The Beacon Center's 12 Days of pork, #7: "Covering a bullet hole with a band-aid," Nashville's 34% property tax earns the “Pork of the Year” award for 2020.

Reposted from The Beacon Center - COVID-19 aside, the city of Nashville is having a moment with a booming economy fueled by tourism and hundreds of people moving to the city every week, fleeing from high tax cities like New York City or Los Angeles. And somehow, despite skyrocketing tax revenue, the city is effectively broke. 

Of course, instead of evaluating how the city could possibly be in debt when bringing in so much money (see: hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate handouts, excessive spending, and a bloated and oversized city government), the mayor and City Council decided to raise the property taxes of hard-working Nashvillians by a whopping 34% while making very few sacrifices themselves. 

No changes to the unbelievably generous pension system, no spending cap, and of course no repeal of the uniquely egregious lifetime health insurance benefits for City Council members. At a time when many people are coming to Nashville because of its low taxes, Mayor Cooper and the city council seem hell-bent on making sure the growth comes to a screeching halt so that we end up like another Chicago. 

For that reason, the pending 34% property tax increase in red-hot Nashville earns the “Pork of the Year” award for 2020. 

Solution: Instead of raising property taxes, Nashville should reform its pension system, reform healthcare and post-employment benefits, rightsize the government workforce, renegotiate and reign in corporate welfare deals, and enact a spending cap. 

 on the seventh day of Christmas, the government gave to me… an unfair tax hike with which we disagree 

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