Hard times are ahead for California, & it’s hard not to blame Californians for it. They voted For It

[kpete]

Hard times are ahead for California, and it’s hard not to blame Californians for it. They voted, in 1978, to restrict government’s ability to govern. And they, in pursuit of their own McMansion vision of the no-money-down, option-ARM, subprime good life, fueled an unsustainable housing boom that may have wrecked the state’s economy for a decade or more to come. They even helped launch the political career of Ronald Reagan, the man who, in 1980, won the presidency in part by tapping the same anti-government emotions in the American public at large as did Proposition 13 in California just two years earlier. If you are willing to trace the recent excesses of Wall Street at least in part to the deregulatory impulses set in motion by Reagan, well then, you have to concede, California has a lot to answer for. And it looks like the piper has arrived, looking for his pay.
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/?last_story=/tech/htww/2009/02/17/california_crash_and_burn/



as a teacher, i knew prop 13 was a mistake for the future of california. my home, home of my parents and grandparents, and great grandparents - brown hills, so beautiful it hurts...kpete

california can always do better, mho, kpete
my life's work besides (family and friends):
http://artcorpssd.com/

[stray cat]

1. So are you really going to blame all Americans for their financial and job losses?

[Starry Messenger]

2. Most of the people who voted for those things are probably quite old now if not dead.

I was 8 in 1978. I'm a teacher now. What do I do?

[DJ13]

7. What do I do?

Be thankful your property taxes cant be set arbitrarily by politicians.

I WAS old enough in 78 to know what was going on, and people against Prop 13 today have to understand how much property taxes were rising to force the people to vote for it back then.

Trust me, you dont want to go back to the politicians having a say in setting your tax rate.

[Starry Messenger]

9. Well, I rent so I guess I really don't matter.

I'm just being a grump. (The rain is getting to me. I know we it need here, but it's making me testy.) My mom benefits from Prop 13 so I'm really torn on the issue.

[EFerrari]

13. Your rent is calculated in part on your landlord's property taxes. n/t

[Vektor]

23. OT, but I feel your pain, Starry.

I appreciate what the rain is doing for the area, but I'm not at all loving the cold, damp, sunless misery of it all. I've been downright depressso with the lack of sun and warmth. x(

[Starry Messenger]

32. Thank you Vektor.

:hug: Depresso is the right word for it. The flowers in the spring better be specdamntacular. Seeing your Kerry pic cheers me up, though.

[Vektor]

40. It's a good picture, I agree!

A real "ray of sunshine" in an otherwise dark, rainy winter. :-)

Photos of our new pres. help quite a bit too.

:hug:

[Politicalboi]

63. So if someone was 18

When you were 8 they are dead now? LOL! I was 18 in 78 am I dead LOL! I better tell somebody.

[GiveMeFreedom]

69. We have Ghosts on DU?

:hide:

[Starry Messenger]

97. Hey, I don't teach math!

You look really awesome for being dead...:D

[XemaSab]

84. I was 1 in 1978

:P

[Starry Messenger]

98. You almost missed the '70's!

That would have been tragic. :P Ok, now I feel old.

[ourbluenation]

3. If you do the math, nobody under about age 50 even had the opportunity to vote on prop 13.

A lot of the stuff happening now I had no say in at all. I for one am one good and pissed californian.

[kpete]

8. i am 57

and perhaps my old age has gotten in the way of my sanity. perhaps, my experience has differed from others, i cry for my state. the bear is my favorite animal. i am agreeing that reagan and california were NOT heaven for every californian, or MORE importantly, california, the place. kpete

[bertman]

75. What you are saying is that, in the intervening years, Californians, yourself included,

did not recognize or attempt to deal with the situation kpete is describing.

Was that due to willful disregard by the residents because they were enjoying the bennies? Or was it due to ignorance? Or was it due to the political climate that was anti-government?

Not being a Californian, I have no idea how this could have gotten to the point it is now. That's why I am asking.

[ourbluenation]

78. no dude - I was just talking about prop 13 itself. Among other things, I voted for 39 in 2000

but thx for making assumptions about moi.

