Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch and in today's episode, we're asking the question, who owns your land? This is prompted by a Wall Street Journal article I read by Arian Campo Flores, looking at a new potential proposed constitutional amendment in the state of Florida. Let me set the scene. States have become increasingly dependent on property tax taxes assigned to those who own property to continue owning the property. The argument goes like this. If you pay your property taxes, you get to keep your land. If you don't pay your property taxes, we'll take it. So, of course, people pay taxes, pay the property tax, and it goes up as the value of the land goes up. And states are able to fund all the things they want to do. Well, in Florida, residents have had enough. You see, in Florida, there's a current exemption of $50,000. In other words, if the property you own is less than $50,000 in value, you don't pay taxes on it. Well, the constitutional amendment seeks to raise that in the next year to $150,000 and eventually raise it to 250,000 doll. and so to make a lot more property exempt from property tax. Now, that would result in a massive reduction to the Florida state budget, in fact, to the tune of about $5 billion. Now, this has people who work in government going crazy. In fact, one person said, this is not a haircut, it's an amputation. Because again, states have become overly dependent on this one source of revenue. now here's. Here's where I'm going with this. I have to tell you, that property tax, as I understand it, it seems to me to be a very immoral approach to taxation. I mean, follow my logic here. I buy a piece of land, I use a mortgage, or I pay cash, but eventually I own it, right? I own the piece of land. But, here comes the government, and they say, hey, you don't owe us tax on just the sale of the land you owe us tax on because you own the land. And in fact, if you don't pay the tax, then we're going to take the land. You see, the problem with that is, well, then who really owns it? If I have to pay property tax to keep my property, then I don't own it. I'm leasing it. And if I don't pay the lease, the actual owner is going to take it, which means the United States government at the state or federal level owns all of our land. We none of us actually own property, which, last time I checked, is communism, not democracy, and not capitalism. There's nothing else we treat like this. I don't buy a car, pay taxes on the sale of the car, and then pay a monthly tax, and that if I don't pay, they will come take my car. I'm not paying taxes on my shirt or my pants or my shoes. I own them. Of course. That's what ownership means. the truth is, this is government overreach. They're taxing us because they can, and then they're building systems based on that tax. To which I would say, if you can't pay your bills because you are owning my land, that's a you problem. You should have built your revenue system differently. I hope this passes, and I hope it's the beginning of the overturning of property tax, which is immoral. Now you might say, well, hold on, Zach, where are you coming from? Where in the Bible does it say this? Well, yeah, I can't take you to thou shalt not charge a property tax. But I'll tell you where I can take you. When God leads Israel into the promised land, and they're finally in the land, and God begins to divvy up the land and give different parts of it to the tribes of Israel, he does just that. Joshua 14:1 5 is about this. In fact, here's what it says. The Israelites received their inheritance in the land of Canaan, as the Lord had commanded through Moses. The tribes got the land, the people got the land, not the government of Israel. God didn't say, I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to establish a central government. It will really own all the land. You'll get to pretend you own it. They'll assign you a tax. If you don't pay your tax, they'll take it. God said, no, no, no. Here's your property. Here's. Here's your property. Here's your property. what I'm suggesting is that God, all wise, all knowing, all powerful, when he set up his people, didn't set it up with central ownership of land. He didn't set it up with a property tax, and neither should we. This is supposed to be the country of freedom. This is supposed to be the country of individual rights. How does property tax fit into that? I realize I'm probably spitting into the wind on this, but sometimes it's worth spitting into the wind. The property tax is immoral. If you own land, you own it and the government should be left out of it. I hope this passes in Florida. I hope this is the beginning of the end. I hope this is the sign of a move in the direction that God seemed to think was best. Hey, thanks for checking out Wake Up, Look Up. For more content, be sure to visit the Christ Community Chapel app or website cccchapel.com.

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