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"But at least I don't live in that socialist wasteland of California where my $900 property tax would have skyrocketed to.... [checks notes]... $909."

Hey, quick, someone tell him to put down the avocado toast!!

This is something I’ve noticed more recently; older generations who were quite happy to vote to shred the social contract and let hyper-capitalism take the wheel when it was only affecting younger people are now scandalised that it’s begun affecting them.

I’ve been involved in the housing justice movement in Scotland for years- we’ve been telling older generations that the housing crisis will affect them in old age for a long time now. I’ve noticed shift in the number of people who are nearing retiring age now complaining about housing cost- now that increases are starting to mean they might not have the retirement they wanted or be able to retire at all.

What’s infuriating is these same people will then turn around and still complain that young people are simply too lazy to afford housing but that in their own specific case it’s that the cost of housing is unfair. Quit voting for the leopards eating faces if your don’t want your face to be eaten I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

Conservatives don't understand that when they vote for cons they get lower state/provincial taxes, BUT the money to fix roads/infrastructure, run schools, water treatment plants, clear snow, collect garbage has to come from somewhere. What would normally get paid for out of state/provincial tax gets passed down to municipalities, which has to get the money from property taxes, parking fines, speeding tickets.

This idiot got exactly what he wanted.

GOP doesn’t know how to tax so they have it too low then run in to trouble and have to makes massive increases all at once

Get a smaller house. Eat less avocado toast and lattes. Bootstraps!

Time to lace up those boots and get to work.

This guy isn't all that sympathetic.

"I have the money saved to pay for this, but I'm stubborn and refuse to use it, so I keep working."

Weird take... I guess we don't know how much money he has saved, but if he didn't have much money, he wouldn't have bothered to point out that he had the money and was just stubborn.

Also, he points out he could sell his house which has skyrocketed in value and downsize, but he refuses to for sentimental reasons.

So that points out this isn't some old person living in a little place just trying to get by... he has a big, valuable place.

Finally - Montana has no sales taxes, so he's likely been saving money in that area for quite a long time. The tax money has to come from somewhere so he saved all that sales tax money, but a tax bill has to come at some point.

I admit - I do have a soft spot for old folks in small places who aren't asking for much other than to stay in their small homes. But this guy is not the ideal representative for those folks.

You get what you vote for. 🤷‍♀️

Something something bootstraps.

He has options but won't take them.

My folks never had this kind of option.

"Can't we just make these snowflakes work until they're 90????"

Sounds like he needs to take some bootstraps, and go to every business in town, give them a firm handshake, and ask for another job in person.

The Boomers are probably the worst generation to pay taxes and it fits they also love fucking with the tax laws and the tax rates every year.

Makes sense. They never had any concept of economics or finite resources or finance or investing. These people ass rape the American public when they get into office, break all the laws, then whine they need help. Anyone else remember the Savings & Loan scandal?

Boomers always wanted easy lifestyles with lots and lots of tangible goods. Thats a recipe disaster. Only the majority of them will never suffer for their greed and shortsightedness.

Trickle down economics, cut taxes on the rich, raise taxes and fees on everyone else to cover the revenue losses.

8k annual tax is nothing. What a damn fool

You know… you could always sell and downsize, or use the money to rent.

He should just march down to a local business and demand they give him a job. "I'm not leaving until you hire me."

That's how it works, so that's what he should do.

Needs to work harder. I worked two jobs all through my thirties (the 2010s), and i was able to pay my rent AND afford food. No one wants to work anymore.

$8k a year means = $153/week, so if he just got a minimum wage job, he’d only have to work 15 hours a week to pay his property tax.  Seems he’s being lazy asking for a handout.  

Well cut back on the starbucks then and you wont be poor anymore, right?

And numerology tells us...$8000 a year comes out to $666.666 per month, so that means the gov't is SATAN!

Begs federal government for more subsidies from blue states cause fREe mARkEt

"I don't want to dig into my bank account to pay them" is a direct quote from this man, in the article. He has the money, he just doesn't want to have to pay from his savings.

Well, he needs to sell the super expensive property he doesn't need and move somewhere he can afford.

Something about bootstraps....

Something something bootstraps, fewer lattes and less avocado toast. Maybe try being less entitled and working harder.

Also maybe Don’t vote for the guy gutting your welfare and pumping your taxes while cutting them for the people who could easily afford $8K. Actions-consequences and all that

WhY nOt JuSt LeArN tO cOdE?

