George,

While I agree with Al Weed about the heavy-handed implications of Kilgore's tax proposal, which would place a mandatory cap on real-estate assessments and could have a huge negative impact on localities, I disagree with Al on the implications of Tim Kaine's proposal.

Kaine would allow localities to exempt part of a home's value from taxation, allowing tax relief to be targeted to homeowners. This is a tool I wish we had now; instead, while we are looking to lower the tax rate to help homeowners, the largest beneficiaries are commercial real-estate interests.

David Brown (electronic mail, March 25, 2005)