ChristiTutionalist Politics | Christian Perspectives on Constitutional Issues
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ChristiTutionalist Politics | Christian Perspectives on Constitutional Issues
CTP (S3E116) The Fight Against Property Tax
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CTP (S3E116) The Fight Against Property Tax
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond
Property taxes transform homeownership into an endless rental agreement with the government, creating a system where no one truly owns their property and seniors risk losing homes they've paid off.
• Carla Wagner founded Ax MI Tax (axmitax.org) to eliminate property taxes through a ballot initiative
• During COVID, business owners and landlords still had to pay property taxes even when income was restricted
• The slogan "Lose your spouse, lose your house" highlights how seniors on fixed incomes can lose homes when a spouse dies
• Michigan added $30 billion in spending over six years without improving essential services
• Property tax elimination could be funded by returning to pre-COVID spending levels
• School funding is complex - most property tax school millages fund facilities, not education
• Biblical charity teaches self-sufficiency while government programs often create dependency
• Similar property tax elimination efforts are underway in Ohio, Texas, Florida, and other states
• Citizens can bypass politicians through ballot initiatives rather than waiting for legislative action
To support the initiative, visit axmitax.org to volunteer as a petition circulator or sign the petition if you're a Michigan resident (contact axmitax.org to start Property Tax elimination battle in your State).
Welcome to the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast, aka CTP. I am your host, joseph M Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D. Ctp is your no-muss, no-thrust just me, you and occasional guest-type podcast. Really appreciate you tuning in. As Graham Norton would say, let's get on with the show.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone, this is going to be a quick cheat intro segment. I'm going to be lazy. I've got so many guest recordings built up. I'm going to get lazy and cheat on some Saturdays. I don't have to dream up a monologue topic this way and I'm also not going to say what guest will be appearing, because I'm going to be lazy and cheat and use the same intro several Saturdays to intro a guest show.
Speaker 1:So, as Graham Norton used to say, let's get on with the show. Surprise interview Take care, cop Plus. Okay, there we go. Whoa. Pardon the delay, folks. I didn't hear the recording in progress right away. It seemed to be a little Zoom delay. I don't know what's going on. At any rate, on with the show. Welcome to another episode of Constitutionalist Podcast Joining me today. If you're looking at behind-the behind the scenes video, you can see in the lower corner of her window Carla Wagner, and that's Carla with a K rather than a C, and I got a joke with her about her name, wagner, right like wagging your finger finger at somebody yeah, that's wagging, not Wagner my audience knows I still I, no matter how lame the pun, I can't pass.
Speaker 1:How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm fine, thank you. How are you?
Speaker 1:I need to go to bed early today. After that I put I didn't want to pass up the chance to talk to you, but I, as the saying goes, busier than a one-legged man and an ass kicking contest. Right, I dropped five before it's newscom articles today. I dropped two video exclusive shows on my video channel, but again, I I didn't want to pass up the chance to talk to you. But yeah, I'll be needing to go to bed early tonight. I'm I'm tired yeah, yeah so are you in?
Speaker 2:So are you in Wayne? Are you in Wayne?
Speaker 1:Yeah, unfortunately Are you in.
Speaker 2:Wayne County, is that Okay?
Speaker 1:Unfortunately I am yes, okay, but now.
Speaker 2:I'm on the west side.
Speaker 1:Yes, we called earlier. Certainly not give out even your area code, but yeah, I know you're on the western part of the state based on the phone numbers we connected with earlier today. But, at any rate, why you're here, why not while? Why you are here today is you are with the AXE, A-X-E, my M-I, as in Michigan abbreviation taxorg. Now, folks, if you're not in Michigan, don't tune out, because a ballot proposal, hopefully, will be coming soon to your state too, so stay tuned in. Regarding this property tax discussion, what were you going to say? You're going to.
Speaker 2:I just want to correct you there. Yep, I just want to correct you. The website is AX oh, axmitaxorg.
Speaker 1:No E oh, when we are I. That's what I thought it was.
Speaker 2:My email has an E. Yeah, my email has the E in it, but the website does not.
Speaker 1:Oh, hence my confusion. I thought it was axmitaxorg, but yeah, your email threw me there.
