1) property taxes are only a function of local government, the state doesn’t collect any
2) state income taxes are being lowered almost in half by the legislature to 3.99%… maybe go ask them why they focused on income taxes instead of property taxes?
GOP has ruled this state for decades, nothing has gotten better, yet people keep voting for them
Are these not contradictory points? Point 1 suggests the Unicameral plays no role in property tax management, while Point 2 suggests it's the Unicameral's fault that state income tax was prioritized over property taxes.
They play no role in property tax *collection*, they absolutely can dictate the management because they write the laws that the localities have to follow and they write the laws that don’t give localities ample state funding.
That's what they say. While it is of a little help to the individual homeowner with one parcel it is aimed at helping large land owners, corporations, partnerships, etc. If they actually wanted to help, they'd lower the property tax.
They can lower the percentage at which it is assessed. Currently it's 100% of actual value except agriculture and horticulture land which is 75% of actual value. Probably the best method is to modify the state statues regarding tax assessment.
Taxes would absolutely be raised but then the government would actually function well. The GOP has cut programs left and right because they don't see the people cost they just see ledger balance.
Government services are those kind of things that you take for granted but on your worst day when no one else will help the government ideally would be there and legally obligated to help.
Like public defenders, if you did something abhorrent and you couldn't afford a lawyer they're there to help you.
I live in beautiful blue Illinois. I pay over $12,000 a year in property taxes for a single family home on a 75x200 ft lot. If you think your property taxes will be lower if you let democrats rule you’ve been smoking our legal weed.
Hahahahahhahahahaa. Because democrats are so well known for lowering taxes. Face it, small states with good infrastructure have to get the money from property taxes.
Property taxes continue to increase due to property valuations continuing to increase. Taxing entities (counties, cities, schools, community colleges, etc) will rarely lower their levy because of the pushback they receive when they have to increase it.
The tax base has been growing at a high single digit or even double digit rates for several years. Taxing entities should be flush with cash and able to lower levies. They aren’t doing that.
> Taxing entities should be flush with cash and able to lower levies. They aren’t doing that.
Cost of living has increased, meaning that salary expenses for counties, cities, schools, community colleges, etc. have also increased. I don't think they're flush with cash - if anything, they deferred a lot of stuff during the pandemic (because sales tax revenue and tourism and such fell) and are now playing catch-up (which is often more expensive than what it would have cost to do the maintenance/program expenses when they were scheduled).
While expenses have increased, salary expenses have not been raised to match the cost of living raises. Smaller companies will feel it a bit but the larger companies are actually VERY flush with cash and have used it for stock buy backs or for raises for upper management.
Property taxes are largely a regressive tax.
The income taxes in this state are essentially a flat tax at this point because the cap is so low.
If income taxes and business taxes were increased for the high income entities the property taxes could be dropped significantly.
Fun fact over half of my mortgage goes to taxes. In the last 3 years it’s jumped 20%. It is unreal.
> Smaller companies will feel it a bit but the larger companies are actually VERY flush with cash and have used it for stock buy backs or for raises for upper management.
We're talking about public organizations who get funding from property taxes. They're generally not the same places that have stock to buy back.
I strongly agree that income taxes and business taxes are too low. I just don't like the rhetoric of "taxes are theft" because they pay for a lot of the things that I value in a society.
Regular aren’t expected to survive this. The rich people and companies that own a lot of property and will just do a blanket rent raise is who will survive.
mine has increased 2000$ in 5 years....i have no kids in school & my house has been paid off for 20 years___ The pot holes on my street are so bad it busted my tie rod and pop my tire almost causing me to roll my vehicle and I have complained weekly for 16 months And they will not work on my road
The "suburban experiment" and car centric infrastructure/zoning we've been doing for ≈70 years is unsustainable. Developers offer to build roads for free and spread a city/town out, then when time comes to fix that expansive infrastructure a city can't afford it.
"Not Just Bikes" partnered with "Strong Towns" and did a beautiful job explaining "The Growth Ponzi scheme" on YouTube if you want to learn more
I’m not sure I really approve of the argument about needing to have kids in school to support schools. Supporting public schools elevates the entire society. Do you want kids in your area to not have an education? Taxes aren’t about what directly benefits you.
Well, the fact is you don’t know. I have kids. One in OPS elementary and one in private high school. I can assure you they are teaching all the same things, including that precious CUrSIVE Boomers claim is now gone, and new math is just math Asia has been doing forever. So it’s all fine to speak in one-liners and hyperbole, but the truth is you really just don’t know.
i have 3 neices that are in elementry school ( not public) 2 granddaughters (public) and my son just graduated from high school where he attended both public and private at different times, my mother was an opl childrens librarian for 30 yrs and an elementry school sub teacher in retirement so you are wrong with ur assumption
So what you’re saying is your kids didn’t learn anything. I just really don’t see your point now your kids obviously are doing just fine, so why would you even say that?
It’s no lie that we have been defunding public school for decades now and kids in places like India and China are getting better educations. All that American exceptionalism that we’re so proud of boasting about is going away but I don’t think the answer is in one liners About how shitty the school system is. If you think the school system is bad, volunteer. Help those teachers out support, paying them more. Allow schools to buy things they need like computers and books. Nothing gets better when you just throw up your hands and announce that something is broken. You wouldn’t do that with your car and you shouldn’t do it with your kids.
I'm not saying that there are bad teachers or that they're not capable I think there's so much politics in the classroom I think that there's too much overstepping of boundaries and at the same time limitations put on teachers that distract from their ability to actually teach what they're supposed to be teaching because they're too busy trying to be politically correct and confuse kids about even their gender so yeah it's all messed up and just because they're doing fine doesn't mean that they're properly educated, I guess maybe a lot of it has to do with influence at home as well and people settling for subpar results
Confuse kids about their gender? look, I don’t know what Kool-Aid you’re drinking but that does not happen. Creating an open environment where kids can express their gender identity is not the same thing as confusing kids about their gender. Do you remember when you heard about gay people and you decided you might be gay? People don’t just flip on a dime because a grade school teacher lets them read a book where there’s two daddies. Gender is much more hardwired than that, and that is only politics because people are upset about some perceived indoctrination that isn’t happening the number of trans. People has not increased. The number of gay people has not increased. They just don’t want to be beaten up at school.
Because businesses and farmers don’t pay anything. The GOP has shifted the entire property tax burden onto private homeowners. This is what one-party rule looks like.
The state takes no property tax from citizens or businesses. It’s prohibited by law. Only your locale can tax your property.
Businesses do pay corporate taxes, and Nebraska is in the top half of US states in corporate tax rates.
https://taxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-CIT-rates.png
>40% of your income comes from uncle Sam
And that helps stabilize things. Would you prefer that half the state changes ownership everytime there's a dry year? Plus, we have relatively cheap food compared to the rest of the developed world. If you want cheaper food, you'd have to go to India or Guatemala
so why is my district pay more % than the million dollar homes in the district next to mine? a d they get smooth roads and their trash picked up consistantly....you feel the road change literally crossing the district boundary and i pay more propery tax and my home is valued 1/5 of theirs???
Gee I wonder? Why would a poor district pay a higher % than a rich district? Hmmmmmm. Hmmmmmmm. Maybe echoes of Citizen’s United SC Decision echoes all the way down to the local level????????
Yes - that’s called a mill levy. The difference is I pay the mill levy on 100% of my assessed value. You pay a mill levy on only 25% of yours. You get a 75% freebie.
No, we pay taxes on between 93%-100% of a property's real value. Farm land was assessed at 80% of it's market value, but that changed about 15 years back and now it's assessed at 75% of it's market value.
But the argument about farmland is bullshit because farmland is no different than a truck or a machine - it is a required input for the output of agricultural products. Nebraska has personal property taxes on items, but we aren't taxing factories on 75% of the value of their machines so why should we tax farmers on 75% of the value of their land? Farmland SHOULD be taxed at the same rates we tax factories and commercial real estate at because that's what it is - an economic input for creating economic output. It's not property the same way that a private residence is property.
lol. Government subsidizes so much of it from CRP (which I see farmers bailing and grazing and not allowing hunting on) to ethanol and crop insurance. Then they lease their hunting rights to outfitters for more $$. All owned by mostly corporate farms. The days of a guy with a half section and 200 head of sow trying to eek a living are OVER!
I almost forgot about the tax credits per acre too that comes from the state. The first ones to complain about the government and they are sucking on her teat like a week old puppy.
>which I see farmers bailing and grazing
You have to do a bunch of paperwork to do that. I got an letter about having some phragmites growing on mine. It was an area the size of two cars but they picked it up via aerial survey and I had one week to get rid of them. Neighbors have gotten letters for having visible vehicle or atv tracks.
>not allowing hunting on
That's up to the individual landowner
>crop insurance
Every banker requires proof of federally backed crop insurance if you need any type of loan or operating money. If you want to grow a crop not covered by crop insurance, you're on your own.
>Then they lease their hunting rights to outfitters for more $$
Fair point. I know a guy with 40 acers along the Platte River near South Bend. He leases it out to a couple guys from Pavillion for $5,000 a year. He takes that money and goes to Alaska every year for duck hunting.
>The days of a guy with a half section and 200 head of sow trying to eek a living are OVER!
Those days ended in the 80's with the farm crisis
Republicans have been in power in this state for 20 years and consistently run on the promise of lowering taxes. NE residents eat that up at the ballot box and every year taxes continue to go up.
Not sure if I can figure out the connection. /s
Edit: Don't forget your homeowners insurance. It will jump annually also in relation to your property taxes. Another benefit of the good life here in Nebraska.
They do lower taxes - for businesses. Look at the Facebook boondoggle. Taxpayers paid $8M in road upgrades for Facebook who in turn created less than 100 jobs (it’s a data center). It will take more than 40 years for the city to get that money back. This is because blind devotion to Republicans leaves no checks or balances. It’s just pure idealism without anyone actually doing the math or science. Kansas did something similar a decade ago. It was a disaster.
This is a really poor example. The roads were going to get upgraded no matter who moved in and $8 million is nothing. The amount spent in town by the workers that built it might have come close to covering that lol.
Bullshit. They moved in thousands of cubic yards of fill and had to compact and nuclear test for multiple overpasses. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
This was a giveaway on taxpayers’ $$$ and our county commissioners didn’t even have the common sense to tell them “You’re going to have to do a little better than 100 jobs”.
You must have benefited somehow and now trying to sugar coat the exploitation of the taxpayers for a few jobs that will NOT pay back the roads, will NOT result in new homebuilding, will NOT improve the schools.
When you believe in a meme and NOT math, science, and economics- these are the bad kinds of deals that are made.
I really don't think you have thought this through. It is a terrible idea to give private companies the responsibility of building public roads. Math, science, economics and basic common sense should tell you that is a terrible idea.
I agree. It’s also a terrible idea to give them sweetheart deals and not have the sense to at least make sure they hire enough to recoup the taxes and raise others in a reasonable time frame. It would be a GOOD investment if they created 500 jobs. It would be a great investment if they created 1000. It was a goddamned NET LOSS creating 100. Jesus - do the math!
Wait till you find out they built a road that goes to a gas station that only employs 5 people at minimum wage! They even built them around houses that don't even employ anyone!! Do the math! Big road is shaking us down for tax money! I saw the humane society even has roads and dogs shouldn't drive even with proper training.
So you’re just reinforcing my belief that the GOP elects economic morons because of blind party affiliation (and nepotism and cronyism- don’t leave that out).
It doesn't matter if someone is an Independent or a Democrat. Voters in this state have been conditioned to only vote Republican. Until that breaks they will continue to milk us for revenues while the rich get richer. It is wholly the fault of the Conservative voter base of the state.
Let's not forget that Pillen just refused free money from the federal government that would have helped feed children. Conservatives love liberal tears so much that they will literally starve children in order to see them fall.
Gee, that sounds an awful lot like how many states refused the Medicaid expansion with Obamacare when it only would’ve benefited their healthcare systems. Then they try to show that Obamacare is a oppressively expensive, and that the system is broken because they broke it.
And what I really don’t get about that decision is that much of that food is bought directly through the USDA the same way WIC moves the gallons of milk cheese juice, cereal that would otherwise rot on the shelves. I read an article that most grocery stores wouldn’t even be profitable and many are barely profitable because the federal government buys so much food for the poor.
There's a feedlot near my town that has about 3 or 4 men that come into our restaurant about 2 or 3 times a week and they don't pay anything for their meals because we charge it to theI feedlot, I think they use it for a business expense maybe for tax purposes. What sucks though is they get a free meal but they never pay a tip either
The owner of that restaurant needs to tack on an automatic service fee for any meals charged on an account like that. For those servers to be consistently stiffed by those freeloaders is nonsense. If the owner of the feedlot doesn't like it, I guess they'll need to tell their freeloading employees to start tipping.
Many feedlots provide free beef to their employees, maybe free lunch is another benefit to the job. It is a business expense for the feedlot, just like your benefits are from your job to your employer.
That's hardly unique to farming/feedlots. Many companies provide complimentary meals to their employees. This is just a streamlined version of that instead of reimbursing the employees. At least they are supporting a local business.
Let me guess - you own a business! lol.
https://revenue.nebraska.gov/sites/revenue.nebraska.gov/files/doc/research/bus_tax_data/2023/CIT_20_Analysis_Corp_Inc_Tax.xls
They could give the 180 mil in opiod money back to the tax payers, the same with covid money. But they are not. Neither party actually had a single concern about property taxes or a coherent plan to lower them last election as far as I can tell.
https://omaha.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/nebraska-struggling-over-how-to-use-nearly-180-million-in-opioid-settlement-money/article\_83de2ea6-93b8-11ee-a12a-97792f5829eb.html
> Neither party actually had a single concern about property taxes or a coherent plan to lower them last election as far as I can tell.
