New York's workhouse program for seniors

What is wrong with the people of Greenburgh, New York? Has everybody lost their minds?

The Associated Press reported on Christmas, on Christmas, for God's sake, that the town of Greenburgh, New York, "is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes."

Greenburgh is in Westchester County, which has the nation's third-highest property taxes for homeowners. Audrey Davison, who is 76 years old, pays $12,000 a year in property taxes for the four-bedroom house where she has lived for 43 years. About $2,000 of that goes to the town of Greenburgh.

This is a picture of Audrey Davison and the walker she sometimes uses to get around when her arthritis and sciatica are bothering her:



That character on the left is Town Supervisor Paul Feiner, who says he'd like to have the discounted services of retired doctors, lawyers and accountants to help out with things that need doing around town. He'd also like the services of less-skilled people, and he promises he won't make anybody's grandma drive a snowplow.

What a guy, huh?

Feiner also mentioned that he'd like to get older people involved in the schools, to create "a more intergenerational feeling." To give the students the benefits of someone else's life experience? No, because if seniors were involved in the schools, "it might be easier to pass the school budgets."

Oh, pal, you haven't begun to see what can happen to your budgets.

Good people of Greenburgh, do not adjust your television sets. This message is coming to you from your friends in California.

You do not have to live like this.

You do not have to be slaves to your property tax assessor.

You do not have to stand by as the senior citizens in your community are forced to choose between selling their homes and working off their tax bills like serfs.

In 1978, California had this problem, and that's when the ballot initiative known as Proposition 13 was passed overwhelmingly by the voters. It stopped the annual reassessment of property and fixed the assessed values at 1975 levels, allowing just a 2 percent increase every year. The tax rate was cut sharply, down to 1 percent of assessed value. No matter how much property values appreciated, property could not be reassessed until it was sold.

Some people will tell you that the world came to an end in this state as a result of Prop 13. Generally they are people who work on the government's payroll.

People who don't work on the government's payroll appreciated Prop 13 because they weren't forced by skyrocketing property taxes to sell their homes. And they weren't forced into indentured servitude arrangements with the likes of Paul Feiner in order to keep them.

The argument can probably be made that $12,000 a year in property taxes for a four-bedroom house is a violation of the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on the taking of private property for public use without just compensation. But don't waste your time in court.

Go right to your state legislature and explain to them what happened in California in 1978.

Tell them you want something like that before all the senior citizens in Greenburgh are forced to spend their summers trimming the trees on Paul Feiner's street.

We don't mean to pick on Paul Feiner personally. He probably feels that this plan to offer seniors the chance to work off their tax bills is a lot better than the alternative.

Nobody liked his Soylent Green plan at all.



Copyright 2007


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