[bertman]

95. No assumptions, just questions. Didn't mean to offend. Dude.

[DJ13]

4. Who could afford to live in their home if Prop 13 wasnt law?

Seriously, I hope people understand that the property taxes RESET to current valuation when a property is sold.

[CreekDog]

30. Prop. 13 needs to be amended

that it does a good thing, keep property taxes from skyrocketing (though it doesn't for new home buyers)...that doesn't mean it is on balance a good thing.

and it caps commercial property taxes too. do you think Target needs the cap?

property taxes can go up at the rate of inflation. if you risk losing your house on it, then the gov't can lien the property for when it is sold, but you can choose when to sell it.

otherwise there is no way to fund government.

we aren't going to get a government better than we pay for.

[EFerrari]

35. I agree with all of that.

When I was working commercial real estate in San Jose, my office also found a lot of corruption from the assessor's office. They'd assess taxes on agri land at commercial rates and vice versa in an attempt to manipulate the market and get land in the hands of their developer clients. If *we* found stuff like that, you can only imagine how often it happens all over the state because we were only involved in a few long term projects over about ten years and weren't out looking for dirt.

[XemaSab]

85. Interesting

Developers are crooks. x(

[EFerrari]

107. And so in this case were the complicit guys in the Assessor's Office

and in the Planning Office. :(

[SoCalNative]

41. Prop 13 doesn't apply to Target

they weren't even in California when Prop 13 was passed, and they don't own the property where most of their stores are located anyway.

[CreekDog]

46. but low property taxes have been in effect for many, many businesses

and that's a problem.

[Dreamer Tatum]

33. Or refinanced nt

[Greyhound]

36. The fact that they couldn't is a counter to the insane inflation of housing.

IOW, removing that counter force through prop 13 allowed the insane inflation.

It's similar to what the housing market is going through now across the nation. Housing valuations are falling because nobody can afford them without the free-for-all allowed by the deregulation of financing.

Prop 13 was, among other things, a windfall for those that already had their houses. It screwed up the market that has to seek equilibrium between the seller's desire to charge more and the buyer's ability to pay, it tipped the market in favor of the sellers.

[girl gone mad]

86. Exactly.

Prop 13 exacerbated the bubble by artificially reducing supply. People who should have been downgrading couldn't or wouldn't because the tax breaks they were getting were too good to walk away from.

[4lbs]

60. .

.

[4lbs]

61. Prop 13 needs a slight adjustment, not repeal.

The 1% property tax when sold is fine. However, the maximum that a property tax can increase annually is 2% as per the law inside Prop 13.

The problem is that for most of the past 25 years, the rate of inflation has been higher than 2%, sometimes significantly. In the past decade alone, the rate of inflation has been at least 2.2% for 9 out of 10 years, sometimes venturing to 3.5% or higher.

Thus the property taxes that CA gets is less able to pay for things than they used to each year, because the 2% annual increase can't keep up with inflation.


Another issue is that transfer of the property to an heir doesn't count as a sale under Prop 13, so the property tax doesn't get "reset" in that instance. It stays at the same lower number.

Let's say a person bought a home in 1978 for $40,000 and owned it for the entire 30 years. What is 1% of 40,000? $400. So, the property tax would start out at $400 for 1978 as per Prop 13. 30 years later, increased 2% each time multiplies the number by a total of 1.81 over 30 years. Thus, 1.81 x $400 would be about $724 in 2008 following Prop 13.

However, the inflation over 30 years is such that to have the same "buying power" from 1978 to 2008, you would need 2.61x the money as 1978. That's because the annual rate of inflation has averaged 3.25% from 1978 to 2008. Thus, if the property tax was $1044 instead of $724, then the state of CA would be able to have the same impact with that money as it did in 1978. But it doesn't. It has only 70% the buying power.

As I said, change it so that the property tax can increase annually at the rate of inflation and a lot of CA's budgetary problems would be mitigated. Not all of them, but a significant portion.

[crimsonblue]

79. high property taxes prevent housing prices from skyrocketing..

plus, they can always be lowered. As it is now, they can't be raised if the situation calls for it.