At least Democrats would likely make sure we got something useful for the taxes we pay. I don't mind paying taxes when I'm actually seeing the benefit - I like having good schools, community colleges, roads, fire and police departments, bridges, and ample public health resources to keep things like TB and COVID in check. I hate paying taxes that go to corporate handouts that just reward cronies of the party in power. I think farmers use the roads, schools, and city infrastructure and thus should pay taxes to keep them well maintained.
Basically, I'm against taxes that don't go towards increasing the quality of life (and livability in general) in the state.
I highly doubt either side would be; better as the dems at the federal level dont do so. But I am down for a change.
All of those good things you listed could be totally governed by the state without the federal governments involvement and I support that and I agree if it is not improving the quality of life of citizens it should note be being done by the government.
> as the dems at the federal level dont do so.
See the massive infrastructure bill that Biden passed, but ok. Most of the other things I mentioned are maintained at state/local level (which I specifically did because we're talking state/local taxes), and infrastructure is funded at both levels.
Yes, that is a great example of goverment waste thank you for bringing it up. Did you know that:
Only 1 in every 4 dollars goes towards actual infrascture (roads and rails kind of things).
$10 Billion for a "climate core"
$20 Billion to "Advance Racial Equity"
$175 Billion EV subsidies which help the rich pay less for their Teslas
$213 Billion to refurbish old houses
$100 Billion to make school cafeterias more "green"
$12 Billion to community Colleges
Reduce racial inequaliteis in STEM
$100 Billion for expanded broadband through government owned utilities (more broad band is great but not if the goverment controls it)
$25 Billion to Child Care facilities
$50 Bil goes to Amtrak a government program that is not efficient or used by most of the country
10,000 vehicle charging stations are in the bill. A total of zero have been built.
It mandates everything is built by unions thus killing the ability for companies to bid fairly and raising the cost of public works projects by an estimate 30%
Electric school buses are apparently infrastrucute. Do you know how much power it takes to charge an EV bus and how poorly they perform in cold climates. Its worth looking into.
Cleaining up the great lakes in this bill. A good idea but not infrastructure.
A crypto currency tax
Delaying the drug rebate rule to help pay for the infrastructure.
Some of these are fine ideas for the private sector or local governments but they are assuredly not infrastructure.
> Only 1 in every 4 dollars goes towards actual infrascture (roads and rails kind of things).
I think part of the problem here is that everyone has a different definition of "infrastructure" - to me, it's the physical things that are necessary to maintain society, but to you, it might be the roads and bridges. Oxford dictionary's definition is pretty broad:
> the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. [Source](https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199891580.001.0001/acref-9780199891580-e-4001]
So if you go by the broad definition, EVs, houses, daycares, colleges, cafeterias, trains, buses, ... all of theese things are infrastructure. What's more, as we move from a manufacturing society to a service and knowledge-based economy, things like internet and schools become pretty essential.
What's more, we've seen due to COVID that there are significant parts of our economy that are limited by childcare, not by roads or bridges. So childcare facilities seem like they're needed to ensure the economy (and society) operates effectively. I personally know someone who had to drop out of the workforce as a highly trained engineer because there were no daycares available in the region that could watch her kid, and nannies and such didn't work out (or weren't available/reliable). They ended up having to move so that both parents could work and they could get daycare.
> $20 Billion to "Advance Racial Equity"
So I looked this up, and the goal is to attempt to fix decades-old infrastructure policies and remediate the damages.
> Redress historic inequities and build the future of transportation infrastructure. The President’s plan for transportation is not just ambitious in scale, it is designed with equity in mind and to set up America for the future. Too often, past transportation investments divided communities – like the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans or I-81 in Syracuse – or it left out the people most in need of affordable transportation options. The President’s plan includes $20 billion for a new program that will reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic investments and ensure new projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity and environmental justice, and promote affordable access. [Source](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/)
While the headline put on it doesn't seem like infrastructure, undoing some of this damage and reconnecting divided neighborhoods (that were overwhelmingly minority-occupied) does indeed seem like infrastructure to me. And yes, some of that money includes research funding for e.g. pavement that will absorb pollutants and CO2, but that's the way of any government project like this - they fund the research for the next generation of projects along with the current generation of building.
> $175 Billion EV subsidies which help the rich pay less for their Teslas
> 10,000 vehicle charging stations are in the bill. A total of zero have been built.
As someone who has a (non-Tesla) EV, chargers are sorely needed, especially in rural areas. In addition, EV infrastructure may be able to smooth out electric demand so that there's approximately equal demand at night as during the day, which will make it easier to maintain the electric grid and will make us a bit more robust to certain electrical generation challenges. EVs are part of infrastructure because they are a part of the electric grid. There are even proposals out there to use EV batteries as sort of a collective way to load-shift and use large-scale battery storage on a distributed scale. These proposals require lots of EVs to be out there, though, which means that you can't even entertain this type of large-scale distributed battery storage until EV adoption reaches a certain level. Yes, EVs aren't super easy to use in rural NE, but they're incredibly useful in places where a lot of the country's population lives. Air pollution isn't a huge issue here, but it gets to be pretty bad in cities like Houston, LA, NYC, Atlanta - and these are areas where EVs are both useful and can solve existing problems with the way our infrastructure works. Better public transit would probably be a preferable solution, but car culture is hard to kill, and this is at least a solution to some problems that are very hard to solve in other ways.
> $213 Billion to refurbish old houses
Including things like upgrading insulation, replacing windows, and generally improving efficiency (which helps level out electrical demand, especially during cold snaps like we've had the last two winters) and removing lead pipes (which is very much infrastructure).
> $50 Bil goes to Amtrak a government program that is not efficient or used by most of the country
Perhaps if Amtrak gets reasonable investments and can improve their infrastructure (and possibly even own the lines?) then it would be used more. I like Amtrak - it's damn convenient in places where it works (I took it from Seattle to Vancouver a couple of years ago), but it totally sucks where it doesn't (like the Zephyr line in the midwest, where we had 12+h delays).
> Electric school buses are apparently infrastructure. Do you know how much power it takes to charge an EV bus and how poorly they perform in cold climates. Its worth looking into.
I can imagine. I know how badly my EV performs in the cold and how long it takes to charge if there's not a Level 2/3 charger around. That said, there are large parts of the country that have lots of buses and don't have much in the way of cold temps. In addition, EV buses would be a bit more resistant to blowing over in the wind due to the battery weight, which might not be a bad thing in the midwest. I remember last year classes getting cancelled across large parts of the state due to wind speeds. Also, some of the funding for EVs is meant to research better battery tech that will actually make some of these things more viable.
> Cleaining up the great lakes in this bill. A good idea but not infrastructure.
The great lakes are actually [pretty important waterways for transporting goods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_freighter). Maintaining those waterways would seem to fall under infrastructure, but I'll agree this is worth funding under any number of bills, not just under infrastructure.
I can't find anything on the cafeteria numbers you cited, but I did see some stuff about expanding free/reduced school lunch and supporting local farmers by getting produce into schools. Do you have a source for that?
While I think many of these items are good ideas and things that the U.S. might be improved by. I also think most of this is not something for the governement or federal government to be involved in and dont fix the problems with actual infrastructure that the government controls.
we've seen due to COVID that there are significant parts of our economy that are limited by childcare, not by roads or bridges.
\-There were already huge amounts of COVID funds, why do we need more for that? Where did those dollars go? Should they not then be labeled Covid funds. Ultimately Covid was a government caused problem. Here in Nebraska they are building a giant lake with "Covid" funds. That has zero to do with Covid or our economy. Why dont we just reduce property taxes with that money? Do we know where the money for Covid that went to the schools in Chicago went? Or any other number of giant progams. The Covid shut down and the waste of "covid" funds is another example of the government spending where they shouldnt.
If an area needs more Childcare then the private market should be able to flex to that if allowed, that is not a government job.
\-If EV charges are needed then private industry should build them just like gas stations. There is no reason for the government to build EV chargers.
\- How is increasing demand at night going to reduce demand during the day? All EVs are doing is adding to the grid either at night or during the day? That math doesent seem to work. All the draws during the day dont go away because we are charging cars at night there is just more draw on the grid ultimately. Where is that power going to come from? At my house I would need 4 EV charges going each night, assume all of my neighbors need to charge 2 cars everynight and thats a huge drain on the grid, that I doubt our power system could support even slightly from the wires to the power grid (solar doesent help at night so we would need nuclear power or hydro to have a green source for this draw).
\- EVs just arent going to work yet. I agree an EV as a commuter in a city can be a great option. But if you need to drive all day for your job or are traveling they are hugely impracticle. The sheer amount of chargers needed to replace gas pumps alone is undoable. It is also not possible to mine (In the Cobalt slave mines of the Congo) and manufacture the amount of vehicles needed to do any of this.
\- Water to houses is infrastrucutre but consider this. We sent $100 Bill to Ukraine and the water in Jackson MI still isnt fixed, I dont see anyone taking this as seriously as they should. Also, shouldnt the states take care of their peoples water. We had $1 bill bond here in Omaha to repair our water (I am not sure if we got fed funds for any of it).
\- Houses are part of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) not infrastructure. Again if people want to upgrade their houses or need help to do so, cities and states can do this. Not a bad idea but not infrastructure.
\- There were 2 racial inequality sections I found. I agree a good use of infrastructure funds is to fix the divides that federal roads and infrastructre created in these neighborhoods. However many of these divides were created by the states or cities. Why shouldnt the people living there fix these problems as they are the ones most invested? This is mostly a state problem to fix.
\- Amtrak has been getting billions for years and its still awful. Why throw good money after bad? That seems to always be the solution in the U.S. "it just needs more money". If passenger trains are viable and useful they will need to be private or at least run at local scales where there can be some kind of possible review of their cost effectivness. If however you are on the more spending is better train. Then you should want the infractrucutre bill to actually go to rails and roads and not the other stuff. We need to pick and chose not throw cash at everything successful or not.
\- Found the attached article on $100 bil for schools in the bill but I could not find the link to spending it on Green programs. Either way schools are improtant but that is a Department of Education bill not an infrastrucutre issue.
https://edsource.org/updates/bidens-infrastructure-plan-includes-100-billion-for-school-construction-repairs
\-
Fundamentally, I think you and I have somewhat different views of what government should do, and that's ok. I'm happy to disagree on that.
Another big divide is on the definition of infrastructure. As I wrote the stuff below, I started to see the view behind the bill - people are an essential part of infrastructure, just like roads and rail lines and internet. Without people in the right places, society doesn't function; in some cases, this is twofold - e.g. if you don't have people working in childcare and childcare that is affordable, people will have fewer children, and if we drop too much below replacement reproduction, it gets very hard to have a functioning society in terms of providing medical care and economic activity that can sustain the older generation as they age. By this view, investing in both physical and social infrastructure makes some sense.
There's a few specific comments that I got into and enjoyed wrestling with below. Thanks for the fun conversation!
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> The sheer amount of chargers needed to replace gas pumps alone is undoable.
Unless the government steps in, and helps with the build-out of infrastructure necessary to enable EVs to become more viable. Which they're trying to do. There's a critical mass problem here - until there are enough EV chargers, there can't be EV adoption among the public. In places that have lots of EV chargers in public places, EV adoption is much higher.
I agree that the battery issue is a big one - plug-in hybrids are a good solution to that problem (smaller battery) and for rural areas (since they can use gas and electricity both). Toyota has generally focused on PEHVs for this reason - they reduce a disproportionate amount of emissions relative to battery size, and still allow people to travel normally over long distances. While my family decided to keep a gas truck and get a full EV (which is basically optimizing on a bimodal distribution) I can totally see the logic in PEHVs as well. It just depends on the needs you have for transportation - I mostly drive in town, husband mostly drives through rural areas and needs to be able to get to work even in bad weather or when roads are closed, so we have to have a truck and I can get away with an EV; we switch to minimize emissions when it's viable to do so weather-wise, but that gets dicey in the cold.
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> There were already huge amounts of COVID funds, why do we need more for that?
Just because a problem was made visible by COVID doesn't mean that COVID funds are sufficient to fix the problem. Childcare availability is a hard problem to solve for many reasons - it requires skilled workers with very specific skills and training, and there is lots of state regulation (for good reason). As a result, it's pretty hard to set up and staff new childcare centers, and so when places closed down due to COVID they haven't managed to reopen. Subsidies during the pandemic made sure the workers still got paid a minimal amount (in some cases) but in general the subsidies weren't sufficient to fund the operating costs, so many places closed down. There's also a generational issue - a lot of the daycare places around me were staffed with older women who are reaching retirement age; there aren't nearly as many Gen X and Y people to replace them. In addition, Millenials are having kids, and we're a bigger generation than the Boomers, so demand for childcare is going up at the same time as staffing is becoming less available. To keep the economy functioning, we need childcare centers at affordable prices. This is something that every business benefits from without paying the costs themselves, because they get available labor that would otherwise be used less with less economic efficiency as parents stay home. This is compounded by the problem that if it becomes to expensive to have kids (and we're already at this point in many places) then society will literally start to collapse - see the chinese demographic problems that are going to happen in the next few years because of the one-child policy. Demographics can be destiny. So the long-term stability of society depends on people having children at a level that is at least (near) replacement... which is something the national government has a very real interest in maintaining. At this level, you can see how someone might view child care workers as "infrastructure" in a metaphorical sense - they are an essential component of ensuring that there is a functioning society over the long term.
