Posted on 10/29/2011 12:01:22 PM PDT by Oldpuppymax
Bloomberg News’ Christopher Palmeri recently wrote of the legacy of Proposition 13 still hovering over California. It has far too often been said that “As goes California, so goes the nation.” 33 year old Proposition 13 has become a broad generic term for tax revolt.
Palmeri reports that at least 20 states have followed the 13 lemming.
Tax reform was needed, but it has become apparent that 13 was not the right formula. However, there was far more to that 1978 election than Proposition 13 – its evil stepsister was Proposition 10 promoted by the banking industry.
I wised up to the progressive movement years ago, but only saw it as a perverse form of totalitarian politics. I’ve never met a tax expert who could tell me what Proposition 10 was on the 1978 California ballot. Proposition 10 was designed to repeal California’s usury laws.
Events leading up to the election saw banks’ drying up capital in California and some Bible Belt states, making it impossible to buy a home, automobile, refrigerator or borrow funds for business operations.
After Proposition 13 passed, local tax revenues plunged to the point that schools, parks, roads and public safety suffered for lack of operating funds. After Proposition 10, interest rates on auto, home, appliance and business loans skyrocketed to the 12 -20% range. Lenders would now finance at “competitive” interest rates.
Ultimately, usury costs far outstripped the high taxes people suffered pre-13.
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
The Big Red Socialist machine must be fed.. who cares who loses their homes?
Redistribution of Wealth is the Left’s number 1 agenda item and the entitled media and elite will work as hard and as long as they are allowed to to destroy private property rights and fund their socialist agenda.
California is following the course of absolute, on-demand democracy. The result will not be good.
Revenues plunged? Prop. 13, iirc, stopped the property taxes from climbing. What Willie Brown and his associate Democratics in the Assembly did, to punish the evil constituents, was to defund/underfund the infrastructure of California and continue to grow the welfare state and public sector union payola schemes. Prop. 13's charisma was that it "potentially" sent a message for the state legislature to balance its budget and to keep elders in their homes rather than kick them to the curb when their property taxes outstripped their fixed incomes.
This author underplays the fact that California has not only property taxes, but a state income tax and sales tax.
To the fat-cat politicians of California, Prop. 13 was/ is a horrible roadblock to statist utopia; for the working families and retirees, it was a respite from the increasing tax burden of the oppressive legislature.
I visualize Californians swirling the toilet bowl while their politicians reach out and up to grab that flush handle just one more time.
Prop 13 is a sound way of keeping gov’t out of our wallets - and the bleat about ‘lost revenue’ is bogus.
During the hot real estate market - when houses were selling far above what they were worth, the counties were raking in a lot of money. Sacramento authorized development of the Natomas area for that very reason- except they were too stupid for their own good and allowed construction on a flood plain now costing tax payers millions to secure.
Those old houses taxed at a low rate were rotated into houses taxed at the price the house was sold at.
The problem was that the stupid demonrats couldn’t stop spending the money they got - and no one took the check book away from them.
Politicians HATE Prop 13, and are still railing against it. It was kind of the real second Tea Party (after Boston, of course) and a precursor to the latest We the People movements.
California legislature in Sacramento is run amok. They should be starved financially and then sent packing to work real jobs.
We celebrate Prop 13. Reality stinks, if you are a liberal spend-a-million.
The results of an uncontrolled property tax environment was made painfully evident to the older residents/retirees in the Flathead Lake area of Montana. Property taxes shot up uncontrollably in the ‘90s - forcing retirees out of their homes because they could no longer afford to pay the property tax - because the property values skyrocketed.
Gov’t doesn’t have a revenue problem - it has a spending problem.
While revenues slowed the state and city govt.s continues to over pay unionist and retirees far in excess of the private sector.
Oh well.
After Proposition 13 passed, local tax revenues plunged to the point that schools, parks, roads and public safety suffered for lack of operating funds. After Proposition 10, interest rates on auto, home, appliance and business loans skyrocketed to the 12 -20% range... Ultimately, usury costs far outstripped the high taxes people suffered pre-13.Pre-Brimstone ping.
Tax reform was needed, but it has become apparent that 13 was not the right formula.
Thank God for prop 13. I don’t know much about your formulas.
I do know that prop 13 saved many homes of folks whose property taxes were draining them of all their resourses.
One of the few organizations I regularly contribute to is the Howard Jarvis Protect Prop 13 group who fight to resist prop 13 repeal, something the unions and the legislature have tried to do for 30+ years. This battle will never end.
“...After Proposition 13 passed, local tax revenues plunged to the point that schools, parks, roads and public safety suffered for lack of operating funds. After Proposition 10, interest rates on auto, home, appliance and business loans skyrocketed to the 12 -20% range. Lenders would now finance at “competitive” interest rates.
Ultimately, usury costs far outstripped the high taxes people suffered pre-13...”
This is rank economic and political illiteracy. I was there and knew Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann. The “Coach” ought to be fired because he trying to call plays he doesn’t understand.
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