Vote Yes on Measure 2

To the editor:

The state has the money to fund Measure 2. We have almost two billion dollars in the school lands fund and the state is taking in 4.8 million dollars a day. There is no reason we cannot get rid of property tax and use the money we have coming into our state through the increased collections of sales tax, income tax and all the other taxes the state has over collected. Measure 2 will be the people’s refund of the overpayment.

Eighty-four percent of the property is owned by North Dakotas and 93 percent are living in homes in North Dakota. No one can buy your property if it is not for sale, but if you do not continue to pay the property tax on your home, the county will take it and sell it, you won’t get one dime of it. Out of state corporations pay the most income tax, 60 percent of the income tax collected. Property tax is paid by only 16 percent of out of state owners and income tax is paid by 60 percent of out of state owners. Measure 2 allows the legislature to tap into those 60 percent out of state income tax payers to fund the local services along with all the out of state workers who must pay income tax but are not paying property tax.

Measure 2 is a constitutional measure for a reason, because it gives “we” the people the key to unlock our state resources to fund the services our property tax was funding. Measure 2 gives “we” the people the control back to say we do not want to use our homes, our properties to fund our services. Constitutional measures can be changed by “we” the people going to a vote, if we vote yes and don’t like it we can come back as early as 2014 and change it. Vote Yes; it is the key to owning your home and property without a perpetual payment to the government. Measure 2 is the key to the “state” bank.

-Susan Beehler