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Comment by chao- | Hacker News Reader

When I first realized that media discourse trivializes "The American Dream" as owning a house, I was in my early teens. In school we had just read a few essays from the 1920's and 1930's debating whether the American Dream was dead.

I was very confused.

Maybe the American Dream was dead in 1925. Maybe it was dead by 2005. Maybe it wasn't dead at all, or maybe it never existed to begin with! Real, illusion, dead, alive. Whatever it is, it sure as shit means something more than owning a single-family house.

I wish the media discourse would stop abusing the term.

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"Owning a house" is really about achieving personal security living in a society, where if you maintain resources, your land generally won't be taken away randomly (there are rare exceptions, like government appropriation for projects).

I still agree with you. Stop abusing the terms.

Tho in fact on a fixed income even if you 100% own your home, it’s possible property taxes can get high enough to have your home taken away.

I've not ever heard of this happening to somebody in the United States, I suspect it's uncommon. In most states property taxes are somewhat fixed at the time of acquisition.

I’ve known folks in NH this has happened too. One of the only real taxes NH has is a property tax so it keeps going up. Folks who’ve owned their place forever suddenly can’t afford it. Most of them are old so they’re on fixed incomes or they’re woodchucks who do odd jobs/labor to get by.

Just for comparison: I live just outside of Boston. My property taxes for my house are roughly the same as my parents in NH. Even though my house is worth 5x as much.

It makes sense for property tax totals to be similar if they are used to provide similar services. If everybody's home price suddenly doubled, property tax rates to first order would halve (there are second order effects like needing to pay firefighters more so they can afford to live in the jurisdiction).

I would bet that, to a first approximation, most municipal taxes go to paying salaries of municipal employees (or contractors' employees), and so the "second order" effects of all those workers needing to live nearby are in fact most of the budget. Sure, higher property values mean the county clerk doesn't use more paper clips, but that kind of thing isn't gonna be most of the budget.

  > In most states property taxes are somewhat fixed at the time of acquisition.

No... that is only in california. In all other states they fluctuate with property value, as evaluated by the assessor (and potentially appealed by the owner)

It’s better not to pay off your house else you lose the tax deduction! Seems perverse. Pay it off, pay more net taxes.

Are you forgetting about all the interest you’re paying on the mortgage? If I’m going to pay either way, taxes are the lesser evil.

The American Dream is like Kenny. It dies every election season.

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