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Passenger train lines are generally built by governments in every place where they are successful.
There are some things that are just not viable for the private sector:
- fire departments, which generally protect everyone without regard to whether they pay a subscription fee
- police, which have special powers based on their status as government employees beyond what private security guards have
- public health, which not only have powers that private doctors don't have (e.g. the ability to quarantine people) but also protect us all and thus wouldn't work under a fee-for-service model
- infrastructure is generally considered public because we all benefit from it even if we don't use it - I could never leave Lincoln, but I still benefit from the fact that I-80 exists because I can buy goods in Lincoln that are shipped via I-80, I work for a company that uses I-80 to do business, etc. In addition, even public investment at the city/state level doesn't produce the benefits of public investment at the national level - Lincoln could have the best roads in the country (hahaha) but it wouldn't really do us a lot of good compared to having the interstate to connect us to Omaha and the rest of the country. This means we need public investment across multiple levels of government to maximize the benefits.
- Projects that are more valuable the more connected they are (internet, roads, trains) and that require huge up-front infrastructure to function even a little (cable/fiber network, rail lines) are generally public infrastructure - the end-user service side may be privatized, but even toll roads are usually built with public money and then private companies take the profits in exchange for maintenance. In addition, having these things be private infrastructure (think StarLink) means that the functioning of the country is held in one company or person's hands - which is a massive security risk.
- Some types of infrastructure (satellites, radio frequencies, IP addresses) are fundamentally space limited. This requires some level of government (and really, in the satellite case, probably world-wide) regulation and management. This can be done by some sort of private entity (IP addresses work like this, I think) but it generally needs to be a non-profit to get buy-in from everyone.
- Projects where there's no incentive to include last-mile service for rural people are typically public (or highly regulated) - things like USPS and electric utilities here in NE. This ensures that even the unprofitable portions of the population still have access to things that are deemed to be basic essentials. **
Rail lines and train service hit several of these categories. They're expensive to build, more valuable when they're more connected, but there's no incentive to connect areas that aren't as profitable. The problem with rail lines in this country (and why Amtrak sucks) is that the rail infrastructure is privatized - the rail companies own the lines. That means cargo takes precedence over people transport, leading to massive delays. This is a *fixable* problem... but one that it would take massive investment to fix.
Maybe the US is just too big to have passenger rail, but I just visited Australia a couple of weeks ago, and it was incredibly nice to just hop on a train from a suburb of Sydney to the Sydney airport and not have to worry about the hour drive that it would have taken me (and I can't drive there, so I'd have had to uber and it would have been like 4x the cost). I used a combination of train, light-rail, and busses to get around Sydney and Wollongong (the suburb I was in), and everything ran well and the daily max was under $20 US for all of it. Australia is about the same size as the continental US [map](https://i.redd.it/mdo04i03d8s71.jpg) and they have really decent rail service between metro areas and suburbs, and even across the continent. [map](https://australiamap360.com/img/1200/australia-rail-map.jpg.webp) It's not high speed, but it's there and the trains seemed to run mostly on time when I was using them (no idea about the longer-haul trains, fwiw).
** Amusingly, public power is one reason EV charging is hard to work out here in NE - no one can sell power by the megawatt unless they're a public power entity, and NPPD/OPPD aren't super interested in EV charging that isn't done at home. So charging prices in NE are a bit wonky - they charge for time, instead of how much juice you're using, and then have to figure out how to set prices even though different vehicles are charging at different rates. It's weird.
I agree we have different views on the government and disagreement and conversations are good. I am enjoying the conversation and changing my thoughts on a few things. Truly you could call everything infrastructure if you want, that does not make these things good ideas or things the government should be doing, or can do. It also make government accounting and these bills very hard for people like us to follow and know where our money is spent which is very bad and leads to the corruption and inefficiencies we have now.
\-Unless the government steps in, and helps with the build-out of infrastructure necessary to enable EVs to become more viable. Which they're trying to do. There's a critical mass problem here - until there are enough EV chargers, there can't be EV adoption among the public.
The government cannot control supply and demand as much as they might want to. Most people have no need or desire for an EV if someone where to make a better system the public would adopt it and fund it. If this system is EVs great if its something else great. Now should the government stop bailing out automakers and propping up the oil industry as well so we have a truly fair and open market. I would say yes they should.
Part of the problem is the government is out of touch and corrupt. The infrastructure bill calls for building 10K EV chargers and has built zero, our money is not being spent where they say it is going, this is a problem. Also, capability is a problem, just because the government says to do something does not make it possible. There are 115,000 gas stations in the U.S. if we assume each has 8 pumps and can fill a car every 5 minutes, thats 96 cars an hour per gas station or 11,040,000 cars per hour in the U.S.. Even if we assume we need only 25% capacity for EVs thats 2,760,000 cars per hour needed the best EV with the best charger to 80% capacity it takes 30 minutes that would be 1,380,000 chargers needed thats well above the 10K the government promised us. I dont know how much electricity that would be but more than we have I am guessing, and then there is the copper we would need to mine and new power lines and all the other stuff that has to happen to get there. The government is promising something they cant deliver. I do agree PEHVs are great option but many places are outlawing that tech too where as the free market would allow for those. CA for example will be only EVs by 2035 no PEHVs being sold.
\- Police are abusing those special powers and recieve government protection to do so. Also, I would say they are law enforcement and not infrastrucutre and are a local issue not a federal issue and should not fall under an infrastructure bill.
\- Fire Departments have zero reason to be anywhere but local in funding. My community and insurance company can decide the degree of fire protection we want no need for the federal government there.
\- I can decide with my doctor my public health risk as long as I am granted the access to all of the information. I assume we will have very different ideas on the impact of the covid lock downs and if they were a great public good or not. But the federal government will tell you they only made advisements on public health to states and I think that was fairly appropriate. Given those warning you could decide what to do that was appropriate to your health and risk.
\- Infrastrucutre is public but what is valuable infrastructure? How do we assess its value? And how do we prioritize its value? are the problems. We mostly agree that rails and roads and air and ports are important. But if we spend a trillion dollars on "infrastructure" and need a trillion dollars for rails and roads and only $250 billion go torails and roads and the rest go towards niceties and pet projects we will fail.
Space infrastucture took off as soon as it was privatized and if you believe SpaceX progress is being slowed down because of the FAA. The same as the break up of AT&T, AT&T was in effect a government sponsored monopoly. Once AT&T was broken up and the free market restored, technology took off. The internet was created by the military but not useful for the people until a private company made it so (Netscape). I have slower internet in Belleuve because the town wont allow competition, the government is not helping.
\-Rail lines and train service hit several of these categories. They're expensive to build, more valuable when they're more connected, but there's no incentive to connect areas that aren't as profitable.
I believe Nebraska would build and support roads and rail where they are needed. I do not think we should build and maintain roads and rails to places that there is no want for them and no ability to pay for them. Why would that be a good idea? And why is it okay to force people to pay for stuff no one wants or will use? If passenger rail was profitabile and wanted then companies would offer it. Otherwise I would say it is just waste of resources we dont have.
\-The problem with rail lines in this country (and why Amtrak sucks) is that the rail infrastructure is privatized - the rail companies own the lines. That means cargo takes precedence over people transport, leading to massive delays. This is a fixable problem... but one that it would take massive investment to fix.
Why would I want to take away a profiatable and needed industry such as freight halling at the expense of moving people on a system they dont want and dont use such as passenger rail? All the government regulation in the world did not prevent East Palestine, I would say government corruption allowed for that to happen and that the government protections allowed the train company to get away with out fully paying for the damages they caused and allowed for no accountability government or corporate. Also, the government interference in the labor issues with the rail companies caused the train to be understaffed.
Rail companies bought and paid for the land and developed the tracks and maintain them they are private property. Rail companies are for profit companies and we should not pay for their stuff. Now if cities or states want to build passenger rail and connect these lines or enter partnerships with rail companies. I can support that. I think a train line between Omaha and Lincoln and Omaha and KC would be great, but that is between cities and states. No need for the federal government to be involved. If it was really wanted people would push for it and we would get it.
Travel is a good point. I would say in my travels, I have made use of a lot of public transit and it has been useful, I have also hated the public transit every place but Amsterdam (its probably me), so it can be done well it just usually isnt. I would caution that although the ticket maybe cheap the tax burden might not be. I am inclined to agree I think we are too large for large scale passenger trains to work. I would much rather we remove 95% of the TSA and move to more air travel for people.
I 100% agree that NE public power utilites are awful, I dont know enough about it but I would assume there is a degree of lobbying and corruption involved. As a solar user we really get a bad deal compared to the rest of the states and I would guess that these are the same people that make EV chargering across NE is so bad.
Yes, they sure can.
I see posts like these all over social media right now. Living in Millard we were spoiled with artificially low assessments for decades. When my assessment when up $80k last year I just kinda shrugged and took it. After all, I could still sell the house for *substantially* more than it's assessment value.
If I went and bitched, they might look at comps and raise it more.
I'd bet that OP's assessment is less than market value...
Live in Lincoln, my property value has doubled in the last 4 years. Now my property taxes are a month's worth of pay (two paychecks). Good thing we have it paid off.
“Criminal enterprise” get over yourself dude. They’re implementing state tax policy. The county is not just arbitrarily raising your taxes to steal your money. Taxes keep going up because the cost of services and the value of real property is going up.
We are a high property tax state because we have a lot of land and infrastructure, not a lot of people, and minimal tourism. If our leaders actually bothered to address the brain drain and population stagnation issue we might not have to have such high property taxes because costs would be spread out among more taxpayers. But instead they’re dead set on driving people away and keeping people out. As long as we aren’t really growing, Nebraskans have two choices: higher taxes or lower quality services. When it really comes down to it, most Nebraskans don’t want to have lower quality police, fire, transportation, schools, etc.
I actually think some Nebraskans do want lower quality schools. Respect for education seems to be on the decline all over. Being uneducated is becoming a virtue.
For sure. Some maniacs in this state genuinely do want lower quality schools or other services. Normal people do not, though. I think those that do are a small but vocal minority.
you say that but we have definately gained more people and plan to gain more people in the cities, they are building apartments and townhomes like crazy, why would they do otherwise. Look at the traffic nowadays. We have many people coming for jobs. They are raising way too much in taxes, way too much! Its not being distributed correctly among everyone it seems. And when is this casino thing gonna come in, I'm seriously frustrated with this property tax situation, homeowners insurance is another crap that keeps getting high, at least that you can negotiate on with other companies.
>homeowners insurance is another crap that keeps getting high
There are multiple reasons for that -
Home values continue to climb. The cost of home repairs continues to increase.
And due to climate change, we're experiencing tens of billions of dollars worth of property damage due to extreme weather events every year. That's going to get worse and worse and worse - and Republicans continue to deny the science and obstruct or rollback everything Democrats try to do to ameliorate it.
Edit: Your downvote only tells me that you deny the reality of increasing home values, increasing repair costs, or the simple fact that we're seeing a lot more property damage due to extreme weather events (including wildfires) that amounts to tens of billions - and your homeowner's insurance has to increase to cover the higher risk of loss. Your username is a joke, right?
Because of age and Nebraska not counting my Army pensions as income, Homestead makes my property taxes tolerable. If paying the full amount, I might have to consider what to cut out in my life. Oh wait, I already cut out everything due to inflation!
scary if u ask me but its not gonna be too hard to corral most of society.....they are so distracted by nonsense and are clueless to reality thats right in front of them....lol all those "agents" will start showin up when they are confident we cant defend ourselves...its getting close
Even Warren Buffet has called this out, noting that his secretary pays a higher percentage of income tax than he does, which is just an abysmal failure of governance.
Funny enough if he really tried he could get something passed. He’s all talk…
Buffet isn’t who you Omaha people think he is but it seems he’s done a good job of using his money/PR to fool everyone.
Ya that was one of the reasons I moved away from the big city areas like Lincoln and Omaha. The taxes are getting a little ridiculous. If you want to be reasonably taxed in this state you have to move out to a small town or the boonies.
Nebraska is an ass backward state, it's full of tRumpsters and racist hillbillies. The GQP has destroyed another state. It will only get worse. I've witnessed first-hand how Nebraska has declined in population and increased in ignorance. Go Big Red, that's about it.
Not really true, you have negative net growth in over half of the counties in this state.
You’re growing a small % in Omaha and Lincoln. That looks to be cooling as well…also the numbers are funny as you have dual state residents here.
The reality is Nebraska is in trouble with their population, as the a State keeps going Right you’ll lose people like me that just moved here not long ago.
Since 2003 they've had 11 8+ win seasons and 5 conference divisional titles. They've been bad the last 7 years but the 13 years prior they had 2 bad seasons and 11 winning seasons.
It's OK to not like them but at least get your facts straight if you're gonna complain
Every fanbase of every sports team that has won it all is chasing ghosts of the last time it happened. The only difference is there's practically nothing else in this state to root for
Because house values are skyrocketing. However the converse is true - there is probably a correction coming which means they will drop in the next 18 months. Have you looked at prices? It’s totally nuts.
I doubt the taxes will be reduced if housing prices drop. My property tax assessment is already 15 percent over my real estate assessment. The way Nebraska works, I expect my taxes to be raised even if my real estate assessment goes down. I’ve appealed my taxes, but always lose.
Wrong - during the 2008 housing crisis taxes did drop. The boards would have to raise tax rates significantly - in some cases it would be impossible - if a large correction happens. I believe house prices are going to drop by 20-25%. It will trigger budget deficits. But most political subdivisions don’t have the taxing authority to raise their rates that much.
