Prop 13: Idiocy Comes Home to Roost in California

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

DEDixon, I don't know about Prop 13 in California, but I do agree with the overall direction you're going in. When spending runs amok (I live in NJ, that is true here too) then raising taxes without addressing the root problem is pretty goddamn stupid.

[DEDixon 39]

california battles mississippi for worst schools in america

back in the 70s, california used to be the envy of america. great public schools. tuition free universities. now.the state ranks among the bottom 5 states.

Yeap, California has a country load of illegals who do not speak English going to its schools. For the students that have managed to learn English, they have parents at home who can't guide them in school as well for they have very little education and don't speak English.

The left complains about school while inviting illegals in to tear down to quality... great plan. Dollars toward education won't fix irresponsible parents.... both the legal parents and the illegal parents.

[DEDixon 39]

My condo is down about 300k from what it was a year ago and I won't be getting any tax break

I got one. I just sent in a few pages of houses in my zip from realtor.com and they reduced quite a bit. I'm going to do the same thing on Jan 1. They adjust according to what values are on January 1.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Poor grandma. They'll jack her taxes on the dreamhome and she won't be able to afford to live there anymore. She'll have to move to the dump next door to Rodney King. And a rich real estate mogul that can afford the higher taxes will move into granny's house. Social progress in action.

Now there ya go again, worrying about Old folks who who selfishly are trying to live out their golden-years in their own house.

INstead you should be worrying about freeing up the taxing schemes of left-wingers who will not tolerate limits on ways to raise taxes.

HOw are they gonna pay for research on the mating habits of snails ....or buy cable TV for inmates, if old folks won't pay "their fair share" in taxes?

Word to your mum.

California needs to control it's SPENDING.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

california battles mississippi for worst schools in america

back in the 70s, california used to be the envy of america. great public schools. tuition free universities. now.the state ranks among the bottom 5 states.

Yeap, California has a country load of illegals who do not speak English going to its schools. For the students that have managed to learn English, they have parents at home who can't guide them in school as well for they have very little education and don't speak English.

The left complains about school while inviting illegals in to tear down to quality... great plan. Dollars toward education won't fix irresponsible parents.... both the legal parents and the illegal parents.

So California's deficit problems are because of illegal immigrants and irresponsible parents?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The Curse of California's Proposition 13

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS; EDMUND L. ANDREWS IS A WRITER WHO SPECIALIZES IN BUSINESS.

...

To believers, Prop. 13, as it is known, amounted to a primal scream by The People against Big Government. No longer would homeowners, particularly elderly people on fixed incomes, have to watch their property taxes skyrocket just because land values soared. No longer would governments grow wildly, their treasuries swollen by soaring real-estate prices. The people had finally had their say: ''Enough!''

These goals may well have been accomplished, but at unforseen costs. Yes, government services may have declined somewhat, and streets and sewers may be in danger of falling into disrepair, but that's not where the real damage has been done. There has been a huge shift in the tax burden to young families from older homeowners and owners of businesses. Also, Prop. 13 has fostered a perverse bias toward construction of shopping malls and hotels rather than low-cost shelter. Beyond that, because of lower revenues some communities are trying to circumvent the consequences of Prop. 13 by imposing ''user fees'' on tightly targeted groups of taxpayers to finance such general services as sewers, parks, education and electric power.

The biggest beneficiaries of Prop. 13 were not homeowners but businesses. The law curtailed assessments on all property, not just homes, and there is considerably more commercial property than residential. According to the sociologist Clarence Lo, author of a forthcoming book on tax revolts, California homeowners received just one-third of total tax relief in the first five years under Prop. 13. A whopping 57 percent of benefits went to owners of commercial and industrial property.

Insofar as Prop. 13 did benefit homeowners, it did so by picking the pockets of people buying houses. Since the latter tend to be younger and less affluent than those already ensconced, this isn't exactly progressive. Here's how it happens:

First, home buyers still get slammed on property taxes, because their rates are pegged to current land values. By contrast, folks who bought their homes before 1978 pay taxes based on their home's 1975 assessment, which can be hiked by no more than 2 percent a year. Since the median price of homes in California has doubled since 1978, the disparities between identical homes can now be huge. According to Jeff Reynolds, head of research for the state's Board of Equalization, pre-Prop. 13 homeowners pay one-quarter to one-third the tax rates of more recent home buyers.

The undemocratic effects of Prop. 13 go further. Starved for revenues, California cities have been aggressively hunting for new sources. They could raise rates, but that would be political suicide. They could stop repairing roads and schools, but that wouldn't be much better.

Their solution, instead, has been to charge vastly higher ''impact fees'' on new homes. Theoretically, impact fees cover the cost of new streets and sewers associated with new homes. When tax revenues financed these costs, impact fees were minimal or nonexistent. Since Prop. 13, though, they've been soaring. In 1983, they averaged about $5,700. By 1987, they had zoomed to $11,807, according to a survey by the National Association of Home Builders. On top of that, cities now frequently demand that developers also foot the bill for new parks and schools.

