A Cure Worse Than the Disease

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A number of states—including Ohio, Kansas, Georgia, and Nebraska—are embracing efforts to eliminate property taxes. Since 2000, the real per capita cost of the taxes has gone up by 40 percent, likely due to rising home prices. Homeowners, therefore, are justified in their complaints.

“But ending property taxes would be a cure worse than the disease,” Judge Glock writes. For one thing, they provide three-quarters of all local tax revenue. A study found that in Florida, ending the tax would mean sales taxes would need to rise—between 10 percent and 33 percent per purchase, depending on the county. “Sustaining these different tax rates would be nearly impossible,” Glock explains.

The good news is the tax can be reformed. One way is through “what are known as ‘levy limits,’ which restrict the total amount of revenue governments pull in from property taxes,” Glock writes. “That means that if home values go up, local governments have to reduce the tax rate to keep their revenue steady.”

Read more here.

After the death of Freddie Gray in 2014, the city of Baltimore reeled, erupting into chaos, riots, and rising homicides. The progressive state’s attorney, Marilyn Mosby, effectively declared war on police officers, setting back the city’s crime-fighting efforts. Meantime, the Baltimore Sun, the city’s flagship newspaper, had hit a low point in its nearly 200-year history, cutting staff and coverage amid collapsing circulation.

“The Sun was no longer the robust paper the city needed,” Ariel David writes. “And as Baltimore fell deeper into civic chaos, the Sun embraced hard-left ideological commitments.”

Then, in 2023, the city elected de-policing critic Ivan Bates to replace Mosby. Homicides fell by more than 20 percent in his first year. And in 2024, David D. Smith, chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, purchased the Sun. The paper adopted a new tone and a new approach, allowing Bates to defend his policies in an op-ed.

The shift appears to be working. Web traffic is up. Management is hiring. The paper is in the process of building new bureaus.

Read more from David about the paper’s—and the city’s—hopeful new direction.

The Washington National Opera appears to have gone fully woke. Before the pandemic, its production of Don Giovanni featured program notes suggesting that single men are “toxic.” In 2022, it created an award specifically for singers who identify as “nonbinary.” In 2024, it said that its rewritten finale of Turandot exemplified “toxic masculinity.” That same year, its production of Fidelio recast a male character as a woman.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, WNO’s ticket sales and donations have been drying up. “Since white males are responsible for almost all of opera’s creative output, have traditionally been its most generous donors, and make up a significant portion of its expensive-ticket-buying audience, these might not have been the best choices in a world where ‘going woke’ often means ‘going broke,’” Paul du Quenoy writes.

Read his take.

“Jordan Duecker is right. The test whether the citizens of St. Louis are serious about rebuilding their city into prosperity will be whether they re-elect former Congressman Cori Bush. I predict that they re-elect her in view of her Free Stuff platform.”