[SoCalNative]

5. "as a teacher, i knew prop 13 was a mistake for the future of california"

No it was not a mistake. As a teacher you should understand that the way property values have risen into the stratosphere in California that teachers, seniors, etc. would not have been able to keep their homes purchased prior to the passage of Prop 13 because they'd not be able to afford the property taxes.

[panader0]

15. This reminds me of the way things went in Santa Fe N.M.

The Hispanic folks who owned the houses and land near the center of town for generations were forced out when their taxes went through the roof, because Santa Fe had become an "art colony" favored by the rich from back east. Now the old part of town is "yuppie-ized" and the native townspeople are gone, unable to afford to keep their homes.

[kpete]

29. now thats what i am talking about

e los angeles
thanks panader0, kp

[GiveMeFreedom]

70. Ah yes. Gentrification

to transform a run-down or aging neighborhood into a more prosperous one, e.g. through investment in remodeling buildings or houses. Or in this case, raising property taxes to force the poor out.

[ourbluenation]

65. surely you must see the parallel between the decline of the school system and prop 13?

And for disclosure purposes, I'm married to a veteran teacher.

[SoCalNative]

72. The decline of the school system

can be linked to trying to provide for too many, especially ones that are not entitled to, free education at the cost of the taxpayers.

[ourbluenation]

77. ummm no. its directly related to the sudden loss of funds

THE SPECIAL CHALLENGE OF PROPOSITION 13
How California's 1978 tax revolution affected the schools and what legislators are doing about it.

Passed by 65% of voters in 1978, Proposition 13 is a constitutional amendment that reduced property tax rates by 57% and resulted in a dramatic reduction in the amount of local property tax revenue available for cities, counties, and especially for schools. Prop 13 rolled back property assessments to their 1976 values and limited property taxes to 1% of their assessed value. It also limited property valuation to 2% per year unless the property was sold. In addition, Proposition 13 required that all state tax rate increases be approved by a two-thirds vote of the legislature and that local tax rates also have to be approved by a 2/3s vote of the people.

Proposition 13 was dubbed a political earthquake when it passed and later was viewed as the first shot of the 1980s Reagan Revolution. Massachusetts, Oregon, Colorado and Florida all went on to copy key provisions of the Proposition 13, while voters in 18 other states passed nearly 40 statewide tax-limiting measures.

“The detrimental consequence of Proposition 13 isn‘t so much money, as how it changed the governance structure of California's education system. Proposition 13 centralized decision making. It changed California from a local system of local schools, to a state system.”

Prop 13 resulted in a cut in local property tax revenue of $6 Billion. Schools districts lost, on average, half their property tax revenue. In response, the state passed a set of “bailout bills” and, using a surplus of $5 billion, replaced much - but not all - of the funds the schools had lost. Overall, school revenues decreased by up to 15% in wealthy districts and by 9% in lower income districts. The overall result for California schools was that fiscal control moved from local communities to the state.

http://www.pbs.org/merrow/tv/ftw/prop13.html

[crimsonblue]

80. Every child is entitled to a free public education.

And in order for every child to receive a decent education, education is paid for by wealth, according to the amount and value of property held. A child cannot control the situation they grow up in, and a kid in Compton deserves every much a good education as a child in San Bernadino.

[Raksha]

99. Ummm...San Bernardino is NOT exactly the high-rent district!

Re a kid in Compton deserves every much a good education as a child in San Bernadino.

I should know, because I live in San Bernardino. It's not much better than Compton, if any better at all. The housing bust has hit us very hard here. Now the city is looking at cutting police and firefirefighters, and closing three branch libraries, including one near me.

[crimsonblue]

100. that shows how much I know.

I was just making a point. Maybe I should've said Laguna Beach or Beverly Hills.

[XemaSab]

89. Not the case

Part of the problem is that school funding is tacked to taxes in the school district.

Which is why Marin has terrific schools and Oakland schools are horrible.

[EFerrari]

6. What an idiot. kpete: I meant to disagree with the author of this piece.

People talk about Californians as if we all work professional jobs in tech, drive big cars and sign anything a lender puts in front of us. That's just not true. This is just another way of blaming taxpayers for Wall Street.

