Property taxes have crept up – nationwide – to the point where a revolt is brewing. The GOP in 2026 may have an issue of major importance if the trend continues, since Democrats are behind the rise.
Nationally, the Biden era overspending and overtaxing are a lingering hangover, 2022 having the highest inflation and interest rates in decades, adverse impact on home building, lumber prices, debt costs, and consumer confidence. The lingering effect is substantial and compounded by other pressures.
With tens of millions of illegal aliens in Democrat or “sanctuary” states taking housing stock and benefits, private buyers are squeezed, raising values. Healthcare fraud, higher education costs, new crime, and infrastructure costs follow this trend, all part of the Biden property tax hangover.
More immediately, schools – the major driver for property taxes – have not recovered from COVID, weak trade training, dramatic setbacks in reading, math, and life skills, complicating local budgets.
Feeding elevated school costs and low outcomes is unprecedented (leftist) politicization of school systems in Democrat states, where DEI, CRT, less homework, more social media, grievance culture, confused sexual messaging, political activism, and emotional learning replaced hard learning.
All this creates rising home costs and taxes, further aggravated by demographics, more seniors remaining in their homes, while squeezed by their fixed incomes, plus more first-time buyers.
In 2024, the average property tax for homeowners grew by almost three percent, with three-quarters of all cities seeing increases and 157 of 217 cities seeing exceptionally high tax growth.
Some cities and states have been unusually impacted, especially those run by Democrats – where businesses have been driven out or under by state-level over taxation, over regulation, new drug crime, vandalism, theft, and unfunded mandates. Businesses often sell to out-of-state buyers, who then take top jobs and taxpayers. To that, add workers’ compensation, labor, and paid family leave.
Done wrong, these states fall into a recurring or “vicious” cycle of unchecked local costs, deflection of high state costs – from overspending and overregulating– back onto municipalities, which then struggle to pay for what the Democrat states mandate for schools, law enforcement, and locals.
Done right, these trends can be reversed. The critical pieces are a change of state and often local leadership, restored fiscal responsibility, accountable management, pro-business tax code, slashed regulations, ending state-level fraud, rolling back mandates on municipalities, ending politicization in schools and leftist lessons, reinstalling performance metrics, shrinking the administrator class, withholding state money if taxes cannot be reduced, and forcing accountability.
Beyond this, wider reforms are needed to get property taxes down, including reducing the state tax burden, optimally reducing or ending income taxes after cutting spending, encouraging businesses to return to the state to reinvest, train, hire, and thrive, while restoring public trust and safety.
Some states are considering dramatic, state-level initiatives to cut or eliminate property taxes; many are thinking about doing so for seniors and younger or first-time homebuyers, either outright or with multiplied homestead exemptions, all of which require aggressive new accountability.
At this point, property taxes may be repealed outright in Florida – a tourist state that might restore some revenue through an uptick in seasonal sales taxes, Idaho – where half the legislature is for cutting property taxes deeply, Illinois – which is considering a cut for seniors, Kansas – which may establish a citizens’ board to regulate property taxes, Montana – which may shift costs from seniors to second-home owners, utilities and select sectors, North Dakota – which effectively tripled the homestead exemption, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and other states on similar tracks.
In some states, like Maine, if Republicans retake the Governorship, House, and Senate, major reforms are possible. And on a personal note, as a candidate for governor, the immediate acts would be a sequenced elimination of the income tax, deep cuts of mandates driving property taxes, reform of the school system, new tax exemptions for seniors, and first-time homebuyers.
One way or the other, 2026 may see a stunning rise in focus on property taxes, as the Biden overspending, overtaxing, and inflation hangover combines with Democrat mismanagement, an end of leftist politics in schools, and demographic issues to focus attention on a possible revolt.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
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