Great piece, as usual, by John Hood on the transfer tax. The moneyshot lies in a parenthetical:
"(The reality, by the way, is that communities with transfer taxes don’t get lower property taxes as a result. They just bear a higher total tax burden. You don’t get one instead of the other. You get both. This outcome should surprise no one, because the advocates are mainly trying to boost government spending, not reshuffle the tax code. They don’t much care about the structure, economics, and fairness of the tax code. They care about collecting as much revenue as possible without angering the public so much it votes them out of office.)"
Hear that? This is about making more cuts from which to bleed us. Don’t believe for a second that this will be an "alternative".
Great stuff! Hood wraps up the argument against the home tax with a pretty bow. He’s dead on!