It’s difficult to understand why a 70-year-old homeowner with a paid-off house should owe less property tax than a 35-year-old couple juggling student loans and daycare, especially when both earn the same income.
Published Dec. 4, 1994, in The Elgin Courier-News. I was in my mid-20s when I wrote this, one of several Gen X vs. the Boomers commentaries.
By Dennis Robaugh
Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa Claus what they want and adults pay. Burden is when adults tell the government what they want — and their kids pay. In the state of Illinois, that's what we're likely to get with the enactment last week of a property tax break for some senior citizens, over Gov. Jim Edgar’s veto.
Numbering nearly 30 million nationwide — 1.4 million in Illinois — senior citizens are the most politically powerful generation in the country, and as a whole, they are the most affluent generation in American history.
They've enjoyed an immensely beneficial relationship with the government, and this tax relief plan is yet another example of this generation's penchant for shifting public resources from the young to the old.
As Illinoisans can see, few in state government are willing to do anything to risk senior-citizen wrath.
Under the plan, a homeowner's property tax assessments would be frozen if he or she is 65 or older and makes no more than $35,000 a year. That means property tax bills won't rise if the house increases in value.
About 12,000 Kane County seniors could benefit from the new program. The average senior homeowner would save about $95 a year on property taxes. Statewide, more than half a million elderly people who already receive reductions and property assessments could take advantage of the new program. That's more than a third of Illinois’ senior citizen population.
What these senior citizens gain will end up being very costly to others. The biggest burden will likely be shouldered by young homeowners and school districts.
Local taxing bodies statewide would lose $722 million over the next eight years and up to $607 million would be shifted to other taxpayers, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.
Cities may have to trim services, as Elgin might. School districts — which on average get 59% of their cash from property levies — may have to increase the tax burden on others instead of cutting budgets.
It is difficult to understand why someone age 65 should be entitled to lower taxes than someone age 30 with the same income, yet Democratic Rep. Jeffrey Schoenberg, who sponsored the override of Edgar's veto, calls it a “win-win proposition.”
He told reporters this plan “enables senior citizens to stay in their homes and for us to jumpstart our economy."
That’s long on kindly sentiment but short on common sense. And in the absence of meaningful and comprehensive property tax reform, it's a severely misguided gesture with little basis in economic reality.
This isn’t just a local fairness issue — it reflects a national trend in generational economics.
The leveling off of American productivity since the 1970s has concealed vastly unequal changes in living standards. For households headed by persons over age 65, indicators of household income, homeownership, and the likelihood of poverty have improved since the 1930s. But for households headed by persons under 35, each of those indicators has gotten worse since the 1970s.
The real median income of heads of households over 65 has increased by almost 40% since 1970, according to the Census Bureau. For those under 35, it's declined by 16%.
With figures like these, how can legislators justify bestowing a tax break on senior citizens when struggling young homeowners of similar income get no such governmental largesse?
Senior citizens enjoy discounts for a wide variety of goods and services: plane fares, bus rides, movie admissions, meals, coffee … and well they should. These are society's willing acknowledgments, however small, of the debt we owe the elderly for the accomplishments of their long lives and our benefits from such.
It's a sign of personal respect to provide individuals with these measures of comfort.
Now, a politically powerful segment of the senior population has grown to expect government protection, often at the expense of struggling young taxpayers. And elected officials have eagerly complied.
The elderly once earned respect for their achievement and wisdom, but as a political bloc, they have opted for a trade-in on the value of old age.
Now their economic well-being comes at the expense of the moral authority once wielded by prior generations of American elders over the young.
And they are feared — especially by the 109 members of the Illinois House who approved this tax break — for their economic and political clout. We are truly in their debt, and we will be for a long time.
If lawmakers truly want to preserve intergenerational fairness, they must design tax reforms that reward need, not age.