Speaker 2:That is correct.
Speaker 1:Okay, now that we got that out of the way. So, whether you're in Michigan or not, you want to know what's going on. And again, perhaps to bring a ballot initiative to your state, you may want to go to axmitaxorg Check out what's going on there. But in Michigan we've been arguing about property taxes. Now years ago, by way of setup, we had a Proposal A and that gave us cuts in property taxes. Joseph, I'm yeah, I.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're having a little internet delay here on occasion I'm giving the audience kind of a setup, okay. So yeah, proposal A we had years ago, which gave us lower property taxes and capped the amounts that the state evaluations that the tax was based on could only go up by a certain amount a year over time, so that property taxes wouldn't get out of control. But here we are and they're out of control again anyway. And Proposal A was a tax shift proposal which raised our state sales tax from 4% to 6% in order to exchange for lowering the property taxes. In order to exchange for lowering the property taxes.
Speaker 1:Now, out-of-control property taxes again, we're trying to either lower I hope we can at least do that preferably eliminate them, because in my mind, property taxes are the most heinous taxes there are. You may have someone on Social Security who gets kicked out of their house Supposedly they own it free and clear. But no, the state demands rent extortions through property taxes and if they can't pay that, they'll seize the property and kick seniors out of their homes. So we're trying to eliminate property tax in the state of Michigan, as is other tax. How, carla, then, did you get involved in this? Let's start there.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm the founder of Ask my Tax, so I am the one that started the initiative, and it was mostly because, during COVID, everything that I did to make a living I couldn't do so. My little restaurant couldn't be open, my retail antique shop couldn't be open, I couldn't sell real estate, I couldn't build houses, anything that I did to make an income, because I was I'm basically have been self-employed small business owner all of my life. I couldn't do anything, and yet I had to pay the bills. And I saw friends of mine that were landlords that still had to pay property tax, even though the renters didn't have to pay rent, to pay property tax, even though the renters didn't have to pay rent, and all of this that was going on. That's kind of what started it, because I said, it's not just me, there's a lot of other small restaurants, there's a lot of other small retail businesses, there's a lot of other plumbers and HVAC people, electricians that I used during the building process, and I'm like none of them could work. So I'm like everybody's been getting hurt by this during COVID. And then, of course, we also saw the cost of gas, groceries, utilities, insurance, prescription, drugs. All of that skyrocketed as well, which even put us even in a bigger world of hurt.
Speaker 2:So then I started looking around at other segments of people. You know I'm like. My son sends his kids to Christian school and yet he has to pay property school. He has to pay property taxes to support public schools, my mom and my dad we just lost my dad recently. My mom and dad are 88 and 89. And we made a graphic called lose your spouse, lose your house Cause that's what's happening to our seniors. When one of them passes away and they lose that pension or social security income from the deceased spouse, their property taxes don't get cut in half, even if they've lived in that house 20, 30, 40, 60 years. The property taxes have been going like this and it's putting them out. And I think the seniors here in Michigan, the seniors are knocking at the door of the veterans that are homeless. We're making that many seniors homeless. They're going to be competing with the veterans for homelessness in the state of Michigan and that is so, so so wrong?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, supposedly, or potentially. You've lived in a home your whole life. You supposedly own it, free and clear, but no, the state demands you pay rent to them through the extortion of property taxes. The kamifashi sociocrats, as I call them during the Wuhan hysteria, put in place things to protect renters, but the landlord's still on the hook for the property tax, as you said, even though maybe his 10 tenants weren't paying him rent. What was he supposed to pay the tax with? Right, they're not paying him. He's got no income. Yeah, he can't kick them out because of the laws the left put in place to protect renters, but nothing but wait. If the property owner doesn't pay the property tax, see how fast the leftists will throw all 10 tenants and the property owner out. On their hindsight, they don't care. Then, if they're not getting their money in the form of extortion taxes, you're out. But if you can't pay your landlord, oh well, we'll force him to let you stay without any break on his property taxes.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, it's a very you know it's a difficult and it's a very complex issue because property taxes are collected at the state, county, and I mean the township collects them, but some of the money stays at the township, some of the money goes to the county and a little bit of the money goes to the state, stays at the township, some of the money goes to the county and a little bit of the money goes to the state. So you're dealing with three different budgets that you're paying property taxes to and, unfortunately, what I have found out is that there's too many people that have been paying too many taxes for too many years that have no idea where the money's going, how it's being spent. All they know is, if I don't pay, that they'll take my property away.
