I’ve seen technology used to create breathtaking art and solve impossible problems. But I have to admit, when I first read about a 30-track, AI-generated album with soulful power ballads dedicated to eliminating property taxes in Ohio, I honestly just sat back in my chair, speechless. A machine crooning lyrics like, "let's axe the taxes/bring wrongs to the right" feels like a punchline from a dystopian novel.
But it's not a joke. It's a signal.
All across the country, a strange and powerful movement is brewing, and it’s not happening in a Silicon Valley lab. It’s happening in town hall meetings in New Jersey, at rallies in Washington state, and in the halls of Congress. A revolt, led primarily by Baby Boomers, is taking aim at one of the foundational pillars of American civic life: the property tax. They see soaring home values translating into unbearable tax bills on a fixed income, and they’re shouting that the system is broken.
And you know what? They’re not entirely wrong. But they’re aiming their fire at the wrong target. This isn’t just a squabble over a tax bill. We are witnessing the spectacular, painful failure of a social contract that was written for a world that no longer exists.
The Old Operating System is Crashing
For generations, we’ve run our society on a kind of unwritten code, a social operating system. In simple terms, it’s the set of reciprocal agreements we make with each other. Young people work and pay Social Security taxes to support the retirement of their elders, with the faith that the next generation will do the same for them. In return, older, more established homeowners pay property taxes that fund the schools, libraries, fire departments, and parks that serve the entire community—especially the young families who are just starting out. It's a transfer of resources and trust across time.
But what happens when the hardware changes? What happens when one generation holds an unprecedented amount of wealth locked up in housing, while the next is largely priced out of that same market? The system crashes.
Boomers are sitting on homes that have exploded in value, but that wealth is illiquid. You can’t use your home equity to buy groceries. So when the tax bill arrives, reflecting a 50% jump in your property’s paper value, it feels like an existential threat. I read the words of Brian Massie, the retired Ohioan whose group is behind that AI album, who said, "I've been in this house 20 years, and I've paid over a hundred thousand dollars for local education. I've never sent a child...Do I have to go bankrupt?"
When I read that, it wasn't the anger that struck me; it was the profound sense of disconnection. The argument isn't just about money. It's a question born of a system that now feels purely transactional, not communal. Why, he’s asking, is he on the hook for services he doesn't personally, directly use? It's the sound of a user whose operating system no longer feels intuitive or fair. And when that happens, the user’s first instinct is to "starve the beast."
A Deliberate Downgrade
The problem with "starving the beast" is that the beast is us. It’s the collective infrastructure that makes a town a community. When you slash property taxes—which account for over 70% of local tax revenue nationwide—you aren't just getting a tax break. You are making a deliberate choice to downgrade the society you live in.
Think about it. In Indiana, a modest 10% property tax credit is projected to blow a $10 million hole in the Fort Wayne school district's budget, putting basic needs like a new roof in jeopardy. The downstream effects of a full repeal would be a tidal wave of cascading failures—crumbling schools, slower emergency response times, potholed roads, libraries with shuttered doors, parks turning to overgrown fields—all the foundational elements of civic life we take for granted would begin to erode, slowly at first, and then all at once. Is that a world any of us, young or old, actually want to inhabit?
Meanwhile, you have Millennials and Gen Z looking on in disbelief. They’re a generation saddled with student debt, facing a housing market that feels like a cruel joke, and paying into a Social Security system they’ve been told their whole lives will be empty by the time they need it. And now, the very local services that might make their communities livable are on the chopping block. This is the core of the generational conflict, where the Boomers Push to Eliminate Property Taxes Would Hurt Millennials, Gen Z.
Cameron Mulvey, a 27-year-old, put it perfectly: "Just because you're not using the benefits that your tax pays for—in this case, schools—that's how taxes work. That's how taxes are supposed to work."
He’s right. This is the core function of a society. It’s a mechanism for collective investment. To argue that you should only pay for the services you personally consume is, as one historian noted, a "radically individualistic and antisocial attitude." It’s like arguing you should only pay to pave the single square of road directly in front of your driveway. It completely misses the point of having a road—or a society—in the first place.
We're Arguing Over the Plumbing While the Foundation Cracks
So, where do we go from here? The proposed solutions—levy limits, circuit breakers—are fine. They’re patches for a leaky pipe. But the real problem isn't the plumbing; it’s the foundation.
This generational clash isn’t truly about property taxes. It's a symptom of a much deeper crisis of civic imagination. We have forgotten what it means to be in a society together. The debate has been framed as a zero-sum battle: my tax break versus your kid’s school. My retirement security versus your generation’s future.
This is a catastrophic failure of vision. The real question isn't "How do we cut taxes?" The real question is "What kind of society do we want to build, and how do we creatively and equitably fund it for the 21st century?"
Abolishing the property tax is an act of societal arson. It’s pulling a foundational thread and hoping the whole tapestry doesn’t unravel. Instead of tearing down the old system, we have to have the courage to design a new one—a new social contract that recognizes the new economic realities. One that sees taxes not as a punishment, but as a subscription to a functioning civilization. A civilization with great schools, safe streets, and opportunities for everyone. That’s the dream we should be uplifting, with or without an AI choir.