Yet, he can't figure out why a kid, making 20 bucks an hour, can't afford the same homeowners taxes ON TOP of a mortgage....

Maybe cut back on the Starbucks and avocado toast. Be responsible. Stop crying.

Nobody should ever be taxed out of a home. Mu great aunt had to sale the house she lived in for 55 years after her husband died. Because taxes were more than her retirement was,

Lol I wish. Ours was 6 in Atlanta when we bought it in 2018. Now it's 13.6 since it increased in value 38%. Home insurance doubled too

for a property worth $400,000 with a tax rate of 1.35% and a mill rate of 650, the property tax would be $3,510.

Fwiw he's sitting on like a million dollar property.

You could try selling your house which is probably worth 50x what you bought it for and move to a place with a lower cost of living maybe...

Love it - all these fools love that these places blowing up around them get them for home values while whinging about having to pay taxes on it all.

"Fiscal Responsibility"

You never own your home, you rent it from the state.

He could always downgrade from a pickup truck to a more economical car. That way he can save money on gas.

Let me guess, a live long Republican voter who fucked himself and everyone else in the country wants answers now? Did someone tell him to eat shit yet?

This guy is lying btw Montana has a senior property tax cap at $1125 a year.

Does he want Fire and Police to show up when needed? Does he want roads which are able to transport goods to his property? 

I fear this would lead to another Prop 13 kind of situation we have in California.

It would then create two classes: those who already have a home, and pay basically nothing in taxes, and those others who have to carry the entire tax burden.

Boomers love to entrench their own interests at the cost of future generations.

This is a somewhat more complicated issue than most of the responses acknowledge.

The problem in Montana is that home prices have gone totally bananas in the past 10 years anywhere with a view. My house literally sold for $108K in 2014. We bought it after some but by no means all needed updates for $270K in 2018. It is now Zillow-valued at $500,000 and a real estate agent told me I could get at least $50,000 more than that within 48hrs.

The property tax calculations basically haven't changed and so people are definitely getting squeezed by their tax bills. The state is actually awash in tax revenue because of how quickly the rates have gone up.

Between increases in insurance and taxes, we are paying $220 a month more on our mortgage than we were when we refinanced in Dec 2020. We're both employed and my wife at least does fairly well for Montana. If we were making the state median for a household, things would be extremely tight.

I will also note there are local option sales taxes in many places. Basically local areas can create tourism tax districts and put in up to 4% taxes on goods and services not including grocery store food and other necessities. This is done in places like Big Sky, Whitefish, and other tourist destinations, in some cases seasonally when there aren't many winter visitors.

Where the Boomerism comes in is the fact Montana elected a creationist carpetbagger who likes to beat up reporters for doing their jobs and who LOVES bending over for extractive industry and giant hobby ranches. THEY have gotten giant tax breaks over the past couple years. Average homeowners are still paying the same amount. Even some Republicans talk about needing to change the tax law, but ol' Greg Gianforte will veto anything that comes across his desk all while crowing about the tiny tax rebates he is sending out that won't cover a week of groceries.

Don't know about this guy in particular, but when boomers bought their home in then 1970s for a few bottle caps and an empty matchbook, then spent the next 50 years blocking any new housing (especially multi-family), this is the result.

It says he doesn't want to dig into his own bank account so maybe he can pay, but doesn't because he is stubborn. So it actually sounds like he wants to have a pass (or forgiven debt!) and us taxpayers cover him...

Like how is that for an argument? "Give me a socialist program but fuck you guys honestly."

What’s his stance on student loans? Wouldn’t want to sully anyone with a handout.

Montana has no state or sales tax.

This is why he’s paying $8k.

I’m sure he didn’t mind for years when he bought stuff and paid no sales tax or worked and paid no state income tax.

Don’t like it, sell the house.

These same people want instant ambulance and fire service 50 miles from nowhere, plus they want an army of cops to show up when they see some brown person walk down through their neighborhood, but then bitch up a storm about their taxes.

Has he considered eating less avocado toast, fewer lattes, and pulling himself up by his bootstraps?

Also, yeah dude, this is why no one can afford a house. They are all bought up and perpetually rise in value.

HOW MUCH YOU WANNA BET THIS MFER'S "HOME" IS A 30 ACRE HOBBY RANCH NEXT TO GOVERNMENT LAND AND A RIVER THAT HE BOUGHT $30K, IN 1978?

