Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida wants to abolish property taxes for homeowners in his state. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wants to abolish them nationwide. Elon Musk has spoken out against them. And a number of red states — including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Texas — recently passed laws or constitutional amendments limiting them.
Right-wing antipathy to property taxes isn’t new. Libertarians have long argued that they are the equivalent of paying rent to the government for property you already own, making them inherently illegitimate. And it’s true that city budgets are often poorly deployed — funneled into bloated pensions, NGO handouts and ill-advised social engineering schemes. In many states, property taxes are too high. But the property tax revolt is still a mistake.
State governments need to keep an eagle eye on local finances, making corrections where needed, but property taxes are an appropriate way to fund local services and public amenities. Attacking them will cost Republicans the educated voters and suburbanites they need to win — and govern.
Over the past couple of decades, there’s been a sea change among college-educated suburbanites when it comes to their expectations from local government. They don’t want a night watchman state that does the bare minimum. Suburbanites increasingly expect local government to provide high-quality public goods, services and amenities, such as modern playgrounds and trail networks. They want to have a bustling walkable downtown. They want public amenities to match their private ones.
And they are willing to pay for it. Very Republican Saratoga Springs, Utah, voted by a large margin last year to raise sales taxes to pay for arts, parks and recreation. Medina County, Ohio, near Cleveland, where President Trump won over 60 percent of the vote in 2024, approved a tax levy for the operation and expansion of parks. In the past decade, of almost 30 school property tax referendums in largely Republican suburban Indianapolis, only two failed. Suburbs don’t always vote to approve taxes, but they frequently do — even in very Republican areas.
My own city, Carmel, Ind., shows this new suburban sensibility. A city of 100,000 just north of Indianapolis, Carmel has been a Republican bastion for decades. It has made big investments in infrastructure, amenities and public services. It has built more than 150 roundabouts, virtually eliminating traffic congestion. It has an extensive network of trails and parks, public art installations, events like an annual German-inspired Christkindlmarkt and millions of square feet of office space, making it a perennial presence on national “best cities” lists.
Republicans should be boasting about these successes and looking to Carmel as a model for other towns and cities. Instead, some of the most prominent Republicans in the country are waging war on the revenue model that powers them. In doing so, they pander to retired baby boomers who are eager to shift taxes away from their homes and onto those still working.
Educated voters, including in the suburbs, have shifted strongly to the left over the past 20 to 30 years. Even Carmel backed Kamala Harris in 2024. Though the reasons for this are complex, I’d argue one of the causes is that they are increasingly alienated by state Republican parties that want to impose a Tea Party-style austerity governance model on them. They don’t want their state to force them to live in a bare-bones community. Why would they vote for a party that promises to make their community worse by eliminating its main source of tax revenue?
It’s great that the Republican Party has expanded its reach to the working class, but it’s not good to be losing the suburban professional one. This loss could come back to bite Republicans when Mr. Trump is no longer on the ballot to drive huge turnout among lower-propensity and rural voters. It also sharply shrinks the talent base the G.O.P. can draw on to staff government when it does win.
What Carmel shows is that you can keep property taxes relatively low (they are capped by Indiana’s constitution) while still funding a robust set of public services. Carmel has focused public investment on delivering tangible goods and services, not excessive entitlements, bureaucratic activism and other hallmarks of blue America, so that the revenue collected from property taxes goes to improving the quality of life.
Rhetoric around eliminating property taxes may play well with boomer retirees in the next political campaign, but actually doing so would be the Republican Party eating its demographic seed corn for the future while turning its back on a proven model of success and undermining local communities and the critical public services they rely on.
Aaron M. Renn is a writer and consultant in Carmel, Ind. He is a lifelong Republican.
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