Belated Henry George Day Report
Sep. 7th, 2025 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenOn Tuesday, September 2, Henry George’s 186th birthday, I put on my Henry George Sesquicentennial tie, and went around wishing the people I saw on my perambulations a happy Henry George Day. I managed to talk a bit with a few of them about the man and his ideas.
I also scratched off some numbers from a Virginia lottery ticket which I had bought a few days before the big day; then I scratched off more on Wednesday and Thursday. I didn’t win any money to donate to Georgist organizations, though, so I am making an appeal: if you think that we should tax the idle rich more and the producers lest, if you think that people should be taxed on the basis of the special privileges which they receive, in particular the privilege of owning land, rather than on what they achieve by their own efforts, then consider making a donation.
In particular, you can donate to the Center for the Study of Economics, https://urbantoolsconsult.org. Checks can be mailed to P.O. Box 400, Collingswood NJ 08108. If you have business before the Patent Office, if you are a fellow federal employee, or if it would be otherwise improper for me suggest that you make a donation, this does not apply to you.
Among other things, the CSE is involved in Baltimore, where Baltimore Thrive is trying to reform the city’s property tax, to tax land more and buildings less. They have also exposed problems with current assessments. A small, not very valuable house is assessed at tens of thousands of dollars for the house. Additionally, there can be an assessment of nine thousand dollars or so for the land under the house, while vacant lots in the immediate vicinity of the house are assessed at around three thousand dollars in land value. This is a disgraceful screwup, benefitting out of town land speculators at the expense of working class homeowners. (The assessments are done by an agency of the State of Maryland; also, the Maryland Legislature would have to pass enabling legislation for the city of Baltimore to go two-rate, although I believe that other jurisdictions in Maryland already have that option.)
I also scratched off some numbers from a Virginia lottery ticket which I had bought a few days before the big day; then I scratched off more on Wednesday and Thursday. I didn’t win any money to donate to Georgist organizations, though, so I am making an appeal: if you think that we should tax the idle rich more and the producers lest, if you think that people should be taxed on the basis of the special privileges which they receive, in particular the privilege of owning land, rather than on what they achieve by their own efforts, then consider making a donation.
In particular, you can donate to the Center for the Study of Economics, https://urbantoolsconsult.org. Checks can be mailed to P.O. Box 400, Collingswood NJ 08108. If you have business before the Patent Office, if you are a fellow federal employee, or if it would be otherwise improper for me suggest that you make a donation, this does not apply to you.
Among other things, the CSE is involved in Baltimore, where Baltimore Thrive is trying to reform the city’s property tax, to tax land more and buildings less. They have also exposed problems with current assessments. A small, not very valuable house is assessed at tens of thousands of dollars for the house. Additionally, there can be an assessment of nine thousand dollars or so for the land under the house, while vacant lots in the immediate vicinity of the house are assessed at around three thousand dollars in land value. This is a disgraceful screwup, benefitting out of town land speculators at the expense of working class homeowners. (The assessments are done by an agency of the State of Maryland; also, the Maryland Legislature would have to pass enabling legislation for the city of Baltimore to go two-rate, although I believe that other jurisdictions in Maryland already have that option.)