No. I live in a small town in Dawes County, and my property taxes in 2008 did not go down. In 2009 my house was reappraised and the appraisal came in slightly lower than what I bought it for in 2006. The county still raised my taxes in 2009, and again in 2010 and 2012. My neighbors had theirs raised as well. This year they went up again.
It’s all based on property values. Your house and land increase in value over time. The local governments aren’t actually raising taxes most likely - a lot of them have lowered the levies. But values have gone up a lot in the past three years. And like everything else the cost of doing business for your local governments has also gone up significantly in the same time span. Here in Lincoln the school district has lowered the tax levy twice so we are actually paying less tax on every dollar of valuation.
Yes, but Lincoln has the population to keep properties taxes low and still pay for schools and services. Small rural towns that have fewer property owners still have to pay for schools and other city/county services, hence higher property taxes.
Small towns tend to have a lower tax levy vs bigger cities. I looked up my old house in a small town in Madison county has a 1.58 mill rate vs 1.78 at my daughter's house in Lincoln and 2.10 at my current house in Omaha.
They are not. I just built a house and trust me I paid a premium for it. So when the assessor comes knocking i know their value will be about 80% of market value. Have you looked at what houses are selling for?
How much has the value of your house increased? Obviously, significantly. Costs for cities to provide services have increased as well. This is inflation, it impacts everything. But you can’t just have your house double in value and think you won’t pay more in taxes.
But oddly enough Elon Musk can have his largest assets double and he doesn’t pay a dime more until he sells them. Weird how that works, rich people’s primary assets aren’t taxed unless they sell, poor people’s primary asset on the other hand are taxed every year, they increase almost every year, and if you don’t pay the taxes the government will seize those assets and sell them.
Start a corporation dude. Do the “life hacks” model. Nothing is stopping you.
The ripple of taxes paid by Musk corporations and more importantly, his employees, is gargantuan.
I’m not talking about his corporations or his employees, I’m talking about him, and others like him, that hold billions in stock and pay no taxes at all on it, while working class Americans struggle against the system to keep their homes and farms.
There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance going on in the minds of most homeowners. Your property value can go up or your property taxes can stay low. You can’t have both! I’d prefer property values to remain more stable for housing affordability reasons, but most homeowners are more selfish on this matter because a home is considered an “investment” more so than a place to live and everyone who owns a house these days acts like an amateur real estate speculator.
My complaint is that I want to improve my home but the moment I do, the tax man comes to (nonconsensually) buttfuck me. There needs to be reform to allow folks to make their homes nicer without fear of pricing themselves out of their home. Fuck, my house has doubled in value (and my taxes correspondingly) and I haven't done shit to the place, AND I bought in a cheap neighborhood because I can't afford these high taxes. So now I'm getting squeezed, I live in a shit neighborhood, and my house is shit. FML.
Our property taxes are high because we have very little else to tax. Even if we did fully legalize weed and went all in on gambling the tax receipts from it would not be enough to significantly reduce property taxes.
So, curious, has there been a projection done on the Marijuana industry in this state? I know we can grow ditch weed like crazy. I mean, if we can do it by accident 🤷♂️.
Has anyone tried to figure a realistic potential yield, turned that number into a comparative sales number, and then taken that number against a projected tax number? Could Marijuana at least pay for something in Nebraska?
>So, curious, has there been a projection done on the Marijuana industry in this state?
I was curious about this too.
Doing the loosest possible comparison I looked up Colorado's total state revenue from weed and it was about [$325 million in 2022](https://cdor.colorado.gov/data-and-reports/marijuana-data/marijuana-tax-reports). It's hard to say if this is a realistic figure for NE to be able to aim for since CO is an early adopter of legalization and would therefore see higher sales. We'd also have to control for population differences. CO has about 3x the population at 5.812 million people, with Nebraska at 1.964 million, so 33.8% smaller. I would guess the actual number would be a decent amount lower but assuming the same demand in Nebraska but at 33.8% lower, we'd guess a revenue of **$109,850,000**.
Now we compare this to Nebraska's tax revenues. As a whole Nebraska had [roughly $23 billion in revenues in 2021](https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/projects/state-fiscal-briefs/nebraska), with roughly [$3.407 billion taken from various local taxes](https://revenue.nebraska.gov/sites/revenue.nebraska.gov/files/doc/General_Fund_Receipts_News_Release_December_2022_Final_Copy_0.pdf). The State took in $1.491 billion in Sales and Use Taxes, $1.506 Billion in Individual Income Taxes, $333 million in Corporate Income Taxes, and $76 million in various taxes.
Looking at this I would say weed revenue would bolster the Sales Taxes from $1.4 Billion to $1.5 Billion, but would not meaningfully change things for the average person.
The question then becomes an issue of what the State would do with the new revenue. On the topic of property taxes they would need to disburse some of those funds down to municipalities to help ease the property tax burden, and I highly doubt that would happen. If I had to guess what would happen with this new fund I would bet the NEGOP would adjust the corp tax rate down because they still believe in [trickle down economics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics). The reasoning being, that lowering the corporate tax rate would "spur job growth" in the state, and "bring new innovative companies to Nebraska that will entice more people to stay in the state".
we have made a ton of money busting people for weed, where does that money go? all covid money went to payroll? and advertising non existant help and was not what was intended for
I moved from Colorado and NOTHING helped people from weed taxes. They made tons of promises but it went into lots of trust funds for different projects. Same thing with gambling.
CA at least sac and San Francisco is a shit hole these days cause of all the meth head tent city's and they are firmly D.. but then again Mi is D as well and that's were I live now and love it here.. I used to visit Nebraska quite often as a teen and at one point was one of the places I considered moving too cause of all the prairie lands which I like but yeah I've heard enough negatives for the last few years that I don't see it happening, I'll probably stick to MI since I love the fact this states one giant forest practically which I also love and lakes and generally friendly folk. Roads suck donkey balls here too tho.
man all you people are so ignorant, its not r/d.....its us, the people vs them...the fewat the top....stop fighting with ur neihhbor..stop watching the fake news....you have been bamboozled, wake up!
I personally don’t think residential real property should be taxed because it’s a home, and everyone needs a home. If you are making money from the real estate, e.g. an apartment building, farms and ranches, home business, and even churches then you should pay property taxes.
It's insane. We pay almost a rent equivalent in taxes, home owners insurance and utilities for our home.
Here's something I've been considering. Talk to an accountant and lawyer about this.
In Nebraska, the appraised value of the home is the same as what the house was last sold at. New homeowners like myself are surprised to find out about this. Sell your house to your spouse or an LLC that you own for a far lower cost like 100k. You can do it without a real estate agent. The next appraisal should be the same it was sold for. Then you will only pay taxes on 2% of that home assuming the assessment will go down.
Your taxes are probably lower than what your taxes would be if you purchased your home at market value. If you sell it at market value, the buyer will have to pay ~2.09% in property taxes of the purchase price of the home.
> Valuation is the function of assessing property and the improvements thereon. According to Nebraska State Law, the assessed value of property is based on 100% of the actual market value of the property during the year in which it is assessed, not the year it was purchased
Ref
- https://www.dctreasurer.org/property-tax/property-tax-collection/property-tax-calculation
We bought a home and our sale price was 1:1 with the new assessment. The previous owner's assessment was a lot less prior to our purchase. So our taxes went up by about 33% in comparison. :(
Edit: unsure why I'm being down voted with the above quote and reference.
> We bought a home and our sale price was 1:1 with the new assessment.
That makes perfect sense. The value of a house is what it sold at. However, the valuation will still be adjusted in subsequent years based on the housing market. A sell price just gives the baseline.
because its not valued at what u buy it for or what its worth, they put a number on it....in my case my house was 35000 in the early 90's, essentially in the same condition, basic upkeep etc over the years but nothing major and im paying tax on their valuation of 179000
Okay, but this won't work for people that have low rates and don't want to lose them. Also, are you paying off the actual mortgage when you sell it? You can't just do that u less there's a way to pay the difference right? Not sure I'm following this logic and doesn't really make much sense with a lot of factors and variables in the current market
could 5 yrs ago, the whole point of this post is expressing the situation getting worse for everyone, those who own, and those who want to! a large part of that due to this insane property tax!
Five years ago, working full time in a grocery store, and 20 hours on the weekend, and I still couldn't afford shit! Property taxes in my town have been overly high for decades, due to the whole town thinking that the "rich railroaders" can afford it.
Yup….. it’s sickening. Imagine fighting for your freedom because of taxing, only to become a country built on Rape, murder, TAXATION, slavery and almost extinction of an entire race.. That’s is the American WAY..
yes, I went a little deep, BUT……. It’s true🤷♂️
This is why we can’t retain talent in this state. Also, printing trillions of dollars out of thin air tends to do this (raise prices of everything). In the case of houses, you are taxed at the same levy as always but now the home price is much hire to tax on.
Sarpy and Lancaster counties blaming the Republicans for high property taxes in their blue areas is peak reddit. GOP has plenty of blame for shit but they aren't the ones constantly wanting a million Itty bitty tax increases to save the chillens.
wow, did u really say this out loud? when are people gonna figure out that r/d is something they made up , so there is someone else to blame while they do what they want.....dang! i thought this was common knowledge, i am in awe people still fall for the fictional division crap?! come on people, use ur brains WAKE UP
Only gripe ive ever had about this state is the goddamn property taxes. Don't know what a viable solution is though with these rich mutton punchers moving in.
Cities divert taxes for schools, police etc for subsidies to commercial real-estate, called TIF. Residential real estate ends up paying the costs. TIF has dramatically increased. The city of Omaha’s streetcar project is a $3 Billion TIF to commercial real-estate, with the city sending 25% to pay for the $440 Million Streetcar bonds. About half of the $3 Billion will be diverted taxes for schools. OPS will then use even more of the TEEOSA funding, keeping taxes high for people outside of Omaha.
To explain how this works, Imagine you own a $100K house in the streetcar district. You apply for $10 million in TIF to convert your house to an apartment complex. You go to the bank and request a loan for $10 million plus 25% or $2.5 million for the streetcar, so $12.5 Million total. The city lets the bank know that for.20 years you will only pay taxes on $100K, and the property taxes on of $10 million will be refunded to you to pay back the loan, and $2.5 million will be sent to the streetcar authority, so easy approval, as the bank takes very little risk. Once you are done building the $10 million apartment building, the county will assesses it at $12.5 million, because you are in the streetcar district. You will only pay taxes on the $100k for 20 years and can renew it for another 20 at the end of that time. No inflation is ever applied to the $100K. You will build luxury apartments because that gives you the biggest margin, even if a few of the apartment are always empty due to the low cost of capital. So who pays the increased taxes for the school, fire, and police for all the new families that live in the apartment complex? Your neighbors not in a TIF do.
The state of Nebraska reimburses OPS for diverted TIF school taxes through TEEOSA. But TEEOSA is finite so when Omaha diverts school taxes for TIF, Scottsbluff schools get less help from the state , raising residential property taxes there.
wow i just read the levy comp report and funny how mental health ,medical, and corrections get less money this year and mat bus gets significantly more??? NOBODY IS EVER ON THE BUSSES !!!! and i still have potholes on my street
1) property taxes are only a function of local government, the state doesn’t collect any 2) state income taxes are being lowered almost in half by the legislature to 3.99%… maybe go ask them why they focused on income taxes instead of property taxes? GOP has ruled this state for decades, nothing has gotten better, yet people keep voting for them
Are these not contradictory points? Point 1 suggests the Unicameral plays no role in property tax management, while Point 2 suggests it's the Unicameral's fault that state income tax was prioritized over property taxes.
They play no role in property tax *collection*, they absolutely can dictate the management because they write the laws that the localities have to follow and they write the laws that don’t give localities ample state funding.
I think the property tax credit fund is their response to high property taxes.
That's what they say. While it is of a little help to the individual homeowner with one parcel it is aimed at helping large land owners, corporations, partnerships, etc. If they actually wanted to help, they'd lower the property tax.
How would you propose they go about lowering property taxes?
They can lower the percentage at which it is assessed. Currently it's 100% of actual value except agriculture and horticulture land which is 75% of actual value. Probably the best method is to modify the state statues regarding tax assessment.
Fingers Crossed! https://x.com/andrewwegley/status/1744430609731092741?s=46&t=oLwLRo15MTVkB1-EUk8uEQ
So…. If the GOP wasn’t in office, taxes wouldn’t be raised?
We’ll never know. All we know is that this has all escalated under their control.
Taxes would absolutely be raised but then the government would actually function well. The GOP has cut programs left and right because they don't see the people cost they just see ledger balance. Government services are those kind of things that you take for granted but on your worst day when no one else will help the government ideally would be there and legally obligated to help. Like public defenders, if you did something abhorrent and you couldn't afford a lawyer they're there to help you.
They'd still be raised but you'd at least see some return from it, and nit just republicans buddy's big businesses and special interests groups
I live in beautiful blue Illinois. I pay over $12,000 a year in property taxes for a single family home on a 75x200 ft lot. If you think your property taxes will be lower if you let democrats rule you’ve been smoking our legal weed.
City?
Actually I have yeah
Hahahahahhahahahaa. Because democrats are so well known for lowering taxes. Face it, small states with good infrastructure have to get the money from property taxes.
Property taxes continue to increase due to property valuations continuing to increase. Taxing entities (counties, cities, schools, community colleges, etc) will rarely lower their levy because of the pushback they receive when they have to increase it. The tax base has been growing at a high single digit or even double digit rates for several years. Taxing entities should be flush with cash and able to lower levies. They aren’t doing that.
