We live in a distracted society. Screens and feeds compete for our attention by entertaining us.
This makes difficult to give real problems our sustained focus. This has always been a problem for democratic governments, as Alexis de Tocqueville noted:
Useful undertakings which cannot succeed without perpetual attention and rigorous exactitude are very frequently abandoned in the end; for in America, as well as in other countries, the people is subject to sudden impulses and momentary exertions.
Our current state of distraction by electronic media does not help us focus on what really has long-term importance. As interesting as it is to catch up on the latest scandals or political murder mysteries, they are but distractions from the main issues that confront us:
The fiscal gap
Inflation
The collapse of birthrates
These are serious, even civilization-altering problems.
Our national debt is $40 trillion, caused by exploding federal deficits that went from $400 billion a year under Bush, to $1 trillion a year after the financial crisis to $2 trillion a year after Covid. We are spending recklessly, and that $40 trillion official figure does not account for the money that would be needed to shore up the major entitlement programs. Covering the fiscal gap, the present value difference between projected future outlays and receipts, would require an immediate, permanent 26% tax increase or a 24% reduction in spending, or some combination of the two. In five years Social Security and Medicare payments will need to drop substantially. In ten years, annual interest costs on the national debt will nearly equal the entire discretionary budget.
The federal government has no intention of reigning in spending though. Their plan is to continue deficits and addressing the consequences by printing money, which drops the debt in real terms. Since the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has increased the monetary base sixfold. This erodes the purchasing power of the dollar: a dollar today buys only $0.77 of what $1.00 bought in 2020. Inflation is a hidden tax, caused by government devaluing the currency, the government has in essence stolen 23% of everyone’s money in the last six years, without Congress even having to pass an unpopular tax hike.
Inflation makes life unaffordable. Young people are unable settle down and have children. Homeownership for those under 35 is at a historic low. The share of adults living with their parents is at a historic high. “U.S. birth rates are dropping to levels of civilizational suicide, with women having on average 1.6 children,” writes a young columnist. In a clip that went viral last year, another commentator lamented: “I’m 30 years old. Not one of my friends has children. Zero. No one. No one’s having kids. Do you know how hard you need to abuse a mammal to make them not have children?” Debt loads burdens on future generations; what happens if future generations are not around to pay them, because birthrates have collapsed?
This is the context for the current election, which features a 43% increase in our debt service tax rates for Irving ISD.
Also on the ballot is Proposition A in Dallas County, which is a permanent 22% property tax hike for a wasteful initiative; analysis of that is here.
What are we doing here folks? This is only exacerbating the problems we face. There are heroic members of our local governments opposing these reckless measures — neither the Irving ISD bond nor Prop A passed unanimously. But our local leaders are not facing up to the hard reality of inflation eroding the ability of working people, especially young people, to live.
And Irving ISD is not facing the reality of the tenuous situation of our debt crisis as a society. The cover from last week’s Economist:
The article’s argument is that heavy government borrowing, inflation fears, and competition for investment capital could push long-term interest rates higher. If we pass the bonds and then face higher borrowing rates when Irving ISD sells them, the proposed projects could cost us more to finance.
Rather than ballooning its debt, Irving ISD needs to live within its means. It already gobbles up an enormous amount of property taxes. Take a look at what the median homeowner pays between taxing entities:
The orange slice of our property tax pie is larger than any others. Irving ISD takes in a higher percentage of property taxes than the entire City of Irving.
What does it spend it on? Apparently not on basic needs, like keeping up on the repairs with the school buildings, because that is the justification for building brand new schools (which are not even that old).
The district does spend a lot of our tax money on salaries. According to the most recent figures, Irving ISD’s Superintendent made $338,196 in base pay — over double the median in Texas. Total compensation is much higher, and included $1,000 a month for a car (!). This pay is higher than Coppell ISD ($281,324) and Fort Worth ISD ($276,000).
High salaries at the top are useful to everyone in an organization because justify higher salaries for those below.
James Quintero spoke about this in the clip below. It seems like Irving ISD spends their money on administrative bloat, while neglecting to keep up critical infrastructure:
Irving ISD really has no excuse not to keep up with the necessary maintenance on its buildings. School districts in the state can give up to an additional 20% homestead exemption, on top of the mandatory $140,000 exemption. A quarter of the ~1,000 school districts do give something extra. But not Irving ISD!
Irving ISD wants to spend a lot of money on salaries, deny us property tax relief we could have, fail to do the necessary upkeep on their buildings, and then come to us asking us to foot the bill for brand new buildings, all while their enrollment is declining and we just put over a billion dollars on the credit card three years ago with the last bond.
It is not just homeowners who will pay the bill, by the way. Those living in apartments do get a significant part of the property tax bill passed on to them, especially considering that the basic $140,000 school district homestead exemption does not apply to commercial apartment complexes.
Meanwhile the pro-bond propaganda funded by the real force behind them — the contractors who want to get the building projects — proudly trumpet the fact that it makes working people foot the entire bill, exempting seniors:
Seniors: is it really fair for you to vote on this, when the costs are entirely shifted from them to working people?
No. It’s shameful. Self-respecting seniors should be ashamed of themselves to support these bonds, when they will not bear the costs of them.
One comment I heard from a young person about the propaganda for these bonds:
You 24-year-old! You need to hear about how people 65+ won’t have any tax impact at all from us drastically raising taxes on you!”
It is abusive to the younger generations, and is radicalizing them politically, which is not a good thing at all.
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Thank you so much for writing this article!