Or am I wrong on this?

Josh, Just jumped out at me as I reviewed the last few days posts. Peace.

Capping property (and sales) taxes would be a good way to make a switch to an state income tax more palatable; if you're going to get into constitutional amendments anyway, you might as well go go for the whole package and try to get the state on a more progressive base. Many of the people who oppose a state income tax do so because the (rightly) suspect that it would be in addition to all the existing taxes; establishing it as part of a mechanism that freezes or repeals some of the other taxes is the only way it would get enough support.

Wow, someone in Olympia reads SLOG!

Renters pay property tax too. They are just unaware of it (mostly).

Landlords pay property tax, just like everyone else. When the property taxes go up, do you think they just absorb the added costs? No. They use it as an excuse (completely justifiably) to raise the rents to cover the increase in taxes. So renters pay property tax indirectly through higher rents.

I do wish it were politically possible to shift property tax burdens onto wealthy homeowners by giving each person a property tax deduction equal to the median value home in their area, and then adjusting the tax upwards for all real estate value above the median. That would protect the largest asset of many middle class homeowners, even during a runup in prices or for seniors on a fixed income, while maintaining revenue and ensuring that multi-property landlords paid their fair share.

But with tax politics as they are in this state, with even the estate tax under assault, it's probably futile to ever hope for this kind of sanity on property taxes.

I can also see this encouraging lower-cost condos, because condos below median value would not be taxed on their value alone. This would also discourage people from speculating on flipping condos for a profit, as buying more than one would eventually incur taxes that are avoided with a single property.

The ideal that the government should encourage is one-property ownership of moderately sized homes or condos that increase urban density. Better property tax policy, drafted by someone smarter than me, could help do this.

OK, so I'm exaggerating a bit. Maybe.

That said, he probably thinks RTID will pass too.

Sad, very sad.