The Idaho Legislature won’t eliminate property tax next year. My bold prediction. There will be a few bills introduced, a lot of chatter on talk radio and online, and then action will be kicked down the road. If it looks like a winner in the 2028 Election, it’ll sail through in session a few weeks before the 2028 Primary. Wet an index finger and raise it in the air. Then vote.

As an old Libertarian (with a capital L), I’m familiar with the basic argument. If you own it, why do you have to pay rent? The answer always comes back to, “It’s the best system we have to fund local governments”. Forms have been in place since colonial times, even if scattered geographically. The idea gained steam in the years after the Civil War when a handful of economists blamed property ownership for growing poverty in cities. Property accrued value as space became a premium. So-called reformers believed the tax would balance economic inequality, and appealed to noblesse oblige.

Your Taxes Get Sprinkled Like a Good Rain

I live in Twin Falls County, where we have 78 taxing districts that rely on the current system. If you ask what can replace it, you’re called a Republican in name only (RINO) by compatriots. Obviously, not everything funded by the tax is a waste. First responders and snow plows come to mind. It makes me think of the calls to gut the federal government, but while maintaining Social Security and Medicare. The former makes up nearly a quarter of the budget. Medicare is only 14 percent, but additional health spending brings the tab to another quarter. Historian Niall Ferguson grew up in Scotland, and he summed up Great Britain a couple of weeks ago. People want more, not less, welfare spending. Are we different?

Before anyone in Boise wipes out property tax, legislators need to consider what voters want to stay, and how to fund it otherwise. If they don’t, they’ll see a backlash at the ballot box. Just because I say I want taxes reduced, I didn’t mean the programs that benefit me! The answer won’t be available over 90 days next year.

More than 20 years ago I hosted a weeklong series on tax alternatives. Among the proposals we examined were Flat Tax, Fair Tax, and Automated Payments Tax. People are most familiar with the first. Everyone pays a flat percentage. Say 12 to 15 percent. Of income, I guess. Of course, we need to define income. Professor Gad Saad is leaving Canada for a job in the United States and has to pay an exit tax based on his estimated assets. Estimated is the dirty word! That’s left to bureaucrats.

This Requires Study and Gaming Outcomes

Go ahead and adopt the flat tax, and please the conservatives, however. Many people, even on the right, have paid very little when it comes to present income confiscation. See how they react when they get a wake-up call. The Fair Tax is a national sales tax of 23 percent. Or it was the percentage proposed 20 years ago. That sounds large, but when you consider your overall tax burden right now, if it replaced what currently exists, you would be better off. This isn’t to say that local governments wouldn’t institute their own taxes. If you live in a blue state or city, that’s a given. Proponents argue that citizens have the option of not paying taxes if they choose not to buy. Obviously, you need to buy some things, unless you’re destitute and living exclusively on handouts.

Automated Payments Tax (APT) is a 1 percent charge on every transaction. A company buys steel to build trucks; it pays 1 percent on the steel. And on every other purchase. The dealer buys the truck for his lot and pays one percent. You buy from the dealer and pay one percent. An economist at the University of Indiana told me it would cover the federal budget. We had that conversation in 2005, when the national debt wasn’t even a quarter of what we see today. None of these plans address the debt, but if state and local governments are creative, maybe we can find something that replaces property taxes.

What we’ll get is a commission from the politically connected who’ll meet once a month for bagels and orange juice. In three years, they’ll provide a solution that works best for them.

BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo and U.S. Sen. Jim Risch issued statements mourning the sudden passing of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, remembering him as a friend, colleague and influential conservative lawmaker.

“For most of my public service in Congress, I had the privilege of calling Lindsey Graham not only a colleague in both the House and Senate, but a loyal and generous friend,” Crapo said. “He was a formidable public servant who held the line on issues important to him and South Carolinians with unwavering courage.”

Crapo highlighted Graham’s military service and foreign policy work, saying, “As an Air Force veteran and foreign policy hawk, he traveled the world demonstrating America’s strength and resolve. To our nation’s allies, he was a friend. To our adversaries, he was unflinching.”

Crapo also pointed to Graham’s work in the Senate, including his leadership on budget issues and his role on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Lindsey was a staunch conservative, and he shepherded the Senate Budget Committee through the critical steps of the budget reconciliation process,” Crapo said. “His work put more money in Americans’ pockets and kept our homeland safe. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, he safeguarded the federal judiciary and conducted much-needed oversight.”

“Senator Graham enriched the lives of those of us who knew him,” Crapo said. “He will be deeply missed, and I offer my sincere condolences to his family, staff and other loved ones during this difficult time.”

Risch and his wife, Vicki, also expressed condolences, calling Graham “a dear friend and colleague whose warmth, humor, and unwavering dedication to public service will be deeply missed.”

“He loved America deeply and devoted his life to serving our nation and fighting for what he believed was in its best interest,” Risch said. “We extend our deepest condolences and are praying for his family during this difficult time.”

“Who expects to see a castle like this in Idaho?” said listing agent Brenda Burk of Coldwell Banker Schneidmiller Realty, who brought the property to the market last week. They are, she said, “extremely unusual.”

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Schweitzer Castle and Château de Melusine, as they’re known, stand within Schweitzer Mountain Resort in the Selkirk Mountains and overlook the nearby mountain resort town of Sandpoint. They take in panoramic views of Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho’s largest lake. 

The pair of ski-in/ski-out homes each have three bedrooms, two bathrooms and three stories, Burk explained. They are “so authentic,” she said. “Every single stone was handlaid.”

Schweitzer Castle, she said, wasn’t built for “functionality,” but has been modernized and adapted and now has everything a 21st-century residence requires, along with a dungeon, which for some buyers may also be a requisite. 

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The chateau, meanwhile, has a hot tub room with mountain views, as well as a garage.  

The property is being sold furnished, and will come complete with the hand-carved statues, armor, mounted swords, stained-glass windows and a host of antiques dating to the 15th and 16th centuries.

The owner, an antique collector who couldn’t be reached for comment, “is always looking for that hidden jewel and he found that here,” Burk said. 

The next custodian is likely to stem from a varied pool of buyers, Burk said, that would include “the trophy-home buyer, someone who can say ‘I own a castle.’” 

The property could also appeal to someone looking for a vacation home, or a multi-generational estate, and beyond that “there’s the dreamers,” she said. “We definitely try to market to people who like Medieval history or maybe do Renaissance fairs.”

The seller “really wants it to go to someone with the same passion.”