[rvablue]

10. KPete, I'm with you, but arguing for the reform or repeal of Prop. 13 on here

is like talking to the wall.

Prop. 13 and the referendum system sent CA down the wrong road. It won't get any better until the CA legislators get the political will (never gonna happen, as it is political suicide) or CA voters realize they have to take the initial hit and take a different course into a healthier future.

[Winterblues]

11. Someone conveniently leaves out the Bilking of billions by energy Cabal

That apparently Ahnold had some involvement in. California would be way better off without the "energy crisis" they were scammed into and then removing a good Democratic Governor because of it. If Prop 13 had a lot to do with the problems don't you think they would have occured maybe thirty years ago when it was voted in? California prospered "Big Time" during the Clinton years as did virtually every other state. It has only been since Republicans gained control of Majority Government that EVERYTHING went to hell.

[Ecumenist]

22. EXACTLY. That's what I pointed out in another thread, nt

[stopbush]

67. Don't forget that the CA budget deficit for 2003 was actually $8-billion,

NOT the $38-billion that Ah-nold and the media kept flogging.

So, Gray Davis is chucked from office for an $8-bn deficit that the Rs LIED into a media-embraced $38-bn, while Ah-nold stays in office with an actual $41-bn deficit.

[stopbush]

12. Hard not to blame the USA for the mess bush made of things

Americans voted for him...TWICE!

BTW - NY voted for Reagan in both 1980 & 84. You're just as much to blame as everyone else.

[crimsonblue]

82. Minnesota voted against Reagan both times...

So the rest of the country owes them an apology, because they were right.

[MichiganVote]

14. Well times change...its a simple choice california...raise taxes or go broke.

[EFerrari]

16. Our budget is stalled because they can't get ONE vote from republicans

to raise taxes. Thousands of people are going to suffer starting tomorrow when the pink slips go out.

[ronnykmarshall]

21. GOP standing in the way AGAIN!!

[MichiganVote]

51. 20,000 people could be a powerful force for statewide recalls.

[EFerrari]

There is no $ for recalls. They are very expensive. n/t

[stopbush]

47. Nothing is simple when you need 2/3s majority to pass any tax increase in CA

No new taxes say the Rs. Not a single one of them will vote for new taxes. The current budget needs ONE R vote to pass. they won't do it.

Perhaps the first government employees Ah-nold should lay off are the CA legislators.

[MichiganVote]

50. Perhaps the citizens should force a recall.

[stopbush]

62. I don't think we have the extra $25MM sitting around to pay for

another recall election.

In fact, CA didn't have the $25MM to spare back in 2003 either.

[Politicalboi]

66. Or legalize

Marijuana.

[XemaSab]

93. For sure.

Legalize pot, tax it at $200/ounce, let all the people in jail for pot convictions out, and turn all the CAMP folks into revenue officers. :D

[The_Casual_Observer]

17. As it is, they raise the property tax the maximum amount every year

I think it's 2%. If there were no cap, god knows what they would do.

[kpete]

19. why is it always

they, who is this "they"? goddamit - thats what i am talking about, kpete
californication baby - it has not always been pretty...kp

[The_Casual_Observer]

27. They is the county assessor who sends the postcard every year with the notice of

the automatic increase. It happens without fail. That's who "they is".

Large amounts of that money is wasted on the prison "industry" & the CHP.

JK

[rvablue]

34. What most other states do, tax you on a percentage of the value of the home

not the price that you purchased it at two...five...ten...twenty years ago.

[The_Casual_Observer]

37. Most other places didn't experience the run up in real estate prices

that California did over the last 30 years either.

[rvablue]

39. Really?

What about NY, CT, NJ and VA just to name a few.

[EFerrari]

42. My mom bought a tract home in 1962 for 22k and sold it in 94 for 460+.

It wasn't on a big lot or anything, it wasn't even a big house. It had three small bedrooms, 1.5 small baths, and a galley kitchen. I thought I was going to pass out. :shrug:

[rvablue]

55. The same kind of sales and gains were made by folks along the same timeline

in CT, NY, NJ.....and they pay property taxes based on the value of the home, not what they purchased it for.

