Churches and non-profit entities that own property should not be exempt from some property tax. However, because taxes are generalized and in bulk and go into a general fund it is easy to argue that the current situation is viable. But if everyone was required to pay a certain dollar amount per linear foot of street frontage then you could easily see that a church building should pay some amount of road maintainence fees so that their parishoners can get to the church. It would involve the church more in the live of the people they are claiming to serve.
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Churches that hide behind walls in cities are not doing their jobs. Churches need to be far more involved in social issues in cities. Indeed, much like foundations are required to give out so much of their money each year so should churches be required to give so much of what they collect back to the communities. Not told how to give the money or to whom -- but surely give it back. For instance, why don't more churches organize neighborhood clean ups, tree plantings, park maintainence. It's great that churches take care of spiritual needs, but surely they must help with temporal needs also. They are part of the physical communities. Too. xxx |
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Churches should be enlisted in government programs that deal with the worst off in society. For instance, the insane and the mentally retarded. The churches would seem to be ideally situated to run small housing and care programs that are in the communities from where these people arise. There would be nothing wrong with the city providing funds and other assistance to church run programs. No one would be forced to use such a program, but the reality is that until we move to an better system of social security we are faced with dealing with these issues in our current fashion. XXX . |
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Non-profit organizations should be organized by cities to take care of parks and street trees and recreation areas. The local people would run these organizations. They would receive so much money in tax dollars until they get their endowments up and running. Instead of huge citywide parks departments we would have easy to contact and act with local park foundations. The local taxes would go to the local park, lessening the complaints that one or another park gets it's fair share of tax dollars. We would remove yet another layer of political favor hunting and rid the city of a partially wasteful bureaucracy and the temptation for corruption. By running parks as non-profits we would be better able to care for each park. XXX . |
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A non-profit tree group should be organized in each city, operating at the neighborhood level. These groups would work to constantly plant more trees and replace those that died. They would not have to fight other areas of the city for trees. By eliminating a central bureaucracy we would be freeing up resources for the actual trees -- instead of the bureaucrats needed to run the tree program. The more trees the lower the electric bills, the cleaner the air, the more birds, the better looking and the cooler the streets will become, lessening virtually every social ill that faces the poorer parts of cities. The planting of trees at the local level would be easy because it would require merely taking trees that are in infancy and are growing throughout the neighborhood and planting them in appropriate places. Instead most homeowners are ripping out small trees and placing them in the trash. They have no way of bringing the sapplings to the tree planting forces, which go and buy plants at nurseries, and use tax dollars more for administration than action. XXX . |
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All cultural institutions in a city should be removed from city budgets and spun off into non-profits with the goal of creating endowments for them. To use city tax dollars to support a museum which most people will never go to in the name of providing a place for tourists to go is nuts. The institution would still exist, the tourists would still come, but the institution would have its own money. It would not have to cry to city hall for more funds. There would be no budget fights. There would be no political favoritism. XXX |
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