Reply to Yikes, should we sell our MoCo home and move to NoVA?

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[quote=Anonymous]MoCo is in trouble.

It recently got warned about its bond rating.  It has 0 economic growth because NIMBYs and over bureaucratic nonsense block all business development, plus taxes are high.  It cannot reduce taxes on residents and businesses because the county isn't economically growing.  MoCo largely relies on the federal govt for jobs.  If the govt sequesters or continues to move agencies out of DC, MoCo will suffer because it has no diversification for jobs.  MoCo also has a rapidly aging Baby Boomer base that is no longer or will no longer be earning those large salaries they once did, thus MoCo will lose a significant portion of that tax base.  There simply aren't enough younger people moving into MoCo with the same level of salary base.  So where is MoCo going to get the money to fund its spending?  It is almost inevitable that MoCo will have to raise its taxes in the future, which will come probably as some combination of higher property, income, and business taxes.  And that's when the death spiral starts.  The county can't grow economically, so to cover costs, they raise taxes.  Once taxes get raised, people and businesses will continue to flee the county, which puts even more pressure to up taxes to cover budget holes.  If MoCo doesn't raise taxes then it faces the same risks to its credit rating that it just got warned about, and if the county's credit rating drops, costs skyrocket overtime and the budget deficits get worse.

MoCo is running up huge budget deficits during a time when the economy is *good*.  That shouldn't happen if tax receipts are high.  It means the county is spending too much.  Will MoCo's politicians ever enact drastic spending cuts to control the county's deficits so that higher taxes can be avoided?  Probably not.  It's run by very liberal democrats.  Half of MoCo's entire budget goes towards spending on schools.  The county has hung the welcome mat to  tons of illegal immigrants while school capacities, resources and funds  are being strained to the max.  The problem of deficits, spending, taxes, and schools has gotten so bad that Gaithersburg has something like $800 million in backlogged school projects because there is no money.

We've held off on buying a house in MoCo.  We do not want to get stuck with a bag where taxes go up dramatically on your property in the near future coupled with a huge increase in income taxes.  It is also completely unknown how the whole school redistricting initiative will affect home values too.  Some homes could drop significantly in value overnight.  The economic growth in the county is anemic as well, and you do not want to be in an area caught in a downward spiral of economic stagnation, which leads to higher and higher taxes as more people and businesses flee.  Home values will plummet when that happens.  Hell, at this rate, Baltimore might be a better value soon.  
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