Speaker 2:That's all they know.
Speaker 1:Exactly, go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 2:The penalty for not paying the property tax is so severe. It's the loss of your property which, to those people, in their mind, means that property tax is so, so, so important. It makes the state exist, and there's nothing further from the truth and that's the lie without property tax and that's the lie.
Speaker 1:some states don't have property taxes right, but a lot do. I think most do no no, no, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I don't really know if there's any state right now that I don't think there's any states right now that do not have property tax. They might have reformed their property taxes. So maybe there's some states where seniors after the age of 65 or 70 don't pay them, but the majority I think every state has them. But multiple states right now are looking at either reform or total elimination of property taxes, and even President Trump has talked about it, governor DeSantis has talked about it. Ohio is circulating a petition, like we are. Governor Abbott in Texas has done something, indiana and Illinois has done something, nebraska has done something. So more and more and more states are starting to recognize the issues that property taxes bring upon the people and upon the state.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the left never wants to eliminate any tax.
Speaker 1:They never want to give up their money. Any money they get is great. They talk about greed all the time but they're constantly wanting to steal more and more money from us for them to play with. You know, supposedly to help the poor, but the poor might get 10 cents on every dollar that's supposed to go to them, because the politicians take 90 percent off the top.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned school. So I'm glad you did that. But, yeah, the lie in property ownership. It's a lie. You don't own it if the state has a lien against it, as they do technically via property tax. So it's a lie. You own nothing. We're all renters. But you mentioned school. Now, yeah, most states, like in Michigan, under Proposal A, also as part of the increase in the sales tax from 4% to 6%, more of that then started going to the school aid funds. But a lot of the school aid still comes from property taxes. Child to go to public school, because the left will not let you have school choice and school vouchers to use your own property tax to go to a private school.
Speaker 2:Right, and so I want to. I just want to clarify what you said there, because if you look at your local property, if you look at your property tax bill, the local schools that you're paying on your property tax bill, none of those millages educate your kids. That's for past debt, it's for operating expenses, it's for building in sight, it's for playground equipment and football fields. It does not educate your kids, it's for playground equipment and football fields.
Speaker 1:It does not educate your kids.
Speaker 2:The only money on your property tax bill that educates your kids? Yes, yes. So the only portion of your property tax bill that goes to the state to go into the public school fund is the SET or the state education tax. It's six mills on everybody's property tax. That is the only millage or tax on your property tax bill that actually goes to Lansing to educate the kids. It goes into the bucket in Lansing. Then they pull that money out and they send it down to the schools on a per student basis.
Speaker 2:Now if you are a business like I, have a business. My business pays 18 mils of the public school operating expense. My business pays and some of that money goes to the schools to pay operating expenses. Your homestead is exempt and your homestead does not pay operating expenses to the schools. So they double down on the businesses and they make the businesses pay a full 18 mils and they make the businesses pay a full 18 mils. Some of that money that's the foundational money that the state then adds to from the state education tax via the public school fund. That's where the rest of the money for the schools come from. But, like you said, yes, we had the Headley Amendment and then we increased our sales tax. When we increased sales tax from 4% to 6%, that was supposed to replace the SET or state education tax. That was supposed to take that 6 mils off our property tax and it did not happen. The lottery. Remember when we were told right.
Speaker 2:So the lottery was supposed to remove the set off our property tax as well and that never happened. So twice now they've had opportunity to remove the six mills. Now we have representatives in Lansing. A representative in Lansing has written a bill to remove that state education tax off the property tax bill but he can't get support for it.
Speaker 1:You're talking about Jim's bill.
Speaker 2:They don't want to help us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, including other fellow Republicans, they don't want to know. Plus, yeah, including other fellow Republicans. And to be clear now, your mileage may vary. What she laid out, what I laid out we're talking Michigan. Your mileage may vary, right, your state taxation situation and what is sliced to where and whom and why and how may vary a bit. Who, where and whom and why and how may vary a bit.
