As I read Steve Emerine’s fine column in Inside Tucson Business last week explaining Tucson City Council’s latest and greatest ill-timed idea for a new tax, a feeling of déjà vu swept over me. I read that the city hatched a proposal to tax new homes on each transfer in perpetuity. Only new homes would be saddled with this tax. Older homes would not. Would it apply to existing homes that are annexed? Don’t know, but probably not.

Here’s the obvious déjà vu part: the purpose for this tax is to help poor people buy homes. Isn’t that what just cost us over $700 billion as the feds tried to keep the whole banking system from collapsing?

Probably another city tax won’t threaten the nation, but it could threaten the city. May I advance an admittedly unpopular idea about here? If someone cannot afford to buy a house, maybe he shouldn’t. Not right now. Not with inadequate resources. Certainly not in a falling market.

Buying a house is not the end of paying for a house. It needs constant maintenance. Roof leaking? Driveway breaking up? Plumbing acting cranky? When you own, you pay. You can’t just call "the super." You are the super. At times, your mortgage payment can seem like the least of your expenses.

Of course, as a homeowner, you get to pay real estate taxes, no insignificant amount. As a homeowner, you are thought of as "well off" by governments. Accordingly, you will be expected to chip in generously for community improvements and local government operations. You are responsible for everything.

If scraping up enough money to make the closing is difficult, you really cannot afford the purchase. If you get help from the city to make your down payment or your mortgage payments, will the city also help you with your other expenses? A rising market cures many of these imprudent actions. But we do not have a rising market right now.

If you’ve never owned a house before, you can’t imagine the unexpected urgent and emergency expenses they can demand. It’s almost like having another child. If your kid gets sick and needs to see a doctor, you can’t tell him, "Just wait until the monsoon is over." If your roof starts to leak, or your toilets back up, you can’t put off repairs. And roofers and plumbers don’t come cheap.

It is enough to send you to a payday lender. But unless you can print your own money like the feds, that would be a bad idea, too.

Not everyone can afford a house. Poor people by definition cannot afford to own a house. Ownership is a laudable goal, and one that helps stabilize a neighborhood. But if you can’t afford to keep it, just because you managed to get into it, neighborhood stability may be the least of your problems.

It is cruel, not kind, to help people become homeowners who will not be able to keep them. They are better off renting and saving money until they can afford to own. And when they do buy, they would be well-advised to buy considerably less house than they think they can afford because they winding up costing more than expected in the end.

We do the poor no favors by putting them in financially untenable situations. Better to rent an apartment and have some money in the bank than to own a house that keeps you broke.

On a macro-economic level, we have seen the results of giving people mortgages they can’t afford. That blew up on us a few weeks ago and we still don’t know how that’s going to be worked out. Let’s not set up a similar mini-crisis in Tucson.

Contact Lionel Waxman at territorial@waxmanmedia.com or visit his website: www.waxmanmedia.com. Lionel Waxman’s Flashpoint commentaries are published in The Daily Territorial.