Alchemists of old insisted that moonbeams turned base metals into silver, in a process where “magic and chance…take the place of natural law in the universe.”[1] Today, government spenders turn your house into cash by shining a tax levy onto it.
When a unit of government, let’s say a local park district, adopts a budget requiring an increased levy of taxes to be divided up by your township assessor among all of the “equalized assessed value’ of the property located within that district, it seems to those government employees that “millions of [dollars] descend miraculously on a moonbeam into the[ir] coffers.”[2] Users of nice new expanded park district facilities tend to adopt the same “moonbeam” outlook themselves, even while appealing their tax bill based on comparisons of their home’s square footage with the house next door. Because even those who enjoy government spending don’t want to pay the cost of it.
Even the public employees who glean things like lifetime teacher, fire or police pensions know this. Look what they typically do: Work just long enough to qualify for the maximum pension funded by your high taxes, and then move to a “cheaper” State to retire. Their destination State has lower taxes where their pension income goes further and lasts longer. Because unlike the higher pressure State that funds their pension, the low pressure State to which they move has lower taxes. Because the lower pressure state spends less per capita in the first place.
That’s why everyone says: “I can buy twice as big of a house in Tennessee but only have 20% of my current tax bill here.”
So if you find that you are living in a higher pressure State engaged in things like spending on pension creation for public employees who are going to leave anyway, consider the relative benefit of moving yourself to a lower spending pressure place during your peak earning years.
Especially if you now see that those spending Moonbeams are just destroying your silver.
[1] Marden, Orison Swett. The Secret of Achievement (Timeless Wisdom Collection Book 6) (p. 15). Business and Leadership Publishing. Kindle Edition.
[2] I Frederic Bastiat, What is Seen and What is Not Seen (1850), Sec. 4 “Theaters and Fine Arts”.