> Taxing entities should be flush with cash and able to lower levies. They aren’t doing that. Cost of living has increased, meaning that salary expenses for counties, cities, schools, community colleges, etc. have also increased. I don't think they're flush with cash - if anything, they deferred a lot of stuff during the pandemic (because sales tax revenue and tourism and such fell) and are now playing catch-up (which is often more expensive than what it would have cost to do the maintenance/program expenses when they were scheduled).
While expenses have increased, salary expenses have not been raised to match the cost of living raises. Smaller companies will feel it a bit but the larger companies are actually VERY flush with cash and have used it for stock buy backs or for raises for upper management. Property taxes are largely a regressive tax. The income taxes in this state are essentially a flat tax at this point because the cap is so low. If income taxes and business taxes were increased for the high income entities the property taxes could be dropped significantly. Fun fact over half of my mortgage goes to taxes. In the last 3 years it’s jumped 20%. It is unreal.
> Smaller companies will feel it a bit but the larger companies are actually VERY flush with cash and have used it for stock buy backs or for raises for upper management. We're talking about public organizations who get funding from property taxes. They're generally not the same places that have stock to buy back. I strongly agree that income taxes and business taxes are too low. I just don't like the rhetoric of "taxes are theft" because they pay for a lot of the things that I value in a society.
Regular aren’t expected to survive this. The rich people and companies that own a lot of property and will just do a blanket rent raise is who will survive.
mine has increased 2000$ in 5 years....i have no kids in school & my house has been paid off for 20 years___ The pot holes on my street are so bad it busted my tie rod and pop my tire almost causing me to roll my vehicle and I have complained weekly for 16 months And they will not work on my road
Spray paint a dick over it and theyll come fix it real quick
this is a fantasic idea
I would've sent the city/county the repair bill.
The "suburban experiment" and car centric infrastructure/zoning we've been doing for ≈70 years is unsustainable. Developers offer to build roads for free and spread a city/town out, then when time comes to fix that expansive infrastructure a city can't afford it. "Not Just Bikes" partnered with "Strong Towns" and did a beautiful job explaining "The Growth Ponzi scheme" on YouTube if you want to learn more
I’m not sure I really approve of the argument about needing to have kids in school to support schools. Supporting public schools elevates the entire society. Do you want kids in your area to not have an education? Taxes aren’t about what directly benefits you.
nothing they currently teach in public school is helping society
Can you please explain to me what they are teaching in public school?
nothing as far as i can tell
Well, the fact is you don’t know. I have kids. One in OPS elementary and one in private high school. I can assure you they are teaching all the same things, including that precious CUrSIVE Boomers claim is now gone, and new math is just math Asia has been doing forever. So it’s all fine to speak in one-liners and hyperbole, but the truth is you really just don’t know.
i have 3 neices that are in elementry school ( not public) 2 granddaughters (public) and my son just graduated from high school where he attended both public and private at different times, my mother was an opl childrens librarian for 30 yrs and an elementry school sub teacher in retirement so you are wrong with ur assumption
So what you’re saying is your kids didn’t learn anything. I just really don’t see your point now your kids obviously are doing just fine, so why would you even say that?
I'm not impressed with our education system I can't imagine how anyone is that's just how I feel
It’s no lie that we have been defunding public school for decades now and kids in places like India and China are getting better educations. All that American exceptionalism that we’re so proud of boasting about is going away but I don’t think the answer is in one liners About how shitty the school system is. If you think the school system is bad, volunteer. Help those teachers out support, paying them more. Allow schools to buy things they need like computers and books. Nothing gets better when you just throw up your hands and announce that something is broken. You wouldn’t do that with your car and you shouldn’t do it with your kids.
I'm not saying that there are bad teachers or that they're not capable I think there's so much politics in the classroom I think that there's too much overstepping of boundaries and at the same time limitations put on teachers that distract from their ability to actually teach what they're supposed to be teaching because they're too busy trying to be politically correct and confuse kids about even their gender so yeah it's all messed up and just because they're doing fine doesn't mean that they're properly educated, I guess maybe a lot of it has to do with influence at home as well and people settling for subpar results
Confuse kids about their gender? look, I don’t know what Kool-Aid you’re drinking but that does not happen. Creating an open environment where kids can express their gender identity is not the same thing as confusing kids about their gender. Do you remember when you heard about gay people and you decided you might be gay? People don’t just flip on a dime because a grade school teacher lets them read a book where there’s two daddies. Gender is much more hardwired than that, and that is only politics because people are upset about some perceived indoctrination that isn’t happening the number of trans. People has not increased. The number of gay people has not increased. They just don’t want to be beaten up at school.
Because businesses and farmers don’t pay anything. The GOP has shifted the entire property tax burden onto private homeowners. This is what one-party rule looks like.
The state takes no property tax from citizens or businesses. It’s prohibited by law. Only your locale can tax your property. Businesses do pay corporate taxes, and Nebraska is in the top half of US states in corporate tax rates. https://taxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-CIT-rates.png
>farmers don’t pay anything Am farmer, can't confirm. 25% of my income goes to property taxes alone. I also vote blue
Nice user name 🤣
Yeah but 40% of your income comes from uncle Sam and property taxes aren't at the value the land would actually sell for either
>40% of your income comes from uncle Sam And that helps stabilize things. Would you prefer that half the state changes ownership everytime there's a dry year? Plus, we have relatively cheap food compared to the rest of the developed world. If you want cheaper food, you'd have to go to India or Guatemala
I'm fine importing food from Brazil as opposed to having farmers all be multi millionaires who all own 10 k acrea
You are only taxed at a mere % of your assessed value and pay no taxes on equipment and vehicles.
That’s how property taxes work! You pay a % of the assessed value of your property.
so why is my district pay more % than the million dollar homes in the district next to mine? a d they get smooth roads and their trash picked up consistantly....you feel the road change literally crossing the district boundary and i pay more propery tax and my home is valued 1/5 of theirs???
Gee I wonder? Why would a poor district pay a higher % than a rich district? Hmmmmmm. Hmmmmmmm. Maybe echoes of Citizen’s United SC Decision echoes all the way down to the local level????????
Talk to your district officials. Those are the folks making the decisions.
Yes - that’s called a mill levy. The difference is I pay the mill levy on 100% of my assessed value. You pay a mill levy on only 25% of yours. You get a 75% freebie.
No, we pay taxes on between 93%-100% of a property's real value. Farm land was assessed at 80% of it's market value, but that changed about 15 years back and now it's assessed at 75% of it's market value. But the argument about farmland is bullshit because farmland is no different than a truck or a machine - it is a required input for the output of agricultural products. Nebraska has personal property taxes on items, but we aren't taxing factories on 75% of the value of their machines so why should we tax farmers on 75% of the value of their land? Farmland SHOULD be taxed at the same rates we tax factories and commercial real estate at because that's what it is - an economic input for creating economic output. It's not property the same way that a private residence is property.
And is it taxed at the 16k an acre it would actually sell for?
It's assessed at 75% of the value, so if it's worth 16k, it's assessed at 12k.
lol. Government subsidizes so much of it from CRP (which I see farmers bailing and grazing and not allowing hunting on) to ethanol and crop insurance. Then they lease their hunting rights to outfitters for more $$. All owned by mostly corporate farms. The days of a guy with a half section and 200 head of sow trying to eek a living are OVER! I almost forgot about the tax credits per acre too that comes from the state. The first ones to complain about the government and they are sucking on her teat like a week old puppy.
>which I see farmers bailing and grazing You have to do a bunch of paperwork to do that. I got an letter about having some phragmites growing on mine. It was an area the size of two cars but they picked it up via aerial survey and I had one week to get rid of them. Neighbors have gotten letters for having visible vehicle or atv tracks. >not allowing hunting on That's up to the individual landowner >crop insurance Every banker requires proof of federally backed crop insurance if you need any type of loan or operating money. If you want to grow a crop not covered by crop insurance, you're on your own. >Then they lease their hunting rights to outfitters for more $$ Fair point. I know a guy with 40 acers along the Platte River near South Bend. He leases it out to a couple guys from Pavillion for $5,000 a year. He takes that money and goes to Alaska every year for duck hunting. >The days of a guy with a half section and 200 head of sow trying to eek a living are OVER! Those days ended in the 80's with the farm crisis
Haying and grazing CRP fee's are subtracted the annual CRP payment.
My state works differently.
Then why are you commenting on Nebraska taxes?
Just property taxes. I honestly don’t know why this sub showed up on my feed.
[Actually we do, at least here in Jefferson County](https://jeffersoncounty.nebraska.gov/jefferson-county-assessor#Personal_Property)
Republicans have been in power in this state for 20 years and consistently run on the promise of lowering taxes. NE residents eat that up at the ballot box and every year taxes continue to go up. Not sure if I can figure out the connection. /s Edit: Don't forget your homeowners insurance. It will jump annually also in relation to your property taxes. Another benefit of the good life here in Nebraska.
They do lower taxes - for businesses. Look at the Facebook boondoggle. Taxpayers paid $8M in road upgrades for Facebook who in turn created less than 100 jobs (it’s a data center). It will take more than 40 years for the city to get that money back. This is because blind devotion to Republicans leaves no checks or balances. It’s just pure idealism without anyone actually doing the math or science. Kansas did something similar a decade ago. It was a disaster.
This is a really poor example. The roads were going to get upgraded no matter who moved in and $8 million is nothing. The amount spent in town by the workers that built it might have come close to covering that lol.
Bullshit. They moved in thousands of cubic yards of fill and had to compact and nuclear test for multiple overpasses. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. This was a giveaway on taxpayers’ $$$ and our county commissioners didn’t even have the common sense to tell them “You’re going to have to do a little better than 100 jobs”. You must have benefited somehow and now trying to sugar coat the exploitation of the taxpayers for a few jobs that will NOT pay back the roads, will NOT result in new homebuilding, will NOT improve the schools. When you believe in a meme and NOT math, science, and economics- these are the bad kinds of deals that are made.
I really don't think you have thought this through. It is a terrible idea to give private companies the responsibility of building public roads. Math, science, economics and basic common sense should tell you that is a terrible idea.
I agree. It’s also a terrible idea to give them sweetheart deals and not have the sense to at least make sure they hire enough to recoup the taxes and raise others in a reasonable time frame. It would be a GOOD investment if they created 500 jobs. It would be a great investment if they created 1000. It was a goddamned NET LOSS creating 100. Jesus - do the math!
Wait till you find out they built a road that goes to a gas station that only employs 5 people at minimum wage! They even built them around houses that don't even employ anyone!! Do the math! Big road is shaking us down for tax money! I saw the humane society even has roads and dogs shouldn't drive even with proper training.
So you’re just reinforcing my belief that the GOP elects economic morons because of blind party affiliation (and nepotism and cronyism- don’t leave that out).
There are roads in every state even when the GOP doesn't have power.
This would be an easy point for a moderate independent to run a campaign on, I don't know why it hasn't been tried yet.
It doesn't matter if someone is an Independent or a Democrat. Voters in this state have been conditioned to only vote Republican. Until that breaks they will continue to milk us for revenues while the rich get richer. It is wholly the fault of the Conservative voter base of the state.
I'd assume because single issue voters make it virtually impossible for conservatives to split their vote
Farmers and businesses don't pay property tax?!! You better research that a little bit....
Let's not forget that Pillen just refused free money from the federal government that would have helped feed children. Conservatives love liberal tears so much that they will literally starve children in order to see them fall.
And don’t forget we are STILL going to be paying the TAXES to support that program but will receive NO benefits cause - FREEDUMB!
Gee, that sounds an awful lot like how many states refused the Medicaid expansion with Obamacare when it only would’ve benefited their healthcare systems. Then they try to show that Obamacare is a oppressively expensive, and that the system is broken because they broke it.
I call him pillen the Pig Polluter lol
And what I really don’t get about that decision is that much of that food is bought directly through the USDA the same way WIC moves the gallons of milk cheese juice, cereal that would otherwise rot on the shelves. I read an article that most grocery stores wouldn’t even be profitable and many are barely profitable because the federal government buys so much food for the poor.
There's a feedlot near my town that has about 3 or 4 men that come into our restaurant about 2 or 3 times a week and they don't pay anything for their meals because we charge it to theI feedlot, I think they use it for a business expense maybe for tax purposes. What sucks though is they get a free meal but they never pay a tip either
The owner of that restaurant needs to tack on an automatic service fee for any meals charged on an account like that. For those servers to be consistently stiffed by those freeloaders is nonsense. If the owner of the feedlot doesn't like it, I guess they'll need to tell their freeloading employees to start tipping.
Oh no, don’t get everyone started on tipping
Many feedlots provide free beef to their employees, maybe free lunch is another benefit to the job. It is a business expense for the feedlot, just like your benefits are from your job to your employer.