At first blush, this might seem fair: New home buyers pay for new infrastructure. In reality, it's a shakedown. If you combine higher tax assessments with sharply higher impact fees, the upshot is that newcomers, many of whom struggled mightily just to make their first down payment, are subsidizing public services for low-taxed landed gentry.

A more subtle effect of impact fees is to bias development toward more upscale housing. Why? Because in most cities the fee remains the same regardless of the cost of a house. Obviously, it's easier to roll $12,000 into a $300,000 quarter-acre home than a $100,000 starter.

Small wonder, then, that California lags below the national average in home ownership and home affordability. Since 1979, the proportion of owners to renters has dropped every year, from 59 percent homeowners to 53.4 percent. By contrast, the nationwide percentage of homeowners slipped between 1980 and the third quarter of 1987 from 65.6 percent to 64.2 percent. This might not be surprising, except that California's per capita income has always outpaced national averages and has jumped by about half just since 1980.

Prop. 13's most perverse effect, given its stated purpose, has been to stimulate a bias toward shopping malls and hotels over housing. Again, there's nothing complicated about this. A shopping mall generates 6 percent sales taxes, and California cities get to keep 1 percent of that. Hotels are even more seductive, because cities impose their own ''transient oc-cupancy taxes,'' typically 6 to 10 percent of a room charge. Those funds go entirely into city coffers.

New residents, by contrast, bring traffic, crowding and comparatively little revenue. And people are demanding. They want schools, libraries, police protection, child care.

Thus it's no coincidence that California is now ablaze with ballot-box initiatives to slow or stop new housing. Dozens of local measures have come on the books in the last two years; on this month's primary ballot alone, 13 measures appeared that were aimed at controlling growth; 7 of them passed.

Yet many of these new initiatives imposed no comparable limits on commercial or industrial building. According to one recent study, the metropolitan area surrounding San Jose generated 24,000 new jobs in 1986 and 1987. But only 7,500 homes were built. Likewise, in the greater Oakland area there were 45,000 new jobs, but only 17,800 new homes. Though there is no nationwide standard on the desirable ratio of jobs to housing, clearly something is out of kilter here.

The most obscene case of seeking only the most lucrative form of development comes up in tiny, wealthy Indian Wells, a residential community near Palm Springs. City fathers there want to boost tourist trade with a 640-acre hotel/retail complex - 4,500 hotel rooms, a 400,000-square-foot convention center, two golf courses and 100,000 square feet of shops and restaurants.

And what about the people who will clean the hotel rooms, caddy for the golfers and punch the cash registers? State law requires the city to channel some of the tax revenue from this project into low- and moderate-income housing. But Indian Wells can't seem to find the space. Instead, it modestly proposed to build the housing in Palm Desert or Rancho Morales. These neighboring cities, of course, don't want it either, and both have responded by suing Indian Wells.

In time, the twisted legacy of Proposition 13 could leave us with yet another novel idea from the nation's trendiest state: apartheid, California-style.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...mp;pagewanted=2

[DEDixon 39]

california battles mississippi for worst schools in america

back in the 70s, california used to be the envy of america. great public schools. tuition free universities. now.the state ranks among the bottom 5 states.

Yeap, California has a country load of illegals who do not speak English going to its schools. For the students that have managed to learn English, they have parents at home who can't guide them in school as well for they have very little education and don't speak English.

The left complains about school while inviting illegals in to tear down to quality... great plan. Dollars toward education won't fix irresponsible parents.... both the legal parents and the illegal parents.

So California's deficit problems are because of illegal immigrants and irresponsible parents?

You were not talking about the deficit, you were talking about the quality of school. Your response is off-topic (not off the original topic, but off the topic of what I replied to).

If you are going to play... play fair please.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

california battles mississippi for worst schools in america

back in the 70s, california used to be the envy of america. great public schools. tuition free universities. now.the state ranks among the bottom 5 states.

Yeap, California has a country load of illegals who do not speak English going to its schools. For the students that have managed to learn English, they have parents at home who can't guide them in school as well for they have very little education and don't speak English.

The left complains about school while inviting illegals in to tear down to quality... great plan. Dollars toward education won't fix irresponsible parents.... both the legal parents and the illegal parents.

So California's deficit problems are because of illegal immigrants and irresponsible parents?

You were not talking about the deficit, you were talking about the quality of school. Your response is off-topic (not off the original topic, but off the topic of what I replied to).

If you are going to play... play fair please.

So what do you blame for California's deficit problems? None of the above explanations as to the consequences of Prop 13 convince you that it is a failed tax policy?

[DEDixon 39]

Mister Fancy said: My personal take: It’s been a disaster for the state and remains grossly unfair. There’s simply no justifiable reason that I pay 10 times the property tax as my neighbor (which I do). But more on my thoughts later.

That isn't unfair. You just haven't lived in your home as long, when you have, you'll get the same benefit. It is only unfair if you would never be able to get the same benefit. Your choice to move or stay whether it be to take another job or just to move into a different neighborhood. Regardless, the benefit is there for you if you are willing to do the time.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Mister Fancy said: My personal take: It's been a disaster for the state and remains grossly unfair. There's simply no justifiable reason that I pay 10 times the property tax as my neighbor (which I do). But more on my thoughts later.