Speaker 1:But all of this relates, all of this matters, to every single state. Again, once they get a tax, they almost never, ever, ever, without a constitutional amendment, give it up. And Proposal A even was an amendment. Proposal A even was an amendment. And they still. In Michigan, our payroll tax is supposed to be constitutionally capped and limited at 4% of income, but our state income tax is currently above that and it was a Republican Rhino, rick Snyder, that first started that and we haven't been able to get it back within constitutional limits since. Hopefully, if Republicans take over the Michigan House which they have now, but by a slim margin the Michigan Senate, the left controls and the governorship next election, hopefully we can get these things straightened around if it's a real Republican, not another rhino like Rick Snyder. So, yeah, things may vary in your state. But all this is very important. So, all those specifics aside, the point being is that the taxations always continue to go up and indeed seniors at best, at best the left, never gives up tax, never. They will fight tooth and nail to keep the property tax and the payroll tax at the illegal level as they have been Until we got control of the House back. We even not had even a bill to try and address any of this.
Speaker 1:Where was I going with this? But I don't think we're going to get a complete elimination. I hope and pray I'm wrong and I'm going to fight like hell to eliminate them entirely At least. At the very least, as you said happens in some other states, if someone is on Social Security, whether it be through retirement or disability or whatever a legitimate citizen on Social Security, whatever the age, whatever the reason they're on it, should be exempted from property tax, at least in my opinion. Do you think we might at least be able to get that compromise as a stepping stone to later further? Because it's the spending stupid right. We've got to cut the spending. They're never going to eliminate the taxes. We've got to get the spending. They're never going to eliminate the taxes. We've got to get the spending cut so that we can get to surpluses and we can cut the taxes further. So your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Well, so our citizens initiative petition is for total elimination. So it is a citizens initiative, which means if we get enough signatures to get it on the ballot, if we get enough people to vote to eliminate it, they have to put it into law, which would eliminate property tax. Yeah, it won't matter, that is our goal is to eliminate the property tax altogether, Bypass the politicians yeah, we don't need their approval.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's what we're doing is bypassing the politicians, because the politicians that have been favorable to ask my tax have been telling me just that they're like we can't do it, carla, because we can't get enough support. If you take it to the people and get enough support, and if you get it done, we will deal with it. We will make it happen. They will be forced to make it happen. So, number one they have to cut the wasteful spending of our tax dollars. That's number one. Number two anything that is currently on our property tax bill that should be paid by consumption like going to the zoo, you pay admission. Why is it on our property tax bill? If you go to the museum, you pay admission at the door. Why is it on our property tax bill? Those types of things like that could be paid by consumption.
Speaker 2:We don't need to worry about replacing those dollars. Those are not dollars. I want to replace Wastefully spent dollars. Why should we replace waste? We're not going to replace that either. And then I think, if we look at, what else can we do to cut the budget back to pre-COVID? Let's go back to 2019. We were only spending $58.5 billion and the last six years we've added $30 billion to our spending, but we haven't even fixed the damn roads, nothing.
Speaker 2:Exactly, where is it going? $30 billion it took us 150 years to get to 58 and a half. How could we almost double it in six years?
Speaker 1:yeah that.
Speaker 2:That's why if we went, if we went back I'm just saying if we went back to pre-covid spending, there would both. There would be no need for property tax, because $30 billion is way more than what the state collects in property tax, so they just went back to pre-COVID 2019.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the state managed to operate just fine for 150 years before an extra $30 billion was added on. There is indeed no reason. We can't go back, although I think most of us would agree, maybe spending more to actually, as Governor Wretched Whitler promised, fix the damn roads If she was given more money. She's been given more money and the roads still aren't fixed. Most of us would agree okay, so we'll pay a little more, but not $30 billion more, and we should be able to fix the roads and do everything else we need. It's a matter of priorities and they don't want to prioritize anything. Any excuse to spend. They just want to tax us more for and again, taking a dollar, cut off 50 cents of it at least every top 50 cents goes in the politicians' pockets. Not for the things they say it will right, that's a big part of the problem there. For the things they say it will right, that's a big part of the problem there.