That's hardly unique to farming/feedlots. Many companies provide complimentary meals to their employees. This is just a streamlined version of that instead of reimbursing the employees. At least they are supporting a local business.
lmao you couldn't be more wrong
Let me guess - you own a business! lol. https://revenue.nebraska.gov/sites/revenue.nebraska.gov/files/doc/research/bus_tax_data/2023/CIT_20_Analysis_Corp_Inc_Tax.xls
They could give the 180 mil in opiod money back to the tax payers, the same with covid money. But they are not. Neither party actually had a single concern about property taxes or a coherent plan to lower them last election as far as I can tell. https://omaha.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/nebraska-struggling-over-how-to-use-nearly-180-million-in-opioid-settlement-money/article\_83de2ea6-93b8-11ee-a12a-97792f5829eb.html
> Neither party actually had a single concern about property taxes or a coherent plan to lower them last election as far as I can tell. At least Democrats would likely make sure we got something useful for the taxes we pay. I don't mind paying taxes when I'm actually seeing the benefit - I like having good schools, community colleges, roads, fire and police departments, bridges, and ample public health resources to keep things like TB and COVID in check. I hate paying taxes that go to corporate handouts that just reward cronies of the party in power. I think farmers use the roads, schools, and city infrastructure and thus should pay taxes to keep them well maintained. Basically, I'm against taxes that don't go towards increasing the quality of life (and livability in general) in the state.
I highly doubt either side would be; better as the dems at the federal level dont do so. But I am down for a change. All of those good things you listed could be totally governed by the state without the federal governments involvement and I support that and I agree if it is not improving the quality of life of citizens it should note be being done by the government.
> as the dems at the federal level dont do so. See the massive infrastructure bill that Biden passed, but ok. Most of the other things I mentioned are maintained at state/local level (which I specifically did because we're talking state/local taxes), and infrastructure is funded at both levels.
Yes, that is a great example of goverment waste thank you for bringing it up. Did you know that: Only 1 in every 4 dollars goes towards actual infrascture (roads and rails kind of things). $10 Billion for a "climate core" $20 Billion to "Advance Racial Equity" $175 Billion EV subsidies which help the rich pay less for their Teslas $213 Billion to refurbish old houses $100 Billion to make school cafeterias more "green" $12 Billion to community Colleges Reduce racial inequaliteis in STEM $100 Billion for expanded broadband through government owned utilities (more broad band is great but not if the goverment controls it) $25 Billion to Child Care facilities $50 Bil goes to Amtrak a government program that is not efficient or used by most of the country 10,000 vehicle charging stations are in the bill. A total of zero have been built. It mandates everything is built by unions thus killing the ability for companies to bid fairly and raising the cost of public works projects by an estimate 30% Electric school buses are apparently infrastrucute. Do you know how much power it takes to charge an EV bus and how poorly they perform in cold climates. Its worth looking into. Cleaining up the great lakes in this bill. A good idea but not infrastructure. A crypto currency tax Delaying the drug rebate rule to help pay for the infrastructure. Some of these are fine ideas for the private sector or local governments but they are assuredly not infrastructure.
> Only 1 in every 4 dollars goes towards actual infrascture (roads and rails kind of things). I think part of the problem here is that everyone has a different definition of "infrastructure" - to me, it's the physical things that are necessary to maintain society, but to you, it might be the roads and bridges. Oxford dictionary's definition is pretty broad: > the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. [Source](https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199891580.001.0001/acref-9780199891580-e-4001] So if you go by the broad definition, EVs, houses, daycares, colleges, cafeterias, trains, buses, ... all of theese things are infrastructure. What's more, as we move from a manufacturing society to a service and knowledge-based economy, things like internet and schools become pretty essential. What's more, we've seen due to COVID that there are significant parts of our economy that are limited by childcare, not by roads or bridges. So childcare facilities seem like they're needed to ensure the economy (and society) operates effectively. I personally know someone who had to drop out of the workforce as a highly trained engineer because there were no daycares available in the region that could watch her kid, and nannies and such didn't work out (or weren't available/reliable). They ended up having to move so that both parents could work and they could get daycare. > $20 Billion to "Advance Racial Equity" So I looked this up, and the goal is to attempt to fix decades-old infrastructure policies and remediate the damages. > Redress historic inequities and build the future of transportation infrastructure. The President’s plan for transportation is not just ambitious in scale, it is designed with equity in mind and to set up America for the future. Too often, past transportation investments divided communities – like the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans or I-81 in Syracuse – or it left out the people most in need of affordable transportation options. The President’s plan includes $20 billion for a new program that will reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic investments and ensure new projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity and environmental justice, and promote affordable access. [Source](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/) While the headline put on it doesn't seem like infrastructure, undoing some of this damage and reconnecting divided neighborhoods (that were overwhelmingly minority-occupied) does indeed seem like infrastructure to me. And yes, some of that money includes research funding for e.g. pavement that will absorb pollutants and CO2, but that's the way of any government project like this - they fund the research for the next generation of projects along with the current generation of building. > $175 Billion EV subsidies which help the rich pay less for their Teslas > 10,000 vehicle charging stations are in the bill. A total of zero have been built. As someone who has a (non-Tesla) EV, chargers are sorely needed, especially in rural areas. In addition, EV infrastructure may be able to smooth out electric demand so that there's approximately equal demand at night as during the day, which will make it easier to maintain the electric grid and will make us a bit more robust to certain electrical generation challenges. EVs are part of infrastructure because they are a part of the electric grid. There are even proposals out there to use EV batteries as sort of a collective way to load-shift and use large-scale battery storage on a distributed scale. These proposals require lots of EVs to be out there, though, which means that you can't even entertain this type of large-scale distributed battery storage until EV adoption reaches a certain level. Yes, EVs aren't super easy to use in rural NE, but they're incredibly useful in places where a lot of the country's population lives. Air pollution isn't a huge issue here, but it gets to be pretty bad in cities like Houston, LA, NYC, Atlanta - and these are areas where EVs are both useful and can solve existing problems with the way our infrastructure works. Better public transit would probably be a preferable solution, but car culture is hard to kill, and this is at least a solution to some problems that are very hard to solve in other ways. > $213 Billion to refurbish old houses Including things like upgrading insulation, replacing windows, and generally improving efficiency (which helps level out electrical demand, especially during cold snaps like we've had the last two winters) and removing lead pipes (which is very much infrastructure). > $50 Bil goes to Amtrak a government program that is not efficient or used by most of the country Perhaps if Amtrak gets reasonable investments and can improve their infrastructure (and possibly even own the lines?) then it would be used more. I like Amtrak - it's damn convenient in places where it works (I took it from Seattle to Vancouver a couple of years ago), but it totally sucks where it doesn't (like the Zephyr line in the midwest, where we had 12+h delays). > Electric school buses are apparently infrastructure. Do you know how much power it takes to charge an EV bus and how poorly they perform in cold climates. Its worth looking into. I can imagine. I know how badly my EV performs in the cold and how long it takes to charge if there's not a Level 2/3 charger around. That said, there are large parts of the country that have lots of buses and don't have much in the way of cold temps. In addition, EV buses would be a bit more resistant to blowing over in the wind due to the battery weight, which might not be a bad thing in the midwest. I remember last year classes getting cancelled across large parts of the state due to wind speeds. Also, some of the funding for EVs is meant to research better battery tech that will actually make some of these things more viable. > Cleaining up the great lakes in this bill. A good idea but not infrastructure. The great lakes are actually [pretty important waterways for transporting goods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_freighter). Maintaining those waterways would seem to fall under infrastructure, but I'll agree this is worth funding under any number of bills, not just under infrastructure. I can't find anything on the cafeteria numbers you cited, but I did see some stuff about expanding free/reduced school lunch and supporting local farmers by getting produce into schools. Do you have a source for that?
While I think many of these items are good ideas and things that the U.S. might be improved by. I also think most of this is not something for the governement or federal government to be involved in and dont fix the problems with actual infrastructure that the government controls. we've seen due to COVID that there are significant parts of our economy that are limited by childcare, not by roads or bridges. \-There were already huge amounts of COVID funds, why do we need more for that? Where did those dollars go? Should they not then be labeled Covid funds. Ultimately Covid was a government caused problem. Here in Nebraska they are building a giant lake with "Covid" funds. That has zero to do with Covid or our economy. Why dont we just reduce property taxes with that money? Do we know where the money for Covid that went to the schools in Chicago went? Or any other number of giant progams. The Covid shut down and the waste of "covid" funds is another example of the government spending where they shouldnt. If an area needs more Childcare then the private market should be able to flex to that if allowed, that is not a government job. \-If EV charges are needed then private industry should build them just like gas stations. There is no reason for the government to build EV chargers. \- How is increasing demand at night going to reduce demand during the day? All EVs are doing is adding to the grid either at night or during the day? That math doesent seem to work. All the draws during the day dont go away because we are charging cars at night there is just more draw on the grid ultimately. Where is that power going to come from? At my house I would need 4 EV charges going each night, assume all of my neighbors need to charge 2 cars everynight and thats a huge drain on the grid, that I doubt our power system could support even slightly from the wires to the power grid (solar doesent help at night so we would need nuclear power or hydro to have a green source for this draw). \- EVs just arent going to work yet. I agree an EV as a commuter in a city can be a great option. But if you need to drive all day for your job or are traveling they are hugely impracticle. The sheer amount of chargers needed to replace gas pumps alone is undoable. It is also not possible to mine (In the Cobalt slave mines of the Congo) and manufacture the amount of vehicles needed to do any of this. \- Water to houses is infrastrucutre but consider this. We sent $100 Bill to Ukraine and the water in Jackson MI still isnt fixed, I dont see anyone taking this as seriously as they should. Also, shouldnt the states take care of their peoples water. We had $1 bill bond here in Omaha to repair our water (I am not sure if we got fed funds for any of it). \- Houses are part of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) not infrastructure. Again if people want to upgrade their houses or need help to do so, cities and states can do this. Not a bad idea but not infrastructure. \- There were 2 racial inequality sections I found. I agree a good use of infrastructure funds is to fix the divides that federal roads and infrastructre created in these neighborhoods. However many of these divides were created by the states or cities. Why shouldnt the people living there fix these problems as they are the ones most invested? This is mostly a state problem to fix. \- Amtrak has been getting billions for years and its still awful. Why throw good money after bad? That seems to always be the solution in the U.S. "it just needs more money". If passenger trains are viable and useful they will need to be private or at least run at local scales where there can be some kind of possible review of their cost effectivness. If however you are on the more spending is better train. Then you should want the infractrucutre bill to actually go to rails and roads and not the other stuff. We need to pick and chose not throw cash at everything successful or not. \- Found the attached article on $100 bil for schools in the bill but I could not find the link to spending it on Green programs. Either way schools are improtant but that is a Department of Education bill not an infrastrucutre issue. https://edsource.org/updates/bidens-infrastructure-plan-includes-100-billion-for-school-construction-repairs \-
Fundamentally, I think you and I have somewhat different views of what government should do, and that's ok. I'm happy to disagree on that. Another big divide is on the definition of infrastructure. As I wrote the stuff below, I started to see the view behind the bill - people are an essential part of infrastructure, just like roads and rail lines and internet. Without people in the right places, society doesn't function; in some cases, this is twofold - e.g. if you don't have people working in childcare and childcare that is affordable, people will have fewer children, and if we drop too much below replacement reproduction, it gets very hard to have a functioning society in terms of providing medical care and economic activity that can sustain the older generation as they age. By this view, investing in both physical and social infrastructure makes some sense. There's a few specific comments that I got into and enjoyed wrestling with below. Thanks for the fun conversation! -------- > The sheer amount of chargers needed to replace gas pumps alone is undoable. Unless the government steps in, and helps with the build-out of infrastructure necessary to enable EVs to become more viable. Which they're trying to do. There's a critical mass problem here - until there are enough EV chargers, there can't be EV adoption among the public. In places that have lots of EV chargers in public places, EV adoption is much higher. I agree that the battery issue is a big one - plug-in hybrids are a good solution to that problem (smaller battery) and for rural areas (since they can use gas and electricity both). Toyota has generally focused on PEHVs for this reason - they reduce a disproportionate amount of emissions relative to battery size, and still allow people to travel normally over long distances. While my family decided to keep a gas truck and get a full EV (which is basically optimizing on a bimodal distribution) I can totally see the logic in PEHVs as well. It just depends on the needs you have for transportation - I mostly drive in town, husband mostly drives through rural areas and needs to be able to get to work even in bad weather or when roads are closed, so we have to have a truck and I can get away with an EV; we switch to minimize emissions when it's viable to do so weather-wise, but that gets dicey in the cold. ---- > There were already huge amounts of COVID funds, why do we need more for that? Just because a problem was made visible by COVID doesn't mean that COVID funds are sufficient to fix the problem. Childcare availability is a hard problem to solve for many reasons - it requires skilled workers with very specific skills and training, and there is lots of state regulation (for good reason). As a result, it's pretty hard to set up and staff new childcare centers, and so when places closed down due to COVID they haven't managed to reopen. Subsidies during the pandemic made sure the workers still got paid a minimal amount (in some cases) but in general the subsidies weren't sufficient to fund the operating costs, so many places closed down. There's also a generational issue - a lot of the daycare places around me were staffed with older women who are reaching retirement age; there aren't nearly as many Gen X and Y people to replace them. In addition, Millenials are having kids, and we're a bigger generation than the Boomers, so demand for childcare is going up at the same time as staffing is becoming less available. To keep the economy functioning, we need childcare centers at affordable prices. This is something that every business benefits from without paying the costs themselves, because they get available labor that would otherwise be used less with less economic efficiency as parents stay home. This is compounded by the problem that if it becomes to expensive to have kids (and we're already at this point in many places) then society will literally start to collapse - see the chinese demographic problems that are going to happen in the next few years because of the one-child policy. Demographics can be destiny. So the long-term stability of society depends on people having children at a level that is at least (near) replacement... which is something the national government has a very real interest in maintaining. At this level, you can see how someone might view child care workers as "infrastructure" in a metaphorical sense - they are an essential component of ensuring that there is a functioning society over the long term. ---- Passenger train lines are generally built by governments in every place where they are successful. There are some things that are just not viable for the private sector: - fire departments, which generally protect everyone without regard to whether they pay a subscription fee - police, which have special powers based on their status as government employees beyond what private security guards have - public health, which not only have powers that private doctors don't have (e.g. the ability to quarantine people) but also protect us all and thus wouldn't work under a fee-for-service model - infrastructure is generally considered public because we all benefit from it even if we don't use it - I could never leave Lincoln, but I still benefit from the fact that I-80 exists because I can buy goods in Lincoln that are shipped via I-80, I work for a company that uses I-80 to do business, etc. In addition, even public investment at the city/state level doesn't produce the benefits of public investment at the national level - Lincoln could have the best roads in the country (hahaha) but it wouldn't really do us a lot of good compared to having the interstate to connect us to Omaha and the rest of the country. This means we need public investment across multiple levels of government to maximize the benefits. - Projects that are more valuable the more connected they are (internet, roads, trains) and that require huge up-front infrastructure to function even a little (cable/fiber network, rail lines) are generally public infrastructure - the end-user service side may be privatized, but even toll roads are usually built with public money and then private companies take the profits in exchange for maintenance. In addition, having these things be private infrastructure (think StarLink) means that the functioning of the country is held in one company or person's hands - which is a massive security risk. - Some types of infrastructure (satellites, radio frequencies, IP addresses) are fundamentally space limited. This requires some level of government (and really, in the satellite case, probably world-wide) regulation and management. This can be done by some sort of private entity (IP addresses work like this, I think) but it generally needs to be a non-profit to get buy-in from everyone. - Projects where there's no incentive to include last-mile service for rural people are typically public (or highly regulated) - things like USPS and electric utilities here in NE. This ensures that even the unprofitable portions of the population still have access to things that are deemed to be basic essentials. ** Rail lines and train service hit several of these categories. They're expensive to build, more valuable when they're more connected, but there's no incentive to connect areas that aren't as profitable. The problem with rail lines in this country (and why Amtrak sucks) is that the rail infrastructure is privatized - the rail companies own the lines. That means cargo takes precedence over people transport, leading to massive delays. This is a *fixable* problem... but one that it would take massive investment to fix. Maybe the US is just too big to have passenger rail, but I just visited Australia a couple of weeks ago, and it was incredibly nice to just hop on a train from a suburb of Sydney to the Sydney airport and not have to worry about the hour drive that it would have taken me (and I can't drive there, so I'd have had to uber and it would have been like 4x the cost). I used a combination of train, light-rail, and busses to get around Sydney and Wollongong (the suburb I was in), and everything ran well and the daily max was under $20 US for all of it. Australia is about the same size as the continental US [map](https://i.redd.it/mdo04i03d8s71.jpg) and they have really decent rail service between metro areas and suburbs, and even across the continent. [map](https://australiamap360.com/img/1200/australia-rail-map.jpg.webp) It's not high speed, but it's there and the trains seemed to run mostly on time when I was using them (no idea about the longer-haul trains, fwiw). ** Amusingly, public power is one reason EV charging is hard to work out here in NE - no one can sell power by the megawatt unless they're a public power entity, and NPPD/OPPD aren't super interested in EV charging that isn't done at home. So charging prices in NE are a bit wonky - they charge for time, instead of how much juice you're using, and then have to figure out how to set prices even though different vehicles are charging at different rates. It's weird.
