Tax Wars: News Miner 95
Property taxes, 'excited delirium,' transgender politics, calls to censure Epps, modern gothic, and more.
Against Property Taxes: I make a radical proposal in my new column for Complete Colorado: “Why have property taxes at all? They mean that no one ever really owns their home or other property. Instead, people have to perpetually pay a sort of rent to the government, on pain of government seizing their property by force. Property taxes are fundamentally at odds with property rights.” I argue that, given we’re locked into federal income taxes, it would be better to eliminate both property and sales taxes, even if we have to raise income taxes in a (net) revenue-neutral way. Read the entire piece.
“Excited Delirium” Dropped: Police often have claimed, without justification, that people they confronted suffered from “excited delirium,” which, in practice, often was a pretext for police to abuse people. Police and paramedics killed Elijah McClain after, they said, he supposedly suffered the mysterious ailment. Here is a headline from CPR: “Colorado strikes ‘excited delirium’ from all law enforcement diagnosis, training documents.” See also Chris Vanderveen’s story: “Excited delirium: The story of how some people die while in police custody.” Related: See Diane Carman’s article about McClain’s death.
GOP Demeans Transgender People: Brad Miller, “who serves as legal counsel for a number of conservative school districts and charter schools in Colorado,” said talk of “gender dysphoria” is “silliness” and a “profound danger,” reports Heidi Beedle. Miller also said, “It’s objectively absurd to consider that there’s been some sort of massive biological shift and somehow we have more than a tiny fraction of people that are transgender. Scientifically, practically it’s make-believe.” But no one claims that a “massive biological shift” is behind the increase in numbers of self-identified transgender people. Rather, people on the left tend to say the trend is the result of people being less afraid to come out as transgender. People on the right tend to say the trend is a result of social contagion. I tend to think the first explanation is more important but the second probably sometimes comes into play. But why does that matter? Why not just refer to students as they prefer, whatever the reason, and let them use gender-neutral bathrooms if they want? The conservative obsession with transgender people is pathological.
But Let’s Be Reasonable: Allegedly, Marco Cummings reports, “during a fifth-grade cross-country trip this past summer,” a Jefferson County school placed a girl and a transgender girl in the same room, without bothering to tell the parents. This is the sort of situation in which the real, biological differences between a cisgender girl and a transgender girl are relevant. The parents are suing.
Free Speech in Public Schools: As arms of the government, public schools cannot discriminate against contents of speech. If a school allows speech for “gay pride,” it also has to allow it for “straight pride.” There’s a lawsuit in Denver about this.
Calls to Censure Epps: A letter calls for the legislature to censure Rep. Elisabeth Epps, who, the letter says, “has a long and troubling history of anti-Semitic tropes, including her 2020 Twitter post, ‘From the River to the Sea,’ which is a call for the annihilation of the State of Israel.” The letter adds, “Her strident public rants evidence her anti-Israel animus. Her actions in interrupting a fellow legislator, who is Jewish, during debate on a tax bill for an anti-Israel rant are deplorable.”
Dickson Resigns: Marianne Goodland: “State Rep. Ruby Dickson, a Greenwood Village Democrat who was first elected to the Colorado House just a year ago, announced on Friday that she will resign her seat effective Dec. 11. She cited the legislature’s ‘sensationalistic & vitriolic’ environment and called it unhealthy for herself and her family.” Kyle Clark notes that regional NAACP president Portia Prescott took news of the resignation as an opportunity to publicly call Dickson “weak” and a “bully.”
Energy Bills: Mark Jaffe: “Since 2019 the average monthly residential bill, for 600 kilowatt-hours of electricity, has risen 38% to $92.12, based on company [XCel] figures.” Among the causes for the increase: “a raft of state mandated clean energy programs.”
Dems Speak at AEI: Denver Mayor Mike Johnston spoke at a “right-wing” AEI conference, Erik Maulbetsch reports. Apparently Maulbetsch doesn’t like that other participants are not favorable to LGBTQ people or to legal abortion or hold other conservative views. But here’s my question: Does Maulbetsch want Democrats and Republicans (or progressives and conservatives) to talk together, or not? Sure, there are some limits. But I don’t think Johnston came close to crossing any lines here.
Uh . . . Sandra Fish: “I am now dealing with at least the second person who’s filed to run for a Colorado legislative seat when they intend to run for a U.S. House seat. And they don’t appear to know the difference between the two bodies.”
Gothic: Via Alex Tabarrok: Carmelite Monks in Wyoming are building a Gothic monastery using CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machining and modern materials such as stainless steel. Cool tech. Here’s an image from their site.