City Raises Taxes to Fund “Free Housing”

By: John Semmens

The City of Portland, Maine has opted to raise property taxes in order to provide free housing for asylum seekers. The average home price in the City is $475, 000. Up to now the tax on such a house has been $5,200. The expected additional annual levy is in the $350 range.

Portland Mayor Kate Snyder said “so-called asylum seekers are being sent here without us being consulted or even getting any prior notice from the Biden Administration. Housing them has become a significant financial burden.”

“The property tax hike was just one of the options the City Council considered,” the Mayor admitted. “Other suggestions from citizens attending the Council meeting included putting them on buses to DC like like some Republican governors have done, asking them to get jobs and pay their own bills, or requisitioning vacant space in homes too large for the current inhabitants like was done in New England in the 1770s.”

The Mayor contends that two of the suggested alternatives “are too inhospitable. Asking people to pay their own way or sending them to the nation's capital is something that Republicans would do. Well, we're not Republicans. Requisitioning excess space in people's homes would be equitable, but would require too much work. Squeezing taxpayers for a few hundred dollars more each year is the most efficient course of action.”