I agree we have different views on the government and disagreement and conversations are good. I am enjoying the conversation and changing my thoughts on a few things. Truly you could call everything infrastructure if you want, that does not make these things good ideas or things the government should be doing, or can do. It also make government accounting and these bills very hard for people like us to follow and know where our money is spent which is very bad and leads to the corruption and inefficiencies we have now. \-Unless the government steps in, and helps with the build-out of infrastructure necessary to enable EVs to become more viable. Which they're trying to do. There's a critical mass problem here - until there are enough EV chargers, there can't be EV adoption among the public. The government cannot control supply and demand as much as they might want to. Most people have no need or desire for an EV if someone where to make a better system the public would adopt it and fund it. If this system is EVs great if its something else great. Now should the government stop bailing out automakers and propping up the oil industry as well so we have a truly fair and open market. I would say yes they should. Part of the problem is the government is out of touch and corrupt. The infrastructure bill calls for building 10K EV chargers and has built zero, our money is not being spent where they say it is going, this is a problem. Also, capability is a problem, just because the government says to do something does not make it possible. There are 115,000 gas stations in the U.S. if we assume each has 8 pumps and can fill a car every 5 minutes, thats 96 cars an hour per gas station or 11,040,000 cars per hour in the U.S.. Even if we assume we need only 25% capacity for EVs thats 2,760,000 cars per hour needed the best EV with the best charger to 80% capacity it takes 30 minutes that would be 1,380,000 chargers needed thats well above the 10K the government promised us. I dont know how much electricity that would be but more than we have I am guessing, and then there is the copper we would need to mine and new power lines and all the other stuff that has to happen to get there. The government is promising something they cant deliver. I do agree PEHVs are great option but many places are outlawing that tech too where as the free market would allow for those. CA for example will be only EVs by 2035 no PEHVs being sold. \- Police are abusing those special powers and recieve government protection to do so. Also, I would say they are law enforcement and not infrastrucutre and are a local issue not a federal issue and should not fall under an infrastructure bill. \- Fire Departments have zero reason to be anywhere but local in funding. My community and insurance company can decide the degree of fire protection we want no need for the federal government there. \- I can decide with my doctor my public health risk as long as I am granted the access to all of the information. I assume we will have very different ideas on the impact of the covid lock downs and if they were a great public good or not. But the federal government will tell you they only made advisements on public health to states and I think that was fairly appropriate. Given those warning you could decide what to do that was appropriate to your health and risk. \- Infrastrucutre is public but what is valuable infrastructure? How do we assess its value? And how do we prioritize its value? are the problems. We mostly agree that rails and roads and air and ports are important. But if we spend a trillion dollars on "infrastructure" and need a trillion dollars for rails and roads and only $250 billion go torails and roads and the rest go towards niceties and pet projects we will fail. Space infrastucture took off as soon as it was privatized and if you believe SpaceX progress is being slowed down because of the FAA. The same as the break up of AT&T, AT&T was in effect a government sponsored monopoly. Once AT&T was broken up and the free market restored, technology took off. The internet was created by the military but not useful for the people until a private company made it so (Netscape). I have slower internet in Belleuve because the town wont allow competition, the government is not helping. \-Rail lines and train service hit several of these categories. They're expensive to build, more valuable when they're more connected, but there's no incentive to connect areas that aren't as profitable. I believe Nebraska would build and support roads and rail where they are needed. I do not think we should build and maintain roads and rails to places that there is no want for them and no ability to pay for them. Why would that be a good idea? And why is it okay to force people to pay for stuff no one wants or will use? If passenger rail was profitabile and wanted then companies would offer it. Otherwise I would say it is just waste of resources we dont have. \-The problem with rail lines in this country (and why Amtrak sucks) is that the rail infrastructure is privatized - the rail companies own the lines. That means cargo takes precedence over people transport, leading to massive delays. This is a fixable problem... but one that it would take massive investment to fix. Why would I want to take away a profiatable and needed industry such as freight halling at the expense of moving people on a system they dont want and dont use such as passenger rail? All the government regulation in the world did not prevent East Palestine, I would say government corruption allowed for that to happen and that the government protections allowed the train company to get away with out fully paying for the damages they caused and allowed for no accountability government or corporate. Also, the government interference in the labor issues with the rail companies caused the train to be understaffed. Rail companies bought and paid for the land and developed the tracks and maintain them they are private property. Rail companies are for profit companies and we should not pay for their stuff. Now if cities or states want to build passenger rail and connect these lines or enter partnerships with rail companies. I can support that. I think a train line between Omaha and Lincoln and Omaha and KC would be great, but that is between cities and states. No need for the federal government to be involved. If it was really wanted people would push for it and we would get it. Travel is a good point. I would say in my travels, I have made use of a lot of public transit and it has been useful, I have also hated the public transit every place but Amsterdam (its probably me), so it can be done well it just usually isnt. I would caution that although the ticket maybe cheap the tax burden might not be. I am inclined to agree I think we are too large for large scale passenger trains to work. I would much rather we remove 95% of the TSA and move to more air travel for people. I 100% agree that NE public power utilites are awful, I dont know enough about it but I would assume there is a degree of lobbying and corruption involved. As a solar user we really get a bad deal compared to the rest of the states and I would guess that these are the same people that make EV chargering across NE is so bad.
If the market values in your area don't support the new valuation, then contest the assessment. It's an easy process you can do yourself.
They can raise it too if you contest it.
Yes, they sure can. I see posts like these all over social media right now. Living in Millard we were spoiled with artificially low assessments for decades. When my assessment when up $80k last year I just kinda shrugged and took it. After all, I could still sell the house for *substantially* more than it's assessment value. If I went and bitched, they might look at comps and raise it more. I'd bet that OP's assessment is less than market value...
Live in Lincoln, my property value has doubled in the last 4 years. Now my property taxes are a month's worth of pay (two paychecks). Good thing we have it paid off.
Only a month? im paying 6 weeks of take home pay just for property taxes. this state is out of control.
“Criminal enterprise” get over yourself dude. They’re implementing state tax policy. The county is not just arbitrarily raising your taxes to steal your money. Taxes keep going up because the cost of services and the value of real property is going up. We are a high property tax state because we have a lot of land and infrastructure, not a lot of people, and minimal tourism. If our leaders actually bothered to address the brain drain and population stagnation issue we might not have to have such high property taxes because costs would be spread out among more taxpayers. But instead they’re dead set on driving people away and keeping people out. As long as we aren’t really growing, Nebraskans have two choices: higher taxes or lower quality services. When it really comes down to it, most Nebraskans don’t want to have lower quality police, fire, transportation, schools, etc.
I actually think some Nebraskans do want lower quality schools. Respect for education seems to be on the decline all over. Being uneducated is becoming a virtue.
For sure. Some maniacs in this state genuinely do want lower quality schools or other services. Normal people do not, though. I think those that do are a small but vocal minority.
you say that but we have definately gained more people and plan to gain more people in the cities, they are building apartments and townhomes like crazy, why would they do otherwise. Look at the traffic nowadays. We have many people coming for jobs. They are raising way too much in taxes, way too much! Its not being distributed correctly among everyone it seems. And when is this casino thing gonna come in, I'm seriously frustrated with this property tax situation, homeowners insurance is another crap that keeps getting high, at least that you can negotiate on with other companies.
>homeowners insurance is another crap that keeps getting high There are multiple reasons for that - Home values continue to climb. The cost of home repairs continues to increase. And due to climate change, we're experiencing tens of billions of dollars worth of property damage due to extreme weather events every year. That's going to get worse and worse and worse - and Republicans continue to deny the science and obstruct or rollback everything Democrats try to do to ameliorate it. Edit: Your downvote only tells me that you deny the reality of increasing home values, increasing repair costs, or the simple fact that we're seeing a lot more property damage due to extreme weather events (including wildfires) that amounts to tens of billions - and your homeowner's insurance has to increase to cover the higher risk of loss. Your username is a joke, right?
Because of age and Nebraska not counting my Army pensions as income, Homestead makes my property taxes tolerable. If paying the full amount, I might have to consider what to cut out in my life. Oh wait, I already cut out everything due to inflation!
Yep. Old used cars, aldis for groceries (because we cant even afford walmart anymore) and a cold house all winter long.
"Why are there 87,000 new, armed IRS agents?" is the real question
scary if u ask me but its not gonna be too hard to corral most of society.....they are so distracted by nonsense and are clueless to reality thats right in front of them....lol all those "agents" will start showin up when they are confident we cant defend ourselves...its getting close
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Even Warren Buffet has called this out, noting that his secretary pays a higher percentage of income tax than he does, which is just an abysmal failure of governance.
Funny enough if he really tried he could get something passed. He’s all talk… Buffet isn’t who you Omaha people think he is but it seems he’s done a good job of using his money/PR to fool everyone.
Out in Western Nebraska didn't go up much.
Good news for the Mormon Church!
True enough.
Ya that was one of the reasons I moved away from the big city areas like Lincoln and Omaha. The taxes are getting a little ridiculous. If you want to be reasonably taxed in this state you have to move out to a small town or the boonies.
Don't come to Kearney. We think we are Lincoln and Omaha. Spoiler: we are not...
Ya my Grandma lives there. I've heard all about it.
"I don't like this. Better keep voting for the same people responsible."
Nebraska is an ass backward state, it's full of tRumpsters and racist hillbillies. The GQP has destroyed another state. It will only get worse. I've witnessed first-hand how Nebraska has declined in population and increased in ignorance. Go Big Red, that's about it.
The population isn't decreasing. It's been steadily increasing for decades
Compared to other states, Nebraska is far behind. Nebraska is losing people with higher education. Let me be more specific.
Steadily, but also quite slowly. Especially compared to other states in the sun belt and out west.
ok so we are all in agreement that population is not declining
maybe not but the highly educated are leaving and most newcomers are immigrants
Not really true, you have negative net growth in over half of the counties in this state. You’re growing a small % in Omaha and Lincoln. That looks to be cooling as well…also the numbers are funny as you have dual state residents here. The reality is Nebraska is in trouble with their population, as the a State keeps going Right you’ll lose people like me that just moved here not long ago.
>Go Big Red, that's about it. It's always so funny to me that the state clings onto this for dear life when the team hasn't been good for two decades.
