Kenders' Musings

Boulder County, Colorado is considering a plan that is evil genius in it's simplicity while combining the theft of freedom, property rights and short-sighted stupidity.

I write about plans that have an "evil genius" angle quite often, mainly due to the fact that I respect evil genius, there seems to be a lot of it out there, and so often evil genius plans also meet the criteria of stealing freedom while being so blindingly stupid that only a genius could possibly find a way to word the plan that would get it passed by any group of people that weren't wearing helmets and drool bibs.

Boulder County Colorado's plan for what amounts to housing credits is just such a plan. This is only the latest in movements by city and county entities that are enacting ordinances and laws all over the country to stymie growth by limiting square footage and creating conservation districts.

Taking their cue from the fabled carbon credits scheme, which is basically a self imposed guilt tax, the Boulder County officials have come up with a "cap and trade scheme" called "transferable development rights" would cap building size and allow homeowners that wanted to buiild bigger than the regulations to buy the right to build bigger from other homeowners that are under the size limit, thereby letting them do with their own property as they see fit while apparently permanently keeping the homeowner that sold the "credit" from ever building their house bigger.

Whether this would transfer to the new owner of a house remains to be seen, but it appears that it would, but I suspect that only a court case would really answer that question.

You know, carbon credits, otherwise known as carbon offsets were bad enough, so bad in fact that Justin and I were selling Liberal Offsets on eBay not too long ago. (Linked to Misha's due to the great commentary re; this issue)

Total Kaos Radio even came up with Methane Credits in an attempt to combat Global Worming in their own charming way.

So to the folks in Boulder County Colorado that came up with this plan of pure evil genius I doff my chapeau to you. You have created a plan that steals property rights from two property owners with each transaction, sets an arbitrary tax on people for building their on their own property all while making it sound like you were saving the earth and have done so with a straight face.

Given that the median size of houses in Boulder County Colorado have gone up twice the national average over the last 16 years, meaning that your homeowners sound as if they are successful people, which means they usually are smarter than the average bear, I would guess that your homeowners are not a bunch of morons that are going to let this plan pass without a fight, so good luck with your evil freedom stealing plan to make yourselves feel good about saving the world.

The only thing that remains to be seen is if the citizens of your county are stupid enough to fall for it.

I am betting that the answer will be a resounding NO!