Jackson County could be headed for serious times. We just read how they could not let each fire district subsist on its own taxes because some areas of town were too poor, relying heavily on the wealthy homeowners in Cashiers. That is just one example of how the rich people shouldered the tax burden there. The second-home market in the nearby town of Highlands plays a similar role in neighboring Macon County.

Today, we read the average decrease in property values in Jackson County was 26%; in Macon, 25%. The steepest declines were in undeveloped property and McMansions. One area reported a 45% decrease in values. As a sign of things to come, Dare County out east reacted to a 29% overall decrease in property values by increasing the tax rate from 28 to 41 cents.

Revals will go into effect in 2015 in Macon County and 2016 in Jackson County. Revals have been postponed two years with an expectation that prices should rise soon, but instead, housing prices have dropped, thanks to home owners celebrating the recovery by selling their homes at ridiculously low prices.

And thus we see how the rich, by investing in new homes they cannot afford, have caused government to expand its budget. Now that they are getting off scot-free, they are dumping the tax burden, for more for economic development, monument building, studies, education and outreach, awareness, and whatever else government is buying these days, on the poor.

P.S. You cannot include in your economic analysis the jobs created to design, build, furnish, and maintain the McMansions. You cannot consider in your attribution of blame the demands of the oppressed 99% for more government offerings, either.