Speaker 2:If money yeah, there's too many levels of government with yep. There's too many levels of government for that money to flow through and too many sticky fingers. So you have to give somebody $1,000 for them to make for them to receive $100.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly Shrinking. Yeah, as a Christian show, we have to shrink the government.
Speaker 2:We have to yeah.
Speaker 1:Apologies to the audience. There's a bit of a lag here on Zoom today, I don't know why. So we're kind of running into and talking over each other a bit because we're not sure where the other is finished due to this lag. But yeah, the point charities as a Christian show, charity is where it's supposed to be. We are to want to be our brother's keeper through charity, and not all charities are created equal either. I won't give to the. I'll give blood to the Red Cross, but I'm not giving money to the Red Cross because a lot of that money gets absorbed in administrative fees. Others like Samaritan's Purse or the Tim Tebow Foundation and you can go to terroriststrikesinfo slash charity for well-vetted charities, where at least 90 cents on every dollar they get actually goes to the cause they say it will. But there are other charities that are like government. They're in it to line their own pockets, not do what they say they will do, and that is our big problem here. Yes, people wanting to skim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need to shrink the government. The state right now is our largest employer, which means that if the state is the largest employer, we're at an imbalance. That is not sustainable because private sector cannot afford public sector. Private sector is not able to get the labor they need because everybody's a state employee. Private sector cannot pay all of those salaries and wages and benefits and pensions and daycare and healthcare and vacation time. Private sector cannot afford to pay for that when your state has more employees than private sector, because the private sector supports the state employees. We need to shrink government, which means we also need to shrink government spending at all three levels local, township, county and state. That all needs to be addressed. They need to reprioritize their spending. They need to cut out their wasteful spending and they really and they're. If we just went to part-time legislation, like 44 other states have, just think of how much money that one thing alone would save us almost enough to negate the need for property tax.
Speaker 2:Let's just do that. Let's just try that.
Speaker 1:That's a whole other show topic. But yes, thank you, for you spelled that out perfectly well. Exactly, we're out of balance.
Speaker 2:But what we're trying to do, yeah, and what we're trying to do is force the state to cut spending. How do we cut spending? Go to part-time legislation that cuts a whole bunch of money out, just like that. You know, cut some of these programs that are not really not needed the MEDC and SOAR and some of those other programs. Maybe they need to get scaled back a lot, because what's happening is that the state is subsidizing too much of what should be private. This should be private. Let the private businesses do it. Let they grow. If they're not paying property taxes, they would be able to expand and grow their businesses without needing subsidization from the state. So they charge them an exorbitant amount of property taxes and then they have to give them subsidizations in order for them to grow their manufacturing plant. That doesn't make any sense. All you're doing is crisscrossing money like this. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Exactly. You're stealing a dollar. To give somebody back 50 cents is not helping them at all in any way, shape or form. You're stealing 50 cents from them of the dollar they should have been able to keep Private. Also again, charity, a lot of these programs. The whole point of biblical charity is that local people know the local people and the Bible makes the distinction. We are to help the unable, not those who are unwilling and the state. That's the problem. They don't care. They measure compassion quote, unquote by the number of people that are on a program rather than the number of people that we can help to become dependent and able for themselves and off a program through charity, yes, and again, it's the local charity that knows the local church knows the people, the state does not.
Speaker 2:Right, and I know that you know. As Christians we were taught you do not give people fish. You teach them how to fish.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:And obviously there's people in our administration that never learned that lesson. They never learned that lesson.
Speaker 1:There's a great meme I like to share and I'll try to remember to throw it into the behind the scenes video for those watching on BitChute, brideon, dailymotion, rumble and YouTube. It's called More Rungs. Right In the left picture is like people in a pit and they're handing down fish. Right, people are hungry. They're crying out. We need more fish. In the right of the picture, the conservative right no, we need more rungs to the ladder to help people climb out of the pit.
Speaker 1:So they don't need the fish handed to them between leftist dependency creation thinking and conservative biblical community thinking. Biblical community is free will, charity, choice, worldly communism, theft, redistribution force is not biblical Right. For the benefit of the transcript, she's shaking her head. Yes, which?
