FOR POLITICIANS, THERE’S never a good time to talk about raising taxes. But some times are worse than others. Last week economists declared that the Bay State is in the grip of a recession. Last month, the index of leading economic indicators (which tracks, among other trends, unemployment, consumer expectations, stock prices, and building permits) had its biggest drop in six years. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that mere whispers about tax hikes at a time like this could get you in trouble. Just ask all the state reps and senators who lost their jobs during the voters’ 1990 tax revolt (see "Who Will Take the Fall?", page 1).

Yet a surprisingly large number of local pols have lined up to support a plan to raise property taxes under the rubric of the state’s Community Preservation Act (CPA). The CPA allows cities and towns to raise money, via property-tax surcharges of up to three percent, to spend in three key areas: housing, open space, and preservation. Seizing the initiative, the Committee for a Better Boston — a broad coalition of about 60 community-development groups, open-space and environmental activists, preservationists, religious groups, labor unions, and housing advocates — succeeded in collecting 42,958 signatures to get a question on next Tuesday’s ballot asking voters to implement the CPA in Boston.

If voters approve the measure, a two percent surcharge will be tacked onto commercial and residential property taxes to raise money that would be spent, in part, on affordable housing (see "Nuts and Bolts," this page). Through the CPA, the city would collect about $14 million next year, and the money would be matched dollar for dollar by the state. So the city would have, in theory, $28 million to spend on housing, space, and preservation. In the second year, proponents estimate, the surcharge and state contribution (at a 75 percent match) would bring that total to $50 million. At least, that’s the plan now. Who knows what will happen after the state budget is balanced in the face of dramatically falling revenues (see "Postcards from the New New Economy," page 1).

Tax hikes are generally the third rail of local and national politics, yet the measure has garnered an impressive array of political endorsements: City Councilors Maura Hennigan, Michael Flaherty, Michael Ross, Charles Yancey, Chuck Turner, and Brian Honan; council challengers John Tobin, Felix Arroyo, Rich Evans, Mark Juaire, and Mike Rush; mayoral candidate Peggy Davis-Mullen; State Senators Steven Tolman and Marian Walsh; and State Representatives Paul Demakis, Gloria Fox, Brian Golden, Kevin Honan, Liz Malia, and Byron Rushing have all signed on. Bigfoot Boston business insiders like Jack Connors of Hill, Holiday, Connors, Cosmopulos and David D’Alessandro, chairman of John Hancock Financial Services, are also in favor of Question One.

The only major Boston politician who’s yet to take a position on the CPA is Mayor Tom Menino, though he’s hinted that he opposes it. The mayor, for instance, raised a series of doubts to the Globe’s Adrian Walker: "What’s the economic impact of the question? How do we keep renters from getting gouged by landlords? How do we make sure cities and towns do their part and not just put the burden on Boston as they have in the past?"

Menino’s reservations notwithstanding, the Community Preservation Act is a popular idea. Perhaps even a noble one. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. After all, addressing affordable housing in this city via referendum merely sidesteps the real problem: the astounding lack of political leadership on the issue. And without that, Boston’s affordable-housing crisis is likely to go unresolved — with or without the CPA.

THERE’S NO question that something must be done to make the city more affordable for lower- and middle-income folks. The Washington DC–based National Housing Conference recently announced that Boston is one of the most unaffordable places to live in the US. Its 52-page report "Paycheck to Paycheck: Working Families and the Cost of Housing in America" (read it online at www.nhc.org/nhcimages/paycheck.pdf) concludes that in many areas of the country, people employed in five "vital occupations" — janitor, elementary-school teacher, police officer, licensed practical nurse, and retail salesperson — "either cannot find housing that is reasonably priced or cannot locate within an appropriate commuting distance of their jobs." Number one on the list of "most unaffordable metro areas" for renters is Austin, Texas. Number two? Boston. Los Angeles is fourth and New York City is eighth. (Of course, Boston has a residency requirement for police officers, which worsens their housing problems.)

Much has been made of the cooling off of Boston’s overheated housing market this fall (the Phoenix recently reported that realtors have noticed a marked drop-off in business over the past few months — see "Real-Estate Brokers Feel the Squeeze," This Just In, October 19). And it’s true that some apartments that commanded sky-high rents last fall are going for a little less this season. But though property owners who now have to wait more than, oh, a day to fill vacancies may feel that the bottom has dropped out of the market, it hasn’t. It’s still next to impossible for someone making less than $30,000 to find a clean, safe place to live within city limits.

As John Bohm, director of public affairs at the National Housing Conference, puts it: "A drop of $100 [in monthly rent] doesn’t help people at the low end of the income scale."

But the CPA is no way to fix our affordable-housing shortage. After all, this is a voluntary tax — communities are not required to implement the CPA — and even when implemented, the law allows much of the money to be spent in the two other specified areas. All of which suggests that our political class does not view affordable housing with fitting urgency. In fact, "voluntary funding" may be fairly regarded as the kiss of death. Five months ago, during the height of his shenanigans with Clean Elections funding, House Speaker Tom Finneran proposed an outrageous idea: let taxpayers voluntarily give more to the state each April than they owed; the overpayments would be earmarked for the Clean Elections fund. Critics immediately suggested funding state legislators’ salaries in the same way: let the people decide how much their state reps and senators were worth.

How is the impulse to fund affordable housing with a voluntary tax different from Finneran’s foolish idea? Our local, state, and federal governments are supposed to be taking care of community needs — including affordable housing, open space, and preservation. Why are voters being asked to pick up the slack? What’s next, a surcharge to generate more funds for public safety? Or to pay for Big Dig overruns?

We shouldn’t be asking ourselves how we’re going to vote on Question One. We should be asking ourselves why we’re debating this issue in the first place. After all, the dot-com decade stuffed state and local coffers to the bursting point. We had so much money that Menino offered to pay the land-acquisition costs of the Red Sox’ plan to build a new stadium in the Fenway. He also agreed to build a couple of parking garages nearby. All told, Menino committed $200 million of the city’s money to ... a baseball park. You’d think that with that kind of money to spend on sports, the city could find at least that much to address a crisis that threatens our very character and culture — that threatens to turn Boston into an enclave for the wealthy.

So how much money did the city commit to affordable housing last year? About $11.8 million. Since Menino took office in 1993, the city has funded and helped create just 1569 affordable units for sale and 4218 units for rent. Why are we talking about a new tax? Why aren’t we talking instead about electing political leaders who will take the housing crisis seriously?