You do realize that the hundreds of thousands of very wealthy people in CA could have made the same kinds of purchases, say, such as $1 million mansion in Beverly Hills in 1962 and they are still paying the same property taxes on it.....now maybe worth $10-12 million.

And, as I've learned on DU from a CA homeowner in the last few days, these tax caps can be passed on through inheritance....that's not fiscally sound, however you dice it.

And the next wave coming for CA is the opposite.....all of those empty foreclosed homes all over the Central Valley are going to be sold for pennies on the dollar compared to what they were purchased for 3-5 years ago....and guess what? That's what their tax assessment will stay more or less frozen at for as long as they stay there....meaning the state is only going to have to fill a larger and larger gap when municipalties start failing...which is already happening.

BTW -- Congrats to your mom. Hopefully she was able to retire peacefully and well.

[EFerrari]

59. I didn't realize that happened back east as well.

The thing is, there aren't hundreds of thousands of wealthy people in California. There are enough Republican obstructionists that our budget is still sitting on the table because they won't agree to tax increases.

[rvablue]

64. I wasn't blaming the thousands of wealthy people in CA for the budget impasse

I get it that it's the Republicans.

I'm talking about the progressive/Democratic philosophy of paying one's fair share.

And there are A LOT of very wealthy living in homes that have increased in value 100% and they are paying tax rates from 5....10...20...and longer if their heirs live in the home. And it is simply not fair.

I actually think that Prop. 13 should be reformed for the elderly and working class. But a blanket freeze on property taxes will not allow CA to pull out of it's death spiral.

Especially given the current crash -- go back and read what I wrote about the Central Valley.

And now who is going to be hit with these new tax increases in the proposed budget? Frankly, I haven't read a draft, so I don't know. If you do, feel free to school me, as I'd like to know.

But I bet it relies on government fees (ie DMV) and sales taxes and those always hit the poor unfairly.

[SoCalNative]

74. The tax cap can only be passed on

to a child of the homeowner and it has to be the homeowner's primary residence. If the homeowner doesn't live in the home then it cannot be passed on. Also any other properties owned by the same homeowner are exempt from tax caps once the homeowner dies.

[rvablue]

103. So, if a parent bought a big house on the bluffs in Pacific Palisades

in 1978 and they lived there until they died, said children are now living there paying taxes on a $300,000 home.....when in fact it's worth about $7 -$10 million on today's market. Not fair. And I don't think there is anywhere else in the country that would allow.

Overturn Prop. 13 or CA will stay a mess.




ed: clar.

[rvablue]

104. Reading the comments to the OP, I might as well be on Grover Norquists's site...any got the url? n/

[crimsonblue]

83. If you keep properties at their pre-78 level..

then it would eventually cause home values to go down, because people would be squeezed from the market. People are all high and mighty on California's awesomeness, but it would have been better for California and the rest of the country if California were half it population, with the rest distributed across the country. A smaller economy is easier to manage.

[Patchuli]

96. Native Californians feel the same way!

Nothing like feeling squeezed out of your own home turf...

[Retrograde]

76. not to mention other levies

my county recently voted to raise the sales tax by .25%. My town also has a special parcel tax to augment school funding.

Thanks for bringing this up, The_Casual_Observer: a lot of people who don't pay CA property taxes have this charming idea that they never go up, whereas my bills say otherwise. I remember the pre-Prop 13 days: taxes were going up by 20% a year and more in some areas.

[CreekDog]

18. idiot author...i was 7 when Prop. 13 passed

as for the housing bubble, i needed a place to live, and it's not a McMansion and I paid what the market priced my place at back in 2004. rentals are very hard to come by where i live.

[kpete]

26. i believe

i am being flamed at DU today?
should I alert skinner?

THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE VALENTINES!!!

love kpete

flame on.....

[EFerrari]

28. I don't think you are being flamed, kpete. It's just that this author is smearing

all of us for what most of us didn't even do in the first place!