Speaker 2:doesn't work well for those listening on audio. I want to be able to donate to the charity of my choice. I do not want to be forced to donate to a charity that may not be my choice.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I don't like where the government's spending my money.
Speaker 1:That's right. And then that's the issue. The left doesn't want even though they use the word choice as a dodge about murdering children. They aren't for choice. They want theft and they will decide how to spend your money. Not let you decide how and where to spend and to whom you will help with your money. No, they want to steal it because then again, it's not about helping, it's about their power and control. The issue is never the issue with the left. It's always about power and control, and so they can steal and siphon off the top of everything they collect.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, our government's too big, yeah, there's too many levels, and if we could cut out some of those levels, we would need a lot less money to run the state, and that's an important point.
Speaker 1:we are not saying there should be no government. No one I know says we should have complete anarchy and every man, woman and child for themselves. Nobody I know, despite the left's lies about people on the right, want no government whatsoever. We agree there should be small government, as Carla said. Eliminate some of the layers and you're eliminating some of the steps where monies are siphoned and more of the actual taxation we agree might be necessary to pay to actually have things like police and fire. It's the left that want to eliminate the police. We want community policing to pay for the things government should pay for less layers, siphoning things off, more money of the taxes directly going to the things government should be doing rather than all this stuff they are doing. Because again, it's about power and control.
Speaker 2:Yes, Right, well, and I think they buy votes. They buy votes with their money because they allow. They give money to different representatives or different districts and they build them a splash pad or a pool, or they build them a curling facility or an equestrian center, and what they're doing is buying votes with that, because that is. That is not what the state should be doing with our tax dollars. The state is. The state is should not be entertaining us with splash pads and pickleball courts. The state's job is to protect our lives, our liberties and our property. That's government's job. That's it.
Speaker 1:You hit it right there. If community A I'm not going to name a city if community A wants a pickleball court, community A wants a pickleball court. If they weren't being taxed to death and were allowed to keep their own money in the community, they could build the pickleball court themselves. It doesn't do any good if I take $10 out of Carla's pocket and put five into Sheila's pocket. Did Sheila get $5? No, because at the same time, if I'm a politician, I'm taking $10 out of the other pocket from Sheila to then try to pretend to give five to Carla. I'm not giving any money to anyone. I've taken it. They are both $5 shorter for it. And how is it and this is the issue people don't understand this redistribution con that's going on, like you said, buying votes. But if I take $10 from you and give you $5 to buy your vote for something else, you're still $5 in the hole. You're not $5 ahead. How is it? People can't understand this. Carla, our schools, right? We raise idiots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately, the quality of our schools, michigan's at the bottom of the pile in just about everything measurable. You know we have everything we need here to be a wealthy state and instead we're a welfare state. We're going downhill very fast. We're near the bottom in everything. We only have one way to go up, but it's going to take a very drastic measure to get us there. That's what I think Ask my Tax is. It is taking an ax to the budget and an ax to the government and saying this has got to stop. If we want our state and our people to continue to live here and be able to exist here, we need to do something drastic. I think Ask my Tax is the beginning of Doge. In Michigan, we can identify that there's trillions of dollars of waste at the state level, millions of dollars at the county levels, hundreds of thousands of dollars of waste at the township level, and it's unfortunately it's our money that they're wasting and it's at the risk of us losing our property.
Speaker 2:We have to collateralize our properties for them to spend money, because they have no money to spend unless they take it from us or borrow against the collectability of us to pay property tax.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. As a classic example of local potential waste in the park across the street from me they just put in something. I'm not going to say exactly what it was, but tens of thousand dollars spent because, oh, they had it, you know, we got to spend it. We can't give it back, we got to spend it. But some kid will get hurt on that in the park. They will sue the city. The city will shell out hundreds of thousands in lawsuit claim and then spend tens of thousands more to rip it out so they don't get sued again. But they're not smart enough to know that in advance and avoid the whole thing At any rate. Yeah, time flies when you're having fun.