That isn't unfair. You just haven't lived in your home as long, when you have, you'll get the same benefit. It is only unfair if you would never be able to get the same benefit. Your choice to move or stay whether it be to take another job or just to move into a different neighborhood. Regardless, the benefit is there for you if you are willing to do the time.

Post 26

just one caveat...(you don't have an issue with this?)

The biggest beneficiaries of Prop. 13 were not homeowners but businesses. The law curtailed assessments on all property, not just homes, and there is considerably more commercial property than residential. According to the sociologist Clarence Lo, author of a forthcoming book on tax revolts, California homeowners received just one-third of total tax relief in the first five years under Prop. 13. A whopping 57 percent of benefits went to owners of commercial and industrial property.

[DEDixon 39]

california battles mississippi for worst schools in america

back in the 70s, california used to be the envy of america. great public schools. tuition free universities. now.the state ranks among the bottom 5 states.

Yeap, California has a country load of illegals who do not speak English going to its schools. For the students that have managed to learn English, they have parents at home who can't guide them in school as well for they have very little education and don't speak English.

The left complains about school while inviting illegals in to tear down to quality... great plan. Dollars toward education won't fix irresponsible parents.... both the legal parents and the illegal parents.

So California's deficit problems are because of illegal immigrants and irresponsible parents?

You were not talking about the deficit, you were talking about the quality of school. Your response is off-topic (not off the original topic, but off the topic of what I replied to).

If you are going to play... play fair please.

So what do you blame for California's deficit problems? None of the above explanations as to the consequences of Prop 13 convince you that it is a failed tax policy?

My answer is in my previous post (one of them).... if I stated it here, I'd just be repeating myself.

I'm from Maryland originally and they live off much lower sales tax and lower income tax and Maryland just recently took over the title "Richest State" from New Jersey. More tax dollars is not the answer to California's deficit, less spending is the answer.

[DEDixon 39]

Mister Fancy said: My personal take: It's been a disaster for the state and remains grossly unfair. There's simply no justifiable reason that I pay 10 times the property tax as my neighbor (which I do). But more on my thoughts later.

That isn't unfair. You just haven't lived in your home as long, when you have, you'll get the same benefit. It is only unfair if you would never be able to get the same benefit. Your choice to move or stay whether it be to take another job or just to move into a different neighborhood. Regardless, the benefit is there for you if you are willing to do the time.

Post 26

just one caveat...(you don't have an issue with this?)

The biggest beneficiaries of Prop. 13 were not homeowners but businesses. The law curtailed assessments on all property, not just homes, and there is considerably more commercial property than residential. According to the sociologist Clarence Lo, author of a forthcoming book on tax revolts, California homeowners received just one-third of total tax relief in the first five years under Prop. 13. A whopping 57 percent of benefits went to owners of commercial and industrial property.

Again, off topic. You said it wasn't fair to you that your neighbor didn't pay the same taxes as you.

Please, this subject is complicated enough so let's keep it focused on homeowners. I think that is what most of us related to.

[DEDixon 39]

Like giving homeless people in San Francisco "paychecks" for being homeless? (and wondering why there are more homeless rather than fewer)

So let's talk about that program.

Back before 2004, there was a pay for work program in place that payed homeless people up to just under $400/month, in exchange for work performed. Keep in mind that $400 was the MAXIMUM, and not everyone got it. It was not a handout, it was not welfare. It was pay for work done. The only exception was for disabled homeless people, many of whom were vets.

In 2004, the Mayor of San Francisco ended that program and reduced the benefit to $59/month. He also ended the work program. The result was that homelessness increased, drug use by the homeless increased, and instead of getting services in return for payments, the city of San Francisco got nothing.

So while I agree with you that it's completely ridiculous to hand out checks "for being homeless," first of all $59/month isn't even enough to live on, let alone be lucrative (i.e., people are not quitting their jobs to get these handouts), it also shows that social programs by government (in this case paying the homeless for work done) can work. It's very unfortunate that San Francisco, of all cities, was so short sighted.

Please provide links to all of your claims.

[Ban Hammer 14,668]

Yeah, Prop 13 has been a disaster. I'm originally from Colorado, where we had a similar law called TABOR, the "Taxpayer Bill of Rights." It caps taxation to the rates of inflation and population increase. It's been a complete disaster, much like Prop 13. I'm all for lower taxes, but when you completely tie the hands of government to bring revenue in when it needs it the most, that's just bad fiscal policy.

I love California, but we've got some huge problems right now, and Prop 13 is one of the biggest. OTOH, I don't live in a nut job state like Kansas where science curriculum are practically based on biblical readings.

that's a small vocal minority - they don't speak for all of kansas. i'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from trying to paint everyone in kansas as a nut job, kthxbye.

[DEDixon 39]

Please provide links to all of your claims.

LOL. I live in California in the bay area. http://google.com is your friend if you care my claims.

Thanks, but I'd rather just not believe you. And, living in the Bay Area doesn't make you an expert, I live there too and I can't remember what exactly were the effects of SF new policy. Seems if you had such a memory, finding the facts would not be so difficult.