It's just another version of trashing "San Francisco liberals".

The way he does it sort of obscures the real issues around Prop 13.

[CreekDog]

31. ah, you aren't the author of that paragraph

i found it at the very end of the Salon column.

i direct my flames at that author, rather than you.

[mike_c]

102. I'm so tired of hearing the rationalizations of folks who won't take responsibility...

...for their actions. It's tough all over. What have you done to make it better? Or was grabbing your chunk of the pie all that it was ever about?

[CreekDog]

109. what are you talking about?

i bought within my means putting down 20%+ on a fixed 30 year loan for a condo that is now worth less than my mortgage.

and i always vote for proper funding of schools and my reps do as well.

you do realize that Republican legislators from other districts will not give me the time of day...do you not?

[LeftyMom]

20. A pretty significant share of the California electorate wasn't old enough to vote in 1978

Hell, I wasn't even born yet.

[EFerrari]

25. People love to take shots at some "California" of their imagination.

It's like a hobby or something.

[LeftyMom]

38. Generally it's the California of very bad television.

:shrug:

I don't live there.

[XemaSab]

94. Like, when I was in middle school I LOVED 90210 and watched it, like, every week!

Wait, hold on, no, that was Twin Peaks I watched every week.

Fuck all y'all... my ass is moving to Snoqualmie. :P

[YvonneCa]

87. THAT is a very good observation. Some think we...

...all have beach houses and spend all our time surfing. :7

[cottonseed]

24. I was 3 in 1978 and in lieu of voting I messed myself.

Didn't like prop 13 then and don't like it now.


On edit:

I don't like 2/3 to pass a budget and our Prison Industry (thanks Feinstein) is killing us too.

[SoCalNative]

45. You might feel differently

if it was your home you would be in danger of losing because you couldn't afford the taxes on it.

[cottonseed]

48. Actually I wouldn't feel differently

because I'd like to purchase a new home, but saddled with subsidizing the difference in property taxes if I would. That's self interest talking.

[SoCalNative]

52. And I'd like to be able to keep

the homes I'll inherit. Self interest for me as well.

[cottonseed]

56. Nice. Well I don't see support form Prop 13 disappearing anytime soon.

So I think this works out as a small win for you. The differential is starting to get really out of whack though and a simple question of fairness is eventually going to come up.

[msongs]

43. I own 2 identical houses in CA, one is prop 13, the other is not...

literally they are the same floor plan, same square feet, same size lot, exactly identical. The non-13 house's property tax is NINE times as high as the prop 13 house even though they have the same assessed value, which is declining.

there are elements of prop 13 that need to be revised no doubt but it is hardly the cause of all of California's problems.

California decided to blow all the money it took in during the boom, and now it is having to give much of it back in the bust. Property taxes are declining along with property values. What goes up must come down eventually, before it goes up again.

Unfortunately we have a legislature that cannot spend money it does not have, though it would like to. We also have legislators who live high on the hog and squander taxpayer money on themselves then turn around and beg for more.

We also have a need for more services for more people and those services cost more than they used to.

Then we have the 2/3 majority rule for budgets and intransigent republicans.

I think the new taxes etc are ok IF they have a sunset clause built in and a time line for cancellation.

Msongs

[YvonneCa]

88. Great post. I'd only add that Enron...

...was also a factor in our current situation...IMHO.

[Dreamer Tatum]

44. This article is utter crap

The public perception of California is embarrassingly wrong.

Not everyone in California lives behind gates in a McMansion (although there is an irony to this thread that I will not mention except in PM). If you want to point to the oceans of bland new neighborhoods in Orange County, then allow me to take you through the maze of
older neighborhoods in Anaheim, Cypress, Long Beach, and Buena Park, to name but four in SoCal. There are more renters in California than there are people in about half the states.

If you want to perpetuate the myth that Prop 13 is bad for the state, then knock on a few doors in those same neighborhoods and ask people what they do for a living and how long they've lived there. And please square for me how Prop 13 is so bad if taxes mark to market every time a house is sold or refinanced.

