The Haywood County Commissioners do not want to perform a reval this year. They are not alone. No self-respecting government-grower is going to want to reassess properties when values are down. That government agents don’t say so forthrightly betrays a guilty conscience.

This year was to be a scheduled revaluation year, but commissioners postponed it to allow the market to level off after the real estate boom virtually dried up. Because property sales have been sparse in the past year, there is a lack of recent data to use in computing actual market prices, said David Francis, the county tax collector. He is recommending postponing the process for yet another year.

In addition, the article in the Mountaineer illustrates a lack of thought processes common in modern American governments.

  • Economic activities are seen as “tax base” first and foremost. An increase in tax revenues is now a commonplace selling point to get government to allow one to exercise his property rights.
  • Government feels entitled to pursue its profit motives, while on the flip-side, private sector entities trying to do the same expect to be confronted with new taxes that will turn any increase over to the government.
  • Government doesn’t think it has to trade value for value; it just wants to exercise its ever-growing powers to take. In doing so, it ignores the concept of depletion. The Tea Party movement is a good indication that government donors are now “giving until it hurts.”
  • Governments denied the recession for a couple years, and after admitting its existence for a couple months, they’re claiming everything is on the rebound. Tuesday, Asheville City Council budgeted two items with anticipated available funds.
  • Like an addict who uses every event, fair or foul, as an excuse to binge, the government is using illusions of economic recovery to justify pirating everybody else’s net increase. A generation ago, people thought diverting money from productive activities (manufacturing, distributing, etc.) into non-productive ones (legislating, fee collecting, etc.) was bad for the economy.