Speaker 2:That is exactly what's happening. That's, yeah, that's it, but that but that's, but that's the liability, that, okay. So I don't know if you just heard about what happened up north on the peninsula. You know, the little lelanau peninsula, I think, is where there's a lot of wineries and things like that up there. So township officials didn't really understand their job and they told some of the wineries and things on that peninsula that you know they couldn't hold little special events and they couldn't do things even though they had the licenses you know they could do. They could do like wine tasting and stuff like that. It sounds like what happened was the townships kind of tried to stop them from doing things stifling their business and that kind of stuff. Well, you know what? That township just lost a suit and there's about 6,000 people on that little peninsula that are going to be responsible for a $50 million lawsuit that has to get paid for this is new.
Speaker 2:Because of the town, because of the township officials. The township officials didn't quite know what they were doing, got the whole township in a mess in a lawsuit and now the residents of that township are responsible for that lawsuit settlement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this isn't new how does?
Speaker 2:that happen, this, how does that happen?
Speaker 1:it happens over and over and over because we don't teach history in this country. No one knows any history. We keep repeating the same stupid over and over. Anyway. I get time flies when we're having fun. So, people, whether you're in michigan or not, you need to go to x a, x, my, m, I, my M-I short for Michigan taxorg and get up to speed on this and if it's not happening in your state yet, make sure you help form your own ACTSDA for Georgia tax, or ACTS P-X tax or ACTS C-A tax, especially out in California. You've got to engage in what the left does all the time ballot initiatives, because the politicians won't do it. We have to force them to do it. Yes, carla, and thank you. That's why you're here. Thank you for being here, carla Wagner.
Speaker 2:Wrapping things up, go ahead and make a closing statement. Yeah, what we need is more circulators to help us circulate the petitions. They can fill out the form at axmitaxorg. It's pretty simple to gather petitions and almost everybody can fill. You know can get a hundred signatures. I can get a hundred from my family. So, axmytaxorg, fill out the volunteer form, we will get you petitions. We would love to have you help us circulate because by circulating and asking for signatures, you are also spreading our message and helping us get that statewide exposure we need for a statewide campaign like this and obviously you're very busy with what you're doing to try to get this in Michigan.
Speaker 1:But people of other states, if they want to reach out, I have no doubt whatever time you can give them to help them, you will also do that too, but you're kind of busy doing it for here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we do have friends in Ohio. Ohio is now circulating petitions to eliminate property tax as well. Like I said, governor DeSantis, I had been talking to people in Florida. Now Governor DeSantis is talking about it there. So in North Dakota they tried, they got enough signatures, they got it on the ballot. They just didn't quite get enough votes to eliminate it. But you know what? There's a lot of other states that are making some noise about property tax reform and property tax elimination and everybody should be calling their state rep and senators Call your state rep call your senator, say get behind X my tax.
Speaker 2:We want to eliminate property tax.
Speaker 1:Amen. No, you cannot rest. You do not get to just vote on election day and think you've done something. No, you must be involved in off election years. That's when you get the better candidates for a primary that so few vote in. And then come November people complain oh, I got to hold my nose and vote for so-and-so.
Speaker 1:Well, if you got off your butt and were involved year round, every year you know, not every day, but doing things, not just whining and moaning on social media we could do things. We could get things to be better. If you get involved with Moms for Liberty or Ask my Tax or and you know what's the school one with Kurt, whatever I mean, there's a bazillion Tea Party Express. There's a bazillion organizations you could and should be involved with. At least some of the time I get it, you've got to watch TV and unwind once in a while. I've got no problem with that. The problem is bread and circus, when you're consumed by the boob tube all the time and not paying attention to people who are stealing money from you, and you could stop them. Thank you again, carla Wagner.
Speaker 2:Have a good day, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having tuned in for Krista Tuchel's Politics Show. If you haven't already, please check out my primary internationally available book, terror Strikes, coming soon to a city near you, available anywhere books are sold. If you have locally run bookstores still near you, they can order it for you. And let me remind, over time the fancy high production items will come. But for now, for starters, it's just you, as a very appreciated listener by me. All substance, no fluff, just straight to key discussion points. A show that looks at a variety of topics, mostly politics, through a Christian, us constitutionalist lens. So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Take care, god bless, like and subscribe to Constitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes. We need your help.
