Prop 13, California's Folly

Forums: Politics, California, Prop 13
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Here is a terrific article on the above, which one should read in the context of the present situation in the nation. It is about the "greeding" of CA, as well as the nation, over the past 30 years. The piece serves as a cautionary tale for all of us.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/californias_folly_prop_13_20100126/

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 7 • Views: 2,125 • Replies: 20

No top replies

@Advocate,

Ah yes, one fool's opinion.
Prop. 13 has nothing to do with the fiscal deficit California has been facing
for the past decades. It's rather a misallocation of funds and an utter waste
of funds in areas that do not require accountability (schools are prime examples).

California has probably the highest real estate values in the entire country,
thus based on the 1 % mark for a 1 mill home, the revenues are far higher than
in most other states who don't have Prop 13. Besides that, legislators in CA
have found a way to add to property taxes with special bonds (school district,
water, agricultural etc.) that in reality it's more 2 % of ones home value
that is paid to the government.

The financial crisis of California was created due to mismanagement and
incompetent leaders - has nothing to do with Prop. 13

1 Reply

@Advocate,

Yeah, greed is very good,
the only trouble with it is that there is NOT ENUF of it.

David

0 Replies

@Advocate,

I don't know who Arthur Blaustein is, but he certainly has his head stuck in his rear end. His feeble attempt to somehow couple the deplorable Prop 13 to California'a fiscal woes is risible at best.

0 Replies

The relationship between government
and the individual citizen is ADVERSARIAL;
hence, each citizen owes it to himself to do his best to strangle domestic government.

0 Replies

@CalamityJane,

Prop 13 dramatically reduces the flexibility of the state government, so things happen in an uncontrolled manner. With an economy the size of France's and after rounds and rounds of cost cutting, California still can't pay the bills. Here in NC, when the budget didn't close, the state made deep cuts, took some out of savings and raised taxes. By having a system where they cannot raise taxes to cover shortfalls, California puts themselves in a position where they cannot control their own system. Cuts happen automatically, workers go unpaid, there is no controlled landing so the system crashes.

2 Replies

@engineer,

engineer,
that's correct - deep cuts and higher taxes would be the logical solution -
not so in California. We've had scandal after scandal how government misuses funds to further their own agenda such as illegal increases in pension funds, exorbitant salary increases, excessive personnel, and the list goes on and on.
Taxes: small business take the largest hit right now. Just one example:
businesses pay property taxes on their equipment and "personal property"
it went from $4000 to $ 20,000 for no apparent reason as the simple
increase in fees (I am fighting that one though). Healthcare cost are unattainable for small businesses and its employees. California has the
highest rates in just about every insurance you can think of.

Individual state taxes are high, so is sales tax (8.87 %) and we've been
paying school bonds practically forever. The common taxpayer in California is taxed to the maximum, small businesses even more so. In the coming
year we'll see an exodus of businesses into neighboring AZ and NV which
isn't helping our economy the least.

What we need is a solid, sensible economy plan that supports businesses,
individuals and the government alike. So far, we've only seen increases
in government entities and mismanagement. Our city (San Diego) was
subject to an FBI investigation due to illegally allocating funds into their
own pockets. It's a mess, admittedly, but Prop. 13 is the only tax advantage
that we have left and with housing prices that soared in the past 20 years,
the housing market would see a massive bankruptcy wave without Prop. 13.
It's all a snowball effect, if we only would learn from that.

2 Replies

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

Prop 13 dramatically reduces the flexibility of the state government, so things happen in an uncontrolled manner. With an economy the size of France's and after rounds and rounds of cost cutting, California still can't pay the bills. Here in NC, when the budget didn't close, the state made deep cuts, took some out of savings and raised taxes. By having a system where they cannot raise taxes to cover shortfalls, California puts themselves in a position where they cannot control their own system. Cuts happen automatically, workers go unpaid, there is no controlled landing so the system crashes.

The moral of the story is: have a small government.
If that does not work, then have a smaller one.

0 Replies

@CalamityJane,

It'll all be solved when CA slips off into the Pacific.

1 Reply

@JTT,

We'd never slip off, JTT. There is enough silicone in California to keep us
afloat.

0 Replies

@CalamityJane,

We managed to keep our Los Angeles area house for 22 years because of the base property tax rate via prop 13. I don't remember the situation with prop 13 and corporate taxation - I remember wanting corporations to be taxed more, but then I'm a financial dumkopf (sp?).

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

As I said before, if you tax the corporations to the maximum, they'll
move into neighboring NV or AZ where they have so much better fiscal conditions, plus no state taxes in NV. Besides, we're talking about smaller
businesses who really suffer with all the added taxes.

1 Reply

@CalamityJane,

Yes, I'm listening. The bit about corporations and taxation was my (uneducated) opinion at the time. I've worked a lot of years in very small businesses.. thus I'm very sympathetic there. I'm learning from your posts about the waste by the state of CA.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

Yeah, here is already one waste (from huffingtonpost.com)

Quote:

According to a report released by the ACLU, California taxpayers pay at least $117 million annually at the post-conviction level seeking execution of those on death row, translating to $175,000 per inmate per year. The ACLU report estimates the execution of all inmates currently on death row or waiting for them to die naturally -- which for most is the case -- will cost California an estimated $4 billion.

Moreover, after one factor that death penalty trials cost at least $1.1 million more than non-death penalty trials, the conservative estimate concludes that California counties spend roughly $22 million per year more seeking execution than life without the possibility of parole.

The combined state and county costs could pay the salaries of 2,250 CHP officers. Since 2000, Alameda County has spent $14.3 million on 13 death penalty cases, enough to pay for 31 experienced teachers during the same period.

3 Replies

@CalamityJane,

Nods (well, I would..)

Meantime, the UC system is is deep doo doo, or so it seems to me.

0 Replies

@CalamityJane,

I think Arnold proposed just this week building prisons in Mexico. He said the state would save $1B if they could ship 20,000 undocumented prisoners to the newly built prisons?

1 Reply

@Irishk,

Yes he did propose that (L.A. Times)

Quote:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger floated a different approach to trimming down California’s bloated prison budget on Monday: pay Mexico to build new prisons and ship off California’s incarcerated illegal immigrants south of the border.
The Republican governor has pushed to house California inmates out-of-state before -- but never in a different country.

“We can do so much better in the prison system alone if we can go and take inmates, for instance the 20,000 inmates that are illegal immigrants that are here, and get them to Mexico,” Schwarzenegger said during a question-and answer session at the Sacramento Press Club. “Think about it.”

However, considering that the Mexican drug cartel has taken over the entire
country, while the government itself is as corrupt as they come, I don't foresee that Schwarzenegger's suggestion would eliminate our problems.
Sure, they would take the money to build a prison but if the prisoners ultimately remain there is a huge question mark. Arnold is trying to pass
the buck, that's all - in addition it would not work.

a

0 Replies

What most of you are saying is that CA should follow the standard Rep approach, which is to borrow and spend. As someone said, taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. It is false to say that all the problems in CA are due to mismanagement and fraud.

2 Replies

@Advocate,

and U claim that in order to be "civilized" we have to have a damned government ??

0 Replies

@Advocate,

Advocate wrote:

What most of you are saying is that CA should follow the standard Rep approach, which is to borrow and spend. As someone said, taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. It is false to say that all the problems in CA are due to mismanagement and fraud.

No one said that ALL problems are due to mismanagement, however, doing
away with Prop. 13 is not resolving anything, more on the contrary.

0 Replies

Prop 13, California's Folly

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know