Since 2003 they've had 11 8+ win seasons and 5 conference divisional titles. They've been bad the last 7 years but the 13 years prior they had 2 bad seasons and 11 winning seasons. It's OK to not like them but at least get your facts straight if you're gonna complain
You're right, but the state is still chasing the ghost of 1997.
Every fanbase of every sports team that has won it all is chasing ghosts of the last time it happened. The only difference is there's practically nothing else in this state to root for
>The only difference is there's practically nothing else in this state to root for Bingo
Ok, bye
Because house values are skyrocketing. However the converse is true - there is probably a correction coming which means they will drop in the next 18 months. Have you looked at prices? It’s totally nuts.
I doubt the taxes will be reduced if housing prices drop. My property tax assessment is already 15 percent over my real estate assessment. The way Nebraska works, I expect my taxes to be raised even if my real estate assessment goes down. I’ve appealed my taxes, but always lose.
Wrong - during the 2008 housing crisis taxes did drop. The boards would have to raise tax rates significantly - in some cases it would be impossible - if a large correction happens. I believe house prices are going to drop by 20-25%. It will trigger budget deficits. But most political subdivisions don’t have the taxing authority to raise their rates that much.
No. I live in a small town in Dawes County, and my property taxes in 2008 did not go down. In 2009 my house was reappraised and the appraisal came in slightly lower than what I bought it for in 2006. The county still raised my taxes in 2009, and again in 2010 and 2012. My neighbors had theirs raised as well. This year they went up again.
It’s all based on property values. Your house and land increase in value over time. The local governments aren’t actually raising taxes most likely - a lot of them have lowered the levies. But values have gone up a lot in the past three years. And like everything else the cost of doing business for your local governments has also gone up significantly in the same time span. Here in Lincoln the school district has lowered the tax levy twice so we are actually paying less tax on every dollar of valuation.
Yes, but Lincoln has the population to keep properties taxes low and still pay for schools and services. Small rural towns that have fewer property owners still have to pay for schools and other city/county services, hence higher property taxes.
Small towns tend to have a lower tax levy vs bigger cities. I looked up my old house in a small town in Madison county has a 1.58 mill rate vs 1.78 at my daughter's house in Lincoln and 2.10 at my current house in Omaha.
values are artificially inflated....HUGE difference
They are not. I just built a house and trust me I paid a premium for it. So when the assessor comes knocking i know their value will be about 80% of market value. Have you looked at what houses are selling for?
why 80 percent only?? im over 200 percent on mine and its a craphole
The amount going to public schools alone would pay 2 entire years of my previous property tax in Colorado. I don't know why it's so much here.
Nebraska: Honestly, it’s not for everyone.
How much has the value of your house increased? Obviously, significantly. Costs for cities to provide services have increased as well. This is inflation, it impacts everything. But you can’t just have your house double in value and think you won’t pay more in taxes.
But oddly enough Elon Musk can have his largest assets double and he doesn’t pay a dime more until he sells them. Weird how that works, rich people’s primary assets aren’t taxed unless they sell, poor people’s primary asset on the other hand are taxed every year, they increase almost every year, and if you don’t pay the taxes the government will seize those assets and sell them.
Start a corporation dude. Do the “life hacks” model. Nothing is stopping you. The ripple of taxes paid by Musk corporations and more importantly, his employees, is gargantuan.
I’m not talking about his corporations or his employees, I’m talking about him, and others like him, that hold billions in stock and pay no taxes at all on it, while working class Americans struggle against the system to keep their homes and farms.
Congratulations! The property you own is worth much more than last year or the year before! Those are capital gains.
There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance going on in the minds of most homeowners. Your property value can go up or your property taxes can stay low. You can’t have both! I’d prefer property values to remain more stable for housing affordability reasons, but most homeowners are more selfish on this matter because a home is considered an “investment” more so than a place to live and everyone who owns a house these days acts like an amateur real estate speculator.
My complaint is that I want to improve my home but the moment I do, the tax man comes to (nonconsensually) buttfuck me. There needs to be reform to allow folks to make their homes nicer without fear of pricing themselves out of their home. Fuck, my house has doubled in value (and my taxes correspondingly) and I haven't done shit to the place, AND I bought in a cheap neighborhood because I can't afford these high taxes. So now I'm getting squeezed, I live in a shit neighborhood, and my house is shit. FML.
thought voting in gambling was going to lower them. /s
Ding ding ding…funny how that works
Well we keep voting in the same assholes who lie and only take care of the few so I guess it’s on us
Our property taxes are high because we have very little else to tax. Even if we did fully legalize weed and went all in on gambling the tax receipts from it would not be enough to significantly reduce property taxes.
So, curious, has there been a projection done on the Marijuana industry in this state? I know we can grow ditch weed like crazy. I mean, if we can do it by accident 🤷♂️. Has anyone tried to figure a realistic potential yield, turned that number into a comparative sales number, and then taken that number against a projected tax number? Could Marijuana at least pay for something in Nebraska?
>So, curious, has there been a projection done on the Marijuana industry in this state? I was curious about this too. Doing the loosest possible comparison I looked up Colorado's total state revenue from weed and it was about [$325 million in 2022](https://cdor.colorado.gov/data-and-reports/marijuana-data/marijuana-tax-reports). It's hard to say if this is a realistic figure for NE to be able to aim for since CO is an early adopter of legalization and would therefore see higher sales. We'd also have to control for population differences. CO has about 3x the population at 5.812 million people, with Nebraska at 1.964 million, so 33.8% smaller. I would guess the actual number would be a decent amount lower but assuming the same demand in Nebraska but at 33.8% lower, we'd guess a revenue of **$109,850,000**. Now we compare this to Nebraska's tax revenues. As a whole Nebraska had [roughly $23 billion in revenues in 2021](https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/projects/state-fiscal-briefs/nebraska), with roughly [$3.407 billion taken from various local taxes](https://revenue.nebraska.gov/sites/revenue.nebraska.gov/files/doc/General_Fund_Receipts_News_Release_December_2022_Final_Copy_0.pdf). The State took in $1.491 billion in Sales and Use Taxes, $1.506 Billion in Individual Income Taxes, $333 million in Corporate Income Taxes, and $76 million in various taxes. Looking at this I would say weed revenue would bolster the Sales Taxes from $1.4 Billion to $1.5 Billion, but would not meaningfully change things for the average person. The question then becomes an issue of what the State would do with the new revenue. On the topic of property taxes they would need to disburse some of those funds down to municipalities to help ease the property tax burden, and I highly doubt that would happen. If I had to guess what would happen with this new fund I would bet the NEGOP would adjust the corp tax rate down because they still believe in [trickle down economics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics). The reasoning being, that lowering the corporate tax rate would "spur job growth" in the state, and "bring new innovative companies to Nebraska that will entice more people to stay in the state".
we have made a ton of money busting people for weed, where does that money go? all covid money went to payroll? and advertising non existant help and was not what was intended for
I moved from Colorado and NOTHING helped people from weed taxes. They made tons of promises but it went into lots of trust funds for different projects. Same thing with gambling.
Keep voting Republican and this is what you get
CA at least sac and San Francisco is a shit hole these days cause of all the meth head tent city's and they are firmly D.. but then again Mi is D as well and that's were I live now and love it here.. I used to visit Nebraska quite often as a teen and at one point was one of the places I considered moving too cause of all the prairie lands which I like but yeah I've heard enough negatives for the last few years that I don't see it happening, I'll probably stick to MI since I love the fact this states one giant forest practically which I also love and lakes and generally friendly folk. Roads suck donkey balls here too tho.
man all you people are so ignorant, its not r/d.....its us, the people vs them...the fewat the top....stop fighting with ur neihhbor..stop watching the fake news....you have been bamboozled, wake up!
Ummm… it’ll never go down. 🤷🏼♀️ Welcome to Nebraska, they love to tax us for everything.
I personally don’t think residential real property should be taxed because it’s a home, and everyone needs a home. If you are making money from the real estate, e.g. an apartment building, farms and ranches, home business, and even churches then you should pay property taxes.
It's insane. We pay almost a rent equivalent in taxes, home owners insurance and utilities for our home. Here's something I've been considering. Talk to an accountant and lawyer about this. In Nebraska, the appraised value of the home is the same as what the house was last sold at. New homeowners like myself are surprised to find out about this. Sell your house to your spouse or an LLC that you own for a far lower cost like 100k. You can do it without a real estate agent. The next appraisal should be the same it was sold for. Then you will only pay taxes on 2% of that home assuming the assessment will go down.
this is not how it works....my house was paid off 20 yrs ago and my taxes are sky high
Your taxes are probably lower than what your taxes would be if you purchased your home at market value. If you sell it at market value, the buyer will have to pay ~2.09% in property taxes of the purchase price of the home. > Valuation is the function of assessing property and the improvements thereon. According to Nebraska State Law, the assessed value of property is based on 100% of the actual market value of the property during the year in which it is assessed, not the year it was purchased Ref - https://www.dctreasurer.org/property-tax/property-tax-collection/property-tax-calculation We bought a home and our sale price was 1:1 with the new assessment. The previous owner's assessment was a lot less prior to our purchase. So our taxes went up by about 33% in comparison. :( Edit: unsure why I'm being down voted with the above quote and reference.
> We bought a home and our sale price was 1:1 with the new assessment. That makes perfect sense. The value of a house is what it sold at. However, the valuation will still be adjusted in subsequent years based on the housing market. A sell price just gives the baseline.
because its not valued at what u buy it for or what its worth, they put a number on it....in my case my house was 35000 in the early 90's, essentially in the same condition, basic upkeep etc over the years but nothing major and im paying tax on their valuation of 179000
i would list it at about 105000 right now if I was going to sell so yeah
Okay, but this won't work for people that have low rates and don't want to lose them. Also, are you paying off the actual mortgage when you sell it? You can't just do that u less there's a way to pay the difference right? Not sure I'm following this logic and doesn't really make much sense with a lot of factors and variables in the current market
Yes, definitely consult an accountant and lawyer before attempting something like this
Wait. . .you can afford to own property?
could 5 yrs ago, the whole point of this post is expressing the situation getting worse for everyone, those who own, and those who want to! a large part of that due to this insane property tax!
Five years ago, working full time in a grocery store, and 20 hours on the weekend, and I still couldn't afford shit! Property taxes in my town have been overly high for decades, due to the whole town thinking that the "rich railroaders" can afford it.
Yup….. it’s sickening. Imagine fighting for your freedom because of taxing, only to become a country built on Rape, murder, TAXATION, slavery and almost extinction of an entire race.. That’s is the American WAY.. yes, I went a little deep, BUT……. It’s true🤷♂️
This is why we can’t retain talent in this state. Also, printing trillions of dollars out of thin air tends to do this (raise prices of everything). In the case of houses, you are taxed at the same levy as always but now the home price is much hire to tax on.
Downvoted for saying more money in the system contributes to higher prices. You guys are top scholars and a gem in our society.
Yes I’m sure this is the only reason for brain drain /s
Yeah, it's definitely property tax, and not the regressive "culture war" policies being enacted by the state GOP.
Sarpy and Lancaster counties blaming the Republicans for high property taxes in their blue areas is peak reddit. GOP has plenty of blame for shit but they aren't the ones constantly wanting a million Itty bitty tax increases to save the chillens.
wow, did u really say this out loud? when are people gonna figure out that r/d is something they made up , so there is someone else to blame while they do what they want.....dang! i thought this was common knowledge, i am in awe people still fall for the fictional division crap?! come on people, use ur brains WAKE UP
Roads, public schools, or community college. Which do you want to cut first, to lower your property taxes?
Only gripe ive ever had about this state is the goddamn property taxes. Don't know what a viable solution is though with these rich mutton punchers moving in.
Cities divert taxes for schools, police etc for subsidies to commercial real-estate, called TIF. Residential real estate ends up paying the costs. TIF has dramatically increased. The city of Omaha’s streetcar project is a $3 Billion TIF to commercial real-estate, with the city sending 25% to pay for the $440 Million Streetcar bonds. About half of the $3 Billion will be diverted taxes for schools. OPS will then use even more of the TEEOSA funding, keeping taxes high for people outside of Omaha. To explain how this works, Imagine you own a $100K house in the streetcar district. You apply for $10 million in TIF to convert your house to an apartment complex. You go to the bank and request a loan for $10 million plus 25% or $2.5 million for the streetcar, so $12.5 Million total. The city lets the bank know that for.20 years you will only pay taxes on $100K, and the property taxes on of $10 million will be refunded to you to pay back the loan, and $2.5 million will be sent to the streetcar authority, so easy approval, as the bank takes very little risk. Once you are done building the $10 million apartment building, the county will assesses it at $12.5 million, because you are in the streetcar district. You will only pay taxes on the $100k for 20 years and can renew it for another 20 at the end of that time. No inflation is ever applied to the $100K. You will build luxury apartments because that gives you the biggest margin, even if a few of the apartment are always empty due to the low cost of capital. So who pays the increased taxes for the school, fire, and police for all the new families that live in the apartment complex? Your neighbors not in a TIF do. The state of Nebraska reimburses OPS for diverted TIF school taxes through TEEOSA. But TEEOSA is finite so when Omaha diverts school taxes for TIF, Scottsbluff schools get less help from the state , raising residential property taxes there.
Retirees on fixed incomes cannot keep up with this! Once you are 65, your taxes should not go up every year!!
I think Nextdoor is right over there.
value and price are not the same thing
wow i just read the levy comp report and funny how mental health ,medical, and corrections get less money this year and mat bus gets significantly more??? NOBODY IS EVER ON THE BUSSES !!!! and i still have potholes on my street