids on the wrong side of the tracks, so it's not likely to change soon. Property taxes support many other local governmental activities too, such as police, ambulance, and roads and bridges.
So local officials hate it when the federal government buys land for use as a park or forest, because that federal land isn't taxable by local governmental units. Taxpaying landowners located within the affected unit don't like it either - their taxes go up to compensate for the lost tax base. This pocketbook issue is potent fuel for driving local opposition to much needed expansion of preserved lands for wildlife, watershed protection, greenspace and recreation.
Consider the economic effect. We all want the federal government to be frugal, therefore we should agree that conservation land purchases try to get the most birds for the buck. Most often, the cheapest places to purchase open land are also places where the property tax impact would be most hurtful: low income rural areas. You can't blame the people in these low income areas, already struggling to stay afloat, from resenting the added tax burden. Often these same areas are already relatively rich in wildlife and open space so residents there may not feel a pressing need for government action to preserve these values.
What's really odd about this decision by the Bush administration is that it ought to be terribly unpopular with 'property rights' advocates. Quite simply it'll mean people in affected taxing units will see their property taxes going up. It appears one of the main reasons for the decision is to fund Bush's income tax cut. How are you going to spend your tax refund? If you live near a national forest, be prepared to spend it on higher property tax. Perhaps the Bush administration won't mind this, because the revenue increases will be on the backs of local officials. I suspect they're counting on the public not to figure this out.
Cutting PILT is just plain bad policy. We have a national system for preserving natural resources. The great cities (and even more, their suburbs) are where the money is at in America. People in the cities want to preserve green spaces, wildlife and the productivity and vitality of the natural world. But these activities must largely occur in rural areas. It makes sense that urban and suburban dwellers help pay for the economic impacts that open land preservation has on rural areas; that means taking income tax money, (or even better, gift and estate tax money) from wealthy urban and suburban areas, and moving it to low income rural areas.
If anything, efforts to subsidize local government services and economic development alongside of natural areas preservation in rural America should be increased, not cut. PILT should include lands acquired by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, for example. Costs can be controlled by adding mechanisms to ensure that funds go to communities that really need the help. PILT should become a reliable source of income for local communities. If local governmental officials, like county commissioners, feel comfortable that the revenue they need for local programs and infrastructure will not be negatively impacted by a new federal preserve, they are much less likely to stir up local opposition with visions of black helicopters, spotted owl roasts, and all those other little acts of demagoguery that can play so well to the turnip truck set.
Yes, as a matter of fact I did ride into town on the turnip truck too. It just wasn't yesterday. If Mr. Bush really wants to put the ax to PILT, it's to make it even harder for the government to get any conservation done, and he's counting on America to fail to notice what he did to PILT. He may be standing among millennia old sequoias, but it's just another greenwash.
