Affordable Housing

H. L. Mencken, the Baltimore Sun newspaperman known as The Sage of Baltimore, is said to have said, "When A harms B, under the guise of helping C, A is a scoundrel."

Medieval alchemists claimed that all metals were made of the same “prime matter,” and that base metals like lead were simply immature forms on their way to becoming gold. They argued that by carefully purifying, heating, and recombining these substances – sometimes with the aid of a secret catalyst like the Philosopher’s Stone – they could accelerate nature’s hidden process. To defend this claim, they built long chains of obscure reasoning, making the transformation of lead to gold appear possible while confusing critics who lacked the “secret knowledge." The complexity itself became proof, they claimed, that the method was profound rather than impossible.

I don't have a solution to suggest to lessen the affordable-housing crisis affecting our country. And I don't think anyone else in the country does, either.

But I do know this: that raising property taxes does not create more affordable housing – it increases the un-affordability of housing for many more people, and exacerbates the problem rather than fixing it.

And this: that raising the taxes on the homes of my friends who are teachers in order to build what is erroneously called affordable housing for others – housing that these teachers themselves cannot afford – is absurd.

Being "passionate" about an issue is not a solution, it is no more than virtue-signaling.

I believe that the 47,987 citizens who voted against the 2024 Cary Housing Bond understand these things.