Georgist Opinion Piece

[ndrosen]

The Washington Post has published a piece by the wise and estimable Walter Rybeck, "Metro can recapture some of the value it creates," on page 4 of the Sunday Metro section. Mr. Rybeck points out that Metro (the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority) creates billions of dollars worth of land value near its stations, and should be financed out of taxes in those land values. To implement it, he proposes, "Metro jurisdictions should enact a universal property-Tax abatement to greatly reduce or eliminate taxation of privately created building values." It certainly makes sense to me.

The blurb at the end states, "The writer, a former staff director of the House Subcommittee on the City, is a former associate director of the National Commission on Urban Problems." He is also, I might add, a long-time Georgist, a former journalist, and a veteran of World War Two.