So, I realize I recently crapped on Georgism, as it is not my ideology of choice, and I feel like its proponents are too radical, rigid, and ideological. Clearly a "single tax" system is a horrible idea for any home owner, and a UBI based on LVT is not a reliable safety net. Georgists kind of remind me of Marxists, that in trying so hard to stick it to a certain group of society, they end up becoming their own villains. However, that is not to say that georgism is useless as an ideology. Its strongest ideological proponents might be misguided, but being a similar form of left libertarian, and realizing indepentarianism isn't much different than Georgism in some key ideological ways (realizing property makes people less free and believing people be compensated for it), I cant completely discard it altogether. And the more I think about it, certain aspects of it make sense. I just kind of believe if you follow Georgism in its pure form to its logical conclusion that they end up becoming their own villains. That said, I do want to try to utilize this ideology in more limited and targetted ways to solve problems in society as it is a lens worse considering.
Local LVTs
Local governments generally use property taxes to fund their services. They do this because their abilities to tax are limited, as any other sort of tax can be avoided simply by moving or shopping somewhere else. That's the problem with local governments doing stuff. They end up dealing with a race to the bottom. But people can't take property with them. So, it's the one unavoidable tax locales rely on for revenue.
A LVT has the same effect. It is generally unavoidable as people cannot take land with them, so localities can use this tax to raise revenue. By shifting to LVT from property taxes, this would likely reduce the burden homeowners face from taxes and put more of those taxes on the productive sector and the rich.
An LVT would likely solve a whole host of problems. George always asked, why do large cities like Philadelphia have so much poverty while other areas don't? And the answer is rent. Because of the population density, land value goes up, and so does rent. George does oversimplify. I live in Pennsylvania, and I can tell you poverty isn't limited to major cities. This is largely because of the twin scourges of automation and globalization on the job market destroying local economies, so let's not act like rent is the only problem. Rent is cheap in many areas but the jobs aren't there. The jobs are in major cities and people flood in looking for a better life driving rent up. An LVT would actually help this in large cities, ensuring that land is used productively, and increasing the housing supply. Even more so, if some revenues from an LVT are used to expand the housing supply via a government program, this could greatly expand housing, driving prices down further.
I'm under the impression every sufficiently large city with high rents should use an LVT to help alleviate this problem. I don't think it would resolve all of the problems with housing and the like, but it likely would help.
Designing a national LVT for a housing program
As we know, a housing program has been in the works in various democratic candidate's platforms. It's part of Biden's infrastructure bill, which costs $1.7 trillion over 15 years. Bernie's plan was more expensive at $250 billion per year. Meanwhile, depending on the price of land, a 1% national LVT would likely raise $144-212 billion depending on the actual value of all of the land. Assuming a median land value of $84,300 on the typical American home, they would face a tax of $843 under this proposal.
Now, to be fair, we might not want to tax the average joe for his use of land. I mean, that's my problem with Georgism. It turns the government into a glorified landlord...to fight landlords. Okay, well, why don't we add a personal allowance? We could structure an LVT like a wealth or inheritance tax where we only target it at the rich. I think Denmark has a system like this, and it works fairly well. We could say, okay, we don't want to tax the average joe for living in their home, so let's say any land value below $300,000 (should equal a roughly $1 million home) does not pay the tax. We could also make it, where that exemption only applies to your primary residence, to discourage rent seeking activities from people who wish to own multiple properties. Also, any properties for nonresidential use would automatically be taxed. I don't know how much this would bring in revenue wise but even half of the original amounts would be enough for some housing program.
This would serve a balance between georgist ideas and my concern. If the target is the landlords, the rent seekers, people who inefficiently use land, I am not against taxing those people for their excessive land ownership. While everyone should have a right to a decent place to live, at some point ownership of land becomes excessive and harms others. I don't want to moralize what your typical middle class family does with their property. I feel like georgists do this too much. But I do sympathize with them on landlords, housing shortages, and hoarding/rent seeking activities. Georgism has a lot to offer, even if I dislike georgists.
Conclusion
I feel like georgism, as an ideology taken to extremes, would be very harmful to society. However, georgist ideas can work in moderation. I am of the opiniion every city, and especially every major city, should implement a land value tax. They tax property anyway, and an LVT would be a superior version of a tax.
I also think it sounds just too use a national LVT to fund a housing program. However, the LVT would either have to be very low, as to not harm your average homeowner much, or it would need a personal exemption to to ensure that lower and middle class families aren't impacted by it at all. This would redirect the tax toward the worst of the excesses georgism is intended to target, while not falling into the tyrannies and other problems that the most extreme version of it would implement.
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