> I'm not sure the case for one-big-bundle-of-property-taxes is any better, though. Where does THAT number come from?

It isn't some mysterious, unknowable thing made up out of thin air. You can, in fact, dig into your local budget and find out what these things cost, how much you are paying for them, and the history of decisions that led to them being what they are.

You really missed my point. All your objections either:

1. Also apply to the present day pricing of property tax:

  - "How do the police and fire departments set the fees?"

  - "Are they fixed for everyone in their area"

  - "how do the police and fire departments assess your property value?" - "Does someone make a fortune building a software system for police and fire departments to manage all of this?"

  - "Does the state now step in and take the property from them, effectively enforcing a monopoly that the state doesn't benefit from?"

  - "When a derelict building begins to burn on a block and threatens in-use buildings around it, who pays the firefighters for stopping the derelict building's fire?"

  - "what stops the new police and firefighter businesses from raising the price every year on every constituent?

  - "When grandma on fixed social security's fire fighting fees go up too much for her to afford to live there any more..."

2. Or pertain only to a version of my proposal where the insurance is not effectively required, and people can freely opt out

  - "What about people who don't get any kind of insurance and pay no fees?"

3. Or, are irrelevant to the specific question of how private property is taxed

  - "What about people who don't own property."

  - "Does the state pay if a park is on fire?"

  - "Will there be competing police and fire departments that offer lower rates (for lesser service?)?"

 - "Functionally, the state is in the best position to capture the necessary revenue to support these services." (The state simply can be the insurer! I did not even propose *private* insurance.)

Literally every single one! It's like you were arguing with someone else who proposed something entirely different--the libertarian you cite, perhaps, someone you argued with in the past?

I think in fact a well-executed insurance-like system would be functionally equivalent to the status quo, except that it would be far more efficiently priced.

I suspect the only real difference is that property tax, due to the path-dependent history by which it got this way, has wound up being substantially progressive as a tax, compared to what you would get if you tried to rationalize it. And it therefore feels impossible to replace it, because you'd set back all that progressive taxation, only to run into the problems that lead to the status quo in the first place. We really don't like to admit what it is what we're the govt paying for; the lump sum of taxes is a way of protecting the revenue streams that support public benefits from too much individual scrutiny.

But surely there is some other approach to keep moral-upside public goods in tact than this "security through obscurity". Surely.

> Once you really sit down and think about it, the idea that you "own" any real estate is kind of a joke.

I agree with this! It would be far better to model property ownership outright as renting from the public. People are awfully attached to the fiction of "ownership", though, and I think that deserves some credit.

> You really missed my point.

No I didn't.

> I think in fact a well-executed insurance-like system would be functionally equivalent to the status quo, except that it would be far more efficiently priced.

I argued against this. Taking the principals of HN and assuming good faith here, I think you're missing my points, so I will try and connect them to your arguments more clearly.

> All your objections either:

> 1. Also apply to the present day pricing of property tax

No they do not. Property tax rates are transparent, insurance prices are not. I know what was voted on and who chose what to set my property taxes, I do not know why my insurance is half the price at one insurance provider compared to another.

Is the cost of American Healthcare more transparent in the US with mixes of public and private options or in single payer countries?

> 2. Or pertain only to a version of my proposal where the insurance is not effectively required, and people can freely opt out

No, my point is that this cannot be successfully enforced (we try, all the time), so the world where it is "effectively" required is one that does not exist, thus the arguments must be made for a real world where X% will not pay for private insurance, and X% is >0 and probably <15% of uninsured motorists.

> 3. Or, are irrelevant to the specific question of how private property is taxed

We are talking about paying for policing and firefighting. If you include policing, then you must include people who do not pay the local police simply because they are traveling, unhoused, passing through, visiting a friend, or otherwise. How exactly does this work for them to pay for the services rendered?

> The state simply can be the insurer! I did not even propose private insurance.

> It seems like you could straightforwardly unbundle the property tax into a bunch of specific fees and insurances. We're comfortable requiring car insurance, why not fire and police?

This is what you said, the state does not provide car insurance so I made the assumption you meant private insurers.

If you meant the state provides the insurance for all of these things then you have simply reinvented the existing taxes. Literally nothing has changed.

> I think in fact a well-executed insurance-like system would be functionally equivalent to the status quo, except that it would be far more efficiently priced.

It would be *exactly* the status quo - the sate is the monopoly provider of these services, and they are required. Why would renaming them make them more efficiently priced? It would still be a monopoly, it would still be subject to both politics and the bureaucracy. I feel as if you are trying to argue both points simultaneously - that it should be a private competitive market (so it is priced efficiently) and that it should be a state enforced fee that goes to the state and pays for services provided by the state.

There is no such thing as efficient pricing for public services because...

> I suspect the only real difference is that property tax, due to the path-dependent history by which it got this way, has wound up being substantially progressive as a tax, compared to what you would get if you tried to rationalize it. And it therefore feels impossible to replace it, because you'd set back all that progressive taxation, only to run into the problems that lead to the status quo in the first place. We really don't like to admit what it is what we're the govt paying for; the lump sum of taxes is a way of protecting the revenue streams that support public benefits from too much individual scrutiny.

You cannot "rationalize" policing by the value it provides, public goods have benefits beyond the immediate receiver of those benefits. Who is getting more benefit from police officers, a person in a bad neighborhood who has to call every week over a disturbance or violence or someone who has a lot of property in a wonderful neighborhood whose entire life is propped up by the state's monopoly on force to defend them?

Okay, so firefighting isn't quite the same as policing and let's say you go with something like risk pricing. You're going to end up with a bimodal distribution - the poor tend to live in higher risk neighborhoods or zones and the wealthy have lots of assets to protect. So you've effectively shifted the burden away from the middle class to the poor and wealthy. What benefit did that give?

> We really don't like to admit what it is what we're the govt paying for; the lump sum of taxes is a way of protecting the revenue streams that support public benefits from too much individual scrutiny.

This is where you keep really losing me. Public taxes are transparent, you can find something like this at almost any level: https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/assessor/buildings-and-proper.... The budgets are public. The history of decisions are piublic. You've probably even voted for a bond proposal that would be paid for with property tax changes, meaning you had a direct say in how much they are!

The gist of the argument I have read is:

1. Rename the revenue the state collects for some public services from "tax" to "insurance payment."

2. Send individual bills for those different services.

3. ???

4. Efficiency goes up.

I can guess that this would not change the cost of those services because of mass revolt, but I can guarantee that the billing systems alone would cost so much more that whatever efficiency you think would be gained would be eaten up by a private provider of billing software and call center services :)