Property tax relief has become one of the few ideas capable of uniting politicians who otherwise agree on almost nothing. Across the Midwest, officials are advancing proposals to ease the burden.

In Michigan, a leading Democratic Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, is calling for a property tax freeze for seniors. Ditto in Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine in June signed bipartisan legislation expected to provide qualifying seniors and disabled homeowners roughly $500 in property tax relief.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has proposed eliminating property taxes altogether for seniors over 65.

In Illinois, by contrast, much of this year’s property tax debate centered not on homeowners but on property tax “certainty” for the Chicago Bears.

Conversations framed this way create winners and losers. Targeted relief doesn’t make the bill disappear, it shifts who pays.

The danger of carve-out politics is that it encourages every group to ask the same question: Why them instead of us? Young homeowners struggling with today’s mortgage rates and property tax bills are hardly living lives of luxury. Neither are many families raising children. When relief is reserved for one demographic, everyone else is left to wonder why their financial strain counts for less.

None of this is to suggest seniors don’t face unique challenges. Many live on fixed incomes while property values — and tax bills — continue to climb. But that’s also true, in different ways, for young families, first-time buyers and many middle-class homeowners.

The point is, politicians seem well aware that property taxes are a pain point for everyone. Better to offer wide-ranging relief in this case, acknowledging that there’s plenty of pain to go around, rather than fostering an us-versus-them resentment among generations.

Politicians like targeted relief because it’s cheaper and easier than broad relief.

It’s not that seniors don’t need relief — it’s that everyone does. Meaning the best solution, instead of carving out relief for some, is to address the root of the problem. Not by expanding our long list of taxes, but by confronting the spending pressures that drive high property taxes in the first place rather than layering exemption upon exemption.

The growing bipartisan interest in property tax relief across our region tells us something important: Politicians know voters have reached a breaking point. This is an issue that can easily cross political lines because everyone feels it in one way or another.

Simply put, the problem is the taxes themselves, not the demographics. Tackling affordability means addressing the burden broadly rather than asking one group of homeowners to subsidize relief for another.

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