And suddenly California's actual fiscal crisis can be traced to "anti-government emotions" from before 1980? Sorry, but that's bullshit. A $40B budget deficit reflects the opposite of "anti-government."

Maybe some of the smugness and sanctimony would disappear if the moronic author did a little homework to see how much California contributed to the US budget surplus just prior to the dot-com bust (hint: it's a LOT).

Here is a shocking concept: California spends too much money. Taxes must increase, or the budget must be slashed. Or both. It's just that simple.

[Mz Pip]

49. I didn't vote for it

I was in my 20s and even then I knew this was a bad idea. It was a terrific tax loophole for big businesses that own property and rarely sell.

When it passed my property taxes went way down. Then in '85 we moved and my property taxes soared. They are still climbing.

[kpete]

54. thank you

for remembering, - where did all the $$$ really go?
poof, like a dandelion. - i have always thought that ca never reaches its full potential - but we smell it too folks, so sorry for the contrarian view, i have seen a rape of my state (sorry, this is personal) kp

[Shakespeare]

53. I moved here in late 1999. Fuck the "you deserve it" bullshit.

We're ALL feeling pain out here, and I assure you I did nothing to add to the problem (hell, I even chose NOT to buy a house, because I thought the ARM and subprime stuff was insane at the time--and I could've).

I've just about had it with folks wanting to punish the citizens of CA, whose tax dollars and commerce have been propping up the rest of the country for a long time. Watch us fall, and watch the rest of the country follow suit.

[Politicalboi]

68. Your right

When Bush took over California was the 5th largest economy in the world now were either 7th or 8th. It all happened during the energy crisis.

[YvonneCa]

90. Enron. n/t

[natrat]

57. what a load of shit, moron

[Bluenorthwest]

58. The language is harsh

but I can tell you this, Pete and other Californians...my Dad told me why he opposed Prop 13 at the time, and what he said was 'it means houses will wind up costing too much for new buyers-you- and that the state will wind up broke when you are my age.'
So Dad was correct. He said at the time they were using a jackhammer when they needed a rubber headed mallet.
I worry about so many I know who work for the State. And others.

[mike_c]

101. yep-- any reasonable person could see that...

...but the greedy bastards who didn't want to pay for what they got from the state didn't give a rat's buttocks.

"I got mine, so screw you" has always been their mantra. Howard Jarvis was one of the worst, IMO.

[nbsmom]

71. What about CA being the ATM for U.S.?

In good times, the state is self-funded and self-insured. And then some...

CA receives only .81 from Federal government of each $1.00 in federal taxes paid (compared, for example, to AK $1.82 for each $1.00 paid.)

Imagine if CA had been charging interest on that .19 all this time. (That would be smart, wouldn't it? )

I have been happy to pay my 'blue state taxes.' And I didn't vote for Prop. 13, but have watched as big box shopping came in everywhere to make up for the giant sucking sound emanating from Sacto.

But I really don't appreciate how Andrew Leonard appears to be blaming the victim.

[Baikonour]

73. Arnold is a testament to just how truly bad Gray Davis was.

So bad, that California completely jumped the shark.

[YvonneCa]

91. Welcome to DU. n/t

[pinto]

81. A lot of truth there. Prop 13 was the flash flood that has ultimately undermined our economy.

The dot com boom masked its effects, in a large part, but it was eroding our local financial base all along.

Minimizing government expenditures while cutting it's tax base was a smoke and mirror solution sold to the California electorate.

There was no there, there, to trickle down economics. We were bleeding out on Reagonomics then and we are bleeding out on it still.

Once a leader in fiscally sound, progressive state government we are a $41 billion failed state.

It's a shame. I hope there's a turn around in this scenario.

[AlCzervik]

92. I hope Howard Jarvis is getting red hot pokers jammed into all of his orifices in hell.

yes i do.

[1]

105. california is going to have to step up and do the right thing for california...

if that means you change prop 13, then you change prop 13.

so change it. why such resistance?

[Joe Fields]

106. Sadly, I have to agree.

And yet I still love it so, and hope to live there someday.

[sakabatou]

108. Well, I know it's not my personal fault

Couldn't vote until '06.