patrick.net

Stable taxes is good. The problem with Prop 13 is not that it limited tax increases. It creates a vested majority that can vote or allow spending without paying for it.

If taxes were fixed on the same tax basis for everyone, California would have owned up to this mess earlier.

Instead, we have a majority of people paying a less of the taxes, and the recent and the young buyers of property paying much more.

So increase in fire, police wages pensions, schools have been piled on to these new buyers.

In other words, bubble prices drove a bubble in taxes, which drove a bubble in spending. And the majority, having pre-bubble level taxes, did not care.

If tax basis was not allowed to bubble, these bubble based tax income would not have existed, and CA would have had to face up to the music earlier - pony up, or cut.

Tax reform wont happen, as most of the Prop 13 supporters (old buyers/those with low basis) do not have to face that choice of pay up or cut.

For old basis owners, the choices are
(a) keep current taxes(low taxes), and don't cut.
(b)keep current taxes (low taxes), cut.

For the new basis owners the choices are
(a)keep current taxes (high taxes), and don't cut
(b) keep current taxes(high taxes), and cut.

For old basers, (a) is preferable - pay low, and get more. Greed wins
For new basers ,(b) is not acceptable - pay more and get less. So they also chose (a). Value for money.

Hence no cuts

yep, it aint gonna happen. The old geezers would be out on the streets.

Yes, we will have more homeless geezers with a $million in their pockets, but the total number of homeless should not go up, because, with the home prices coming down faster, we will now have more younger people who can afford to buy.

Unfortunately, the old geezers actually vote. The young people love to march in the streets but are too stoned to make it to the polls. I heard the average age of voters is almost 60.

This is a major generational warfare. The young people will eventually remind the boomers how they squandered away all the inheritence money, and left them with nothing but debt and unemployment. The boomers will die a very broke and lonely death, rotting away in their termite-infested bungalows.

Nobody will admit it, but I believe that 90% of California's troubles comes from Prop 13. There are other states which are just as profligate as California (New York, Illinois to name a few), but they still have lower taxes, and they are not insolvent. The main difference is Prop. 13.

Dunnross,

not so sure. Boomers are still a bigger voting block though.

Don't forget that they will for sure make us pay for their 80+ age advanced cancer drug and defibrillator.

As I always said, the faster Medicare goes broke, the better off we all are. The economy, Social Security, prop 13 will all not be a problem if we take away Medicare. Medicare is the only thing keeping these blood suckers alive. Once Medicare goes, our tax will go down, there will be far more houses up for sale to pay for their medical bills regardless of prop 13.

Remember, you will be old someday too. I think the rage against the Boomer is misplaced. They are the ones that built this country into a world leader. Take a look at the infrastructure, the college system and the inventions and advancements. It was the Boomer that layed it all out. Unfortunately, they raised a bunch of cry baby ingrates. Now those ingrates are turning on them and trying to blame all our problems on the Boomers. They dont have the guts to blame the real culprits. They know the Boomer wont respond to their inane blather. Take that SurferX dude for example. Here he is on the Housing Crash site doing his rants against the Boomers and everyone loves him. Then he goes and buys a house at the peak of the market. His problem was that he was too busy blaming someone else for his problems. All he had to do was pay attention to what was going on. Instead he chose to get drunk and do a Boomer rant on the housing crash site.

He is the epitome of the cry baby generation.

Both SS and Medicare are systems into which my generation will pay but will inevitably get nothing back. Why should we keep supporting this system? Is it fair that we become the last generation that holds the bag?

You are also wrong in pointing out that the baby boomer built this country into the world leader, NO, it is the Great Generation, the one before them who did so. The baby boomers are simply beneficiaries of a bulge in population growth. More heads = more consumption, as simple as that.

When I am old, I will have enough money to pay for everything myself. I prefer to have no medicare, no social security starting from today, and I definitely do not expect a dime from the government when I am old. I don't need anything from the government either. I will already be very thankful if the government doesn't come after my money when I am old.

OO,

For SS and Medicare we still have to wait, at least 10 years. My kids are growing up fast, and they need a house. I don't have time to wait that long. Prop 13 is something we can take care of right now. I wish that someone had an actual dollar amount of revenue generated, so that we could start a petition going. Besides, if the boomers are going to object to Prop 13 going away, they would form an even stronger opposition to Medicare. However, they voted no on all the budget ballot measures, which means that there will now be huge cuts to education and children's healthcare. So, we cut education dollars in a state which is already 49th out of 50 in education, just so that the millinaire geezers can keep their stupid bungalows. Where is the justice?

Throwing more money at the education system is clearly not the answer. I think calif. is one of the biggest spenders on public education. Again you point your finger in the wrong direction.
If you have the political clout to change prop 13 then go for it. You cant change the fact that the reason they are called the Boomers is because that's the bulk of the population.
Why complain? Look at the positive side of having a shrinking population as the Boomers die off. The real problem in this world is over population. Solve that and you solve all of our problems. Actually, it's a problem that most likely will solve itself, at least in this country.

Remember, someday you too will be a millionaire geezer. You will inherit all the Boomers wealth. Those priceless airlooms will be yours for the taking. It's already starting to happen. Go to some of these estate sales and see for yourself

The boomers will be replaced by 'undocumented residents' faster than they can die.

Prop. 13 , yeah! Definitely one of my favorite causes.

My suggestion has always been the following: Take last years total property tax revenue. Then establish for EVERYONE the same tax rate X which results in the same total tax revenue as last year. DONE.

It is fair, it is equitable, it's the way it should be.

Wow, this just in: Ca. needs to be bailed out by the fed.

Wow, this just in: Ca. needs to be bailed out by the fed.

Yep, saw that too. Also saw that one of the conditions of the bailout will likely be repeal of Prop 13. Would that take 2/3 of the Ca legislature, or would it need a referendum? Maybe just a court decision.

Obama may be CA's new defacto governor.

Well, repealing 2/3 rule might also be a possible condition of the bailout.

dunnross,

repealing the 2/3 rule would be very welcome. It is a recipe for gridlock. But America's rulers love gridlock. That is why we have the god-forsaken 2-party system. But I digress.

>>Wow, this just in: Ca. needs to be bailed out by the fed.

Well, we just need to re-incorprate as a bank holding company, and we should be in business with the bailouts.

Geitnher is skeptical, the news says. Why? Only banks are good enough for him? Bah.

If prop 13 and the 2/3rd rule get booted as contingencies for fixing this mess, it is cause for celebration!

Prop 13 must be repealed. It has created way too many problems. In addition to adding to state revenue volatility, it encouraged people to vote for all kinds of perks that they weren't in fact paying for. To paper over things, the income tax rate was raised to the second highest in the country. Reducing the income tax rate in conjunction with reforming prop. 13 would go a long way towards making us more competitive and lowering revenue volatility.