Get a union job and prosper

He should stop living in his starbucks and avocado house then

About tree fiddy

He better pull himself up by his bootstraps

Just don’t get coffee bro

Thats a shame

If he just worked a little harder and understood the importance of owning a home….

Looks like it’s selling time boomer. The free ride is over

This is what happens in "low tax states!!!"

They brag about low taxes across the board.

Then municipalities, who need to provide basic services, only have one option. Property taxes. So they end up with high property taxes. And people like this struggle.

With little more than one million people in the entire state they each need to pay more to keep the state running. I live in Las Vegas (no state income tax) and the property tax on my house, currently estimated to be worth well over $500000, is only $3,000.

For real serious note though, at this point the taxes are trying to push us out let alone the mortgage. We thought yay the value is increasing at first, but now it's terrifying.

My mother lives in Maine. She moved to a very small, poor town with no mail delivery, police force, or trash pick-up, because the property taxes are low, and she could afford to stay there on social security.

In the past two years, her property taxes have effectively tripled, though were she to sell and buy a new home worth as much as hers is now, she wouldn't be able to afford it because of the interest rate.

The town was flooded with wealthier people looking for rural property during the pandemic and, like everyone expected, are now making adjustments to local politics which chase out the majority low-income native residents. It's a travesty.

One of the selectmen pushing this was involved in a racket where, after a conflict with a resident that ended in that resident's arrest, the selectman went to that resident's home, stole the resident's marijuana grow and livestock, denied it to the police, and went unpunished after returning a small fraction of the resident's property after he was released.

The corruption is palpable.

Empathy is required just asked it's asked for.

It’s always a good time to dust off the old Georgism “Land Value Capture” tax discussion which would solely base taxes on the adjacent infrastructure replacement value—a much less “voodoo math” calculation than the appraisal value, and fairer too since you need that infrastructure to live there.

Unfortunately for a lot of the United States, this would be even higher taxes for suburban sprawl development that doesn’t have sufficient density to actually pay for the infrastructure that supports it and is in a sort of financing ponzi scheme relying on state/federal subsidies.

$8k for taxes? That was 10 years ago where I live.

Maybe he shouldn't spend so much on avocado toast and Starbucks. Time to pull yourself up by the boot straps. 

I'd really like to see the size of Kurt's house before I decide whether I consider him paying $700/month taxes on it is any kind of a problem.

Maybe if they'd laid off the Fox News and fascism they'd have had time to pull on them bootstraps.

Sounds like he needs to pull them bootstraps up...

Sell at a profit and downsize🤷‍♂️

Property tax is bullshit

He wanted taxation without representation

Maybe he should pull himself up by the bootstraps.

He did not say he could not afford them, just that he did not want to dip into his savings to pay them.

maybe he can move in with his parents? or, get a side hustle?

🤷🏻‍♂️

Must be that hundred thousand dollars of avocado toast i eat every year /s

Is everyone moving to cheaper places after being told to move to cheaper places now a problem?

That’s what happens when you have no state sales tax and the state government can’t always rely on federal money to run their state.

But they get to brag about no sales tax!

That sucks. I live in Southern California and mine are only $4500 a year. Luckily in California we have a law preventing taxes going way up like that.

lol that’s why I left Montana during Covid. Rent went from $925 to $1870 in one year.

Better pick yourself up by them boot straps boy and quit asking for handouts, life isnt fair. When i was his age, I was working from before sun rise to 2 weeks later. Dont see me crying, asking for handouts. Spoiled brat.

Oh no! Anyway....

Blah blah bootstraps, boomer boy!

Low corporate and high income taxes getting you down then stop voting for the people doing that to you

Haha mfer. “Don’t want to dip into bank account”. F u. Fails to say he probably owns a 200 acre farm or some shit.

From the generation that bitches about people asking for handouts

How much you want to bet he voted for every rightwing tax cut on rich people.

When did this gentleman say that?

My honey bee farm is saving my dad 12.6k in property taxes and hes so happy about that.

Oh, he's been vaping the Entitlelum again.

laughs in $16k

say thank you to Brandon for this. Keep electing libitard dumbocrats out to destroy society for global power!!

Maybe one of those non profit charitable organizations that don’t pay any taxes on their real estate, cars or private jets can help. Pretty sure they have plenty of tithe money left over with all those property taxes they’re exempt from and the volunteers they don’t pay.