Prior to 1789, French society was segregated into three categories: the First Estate (clergy), the Second Estate (nobility), and the Third Estate (peasants). The Second Estate was exempt from many of the direct taxes known as the taille, and the lost revenue was made up by further taxing the peasants. Historians agree that this exemption was one component that ignited the French Revolution.
Bill 48-26, Property Tax Credit – Public School Employees, introduced by CM Kate Stewart, further extends Second-Estate status to already favored MCPS employees and their unions. Those lucky qualifying employees (almost all of them) accrue a $2,500 property tax credit every year. Remember, last year we all lost the $692 tax credit; their credit is being restored over threefold.
The motivation for this legislation is housing affordability:
“Because of the housing affordability crisis facing residents and public school employees, many cannot afford to purchase a home in the community where they work. Bill 48-26 would provide a property tax credit to incentivize homeownership or help reduce property taxes for a County public school employee’s home.”
Lots of people can’t afford housing where they work. Look at all the people commuting in from Frederick and points north and west, but none of them get the credit. Lots of people are renting, but they don’t get the credit. Non-union MCPS employees don’t get the credit. Only the unionized MCPS employees are granted protection and white privilege from this colonialist legislation.
It gets worse. No income-test is part of the legislation. Presumably, a unionized teacher married to a high-ranking lobbyist, attorney, physician, hedge fund trader, or trust-fund baby qualifies. Unionized MCPS employees living in the affluent neighborhoods qualify. Unionized MCPS employees who send their children to private schools qualify.
If the council members really cared about housing affordability, they would put an end to zoning restrictions and let the developers do what nobody else can do: construct housing. Instead, they use a situation they created to dole out favors to a favored demographic.
How much more resource extraction will MCPS demand of the peasants supporting it? I doubt we’ve seen the end.
