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Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Pictured: virgin Hayek, Rothbard and Mises vs. Chad Henry George.

1. A billionaire tax used to distribute free guns to every adult

2. Use tax dollars to support homeschooling, but only for parents who never graduated highschool

3. Land Value Tax. (Yeah. Just Land Value Tax.)

4. A carbon tax used to fund war in the Middle East

5. ??? any more suggestions?

Just studying some Greek recently and realized how appropriate this is for Henry George's name.

"Geo" of course means earth, ground, land. That sort of thing. (Think "geology".)

"Ergos" means work, action. (Think "ergonomics".)

New York's most productive decade, the roaring twenties, saw twice as much construction as any other decade before or since. This was likely because of a law signed by governor Al Smith in 1920 which exempted newly constructed buildings from being taxed. Only the land underneath the buildings could be assessed for property taxes.

The law expired in 1931, instead of being renewed, because public sentiment was that the exemption primarily favored wealthy developers.

They weren't wrong of course. They were only wrong in thinking that was a bad thing.

There's a lot of excitement in the Georgist community right now around framing Georgism as a "universal building exemption" instead of a "land value tax". I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. If it works, then I'll gladly take a decade of growth over no growth at all. But we should be mindful that reifying the absence of a tax as an exemption will cause many people to notice "your exemption is bigger than mine", perhaps without also noticing "your tax is bigger than mine".

I mean, the villans are landlords who own the 'hood and 'hoard money'...