[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

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[snopercod]

These people will understand that the big house on the hill, the flashy car, the ski vacation and 500 channels of satellite TV are less important than serving their God and doing what is best for their families. As such, for many thoughtful parents, the second job will be abandoned, the fancy TV disconnected, the nanny, gardener and housecleaner dismissed, and the new car put off a few years, so that parents can raise their own children, not depend on strangers found in the classified ads to raise their kids.

Why does this remind me of Moonbeam's "psychic income" speech? Yup, his era of limits has finally arrived, California.

Now sure, if you chop your income to $25,000 per year, you're going to pay a lot less in income taxes. But your rent and/or property taxes, car taxes, sin taxes, utility costs, etc. all stay the same.

It's possible to do what the author suggests, but not in California - you have to move to a low-cost-of-living area of the country to pull it off.

[desertcry]

TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA: GOOD LUCK, YOU WILL NEED IT WITH DAVIS AS YOUR GOVERNOR. If California survives davis, it would be like every resident of that state have won the POWER BALL, 1 chance in a hundred million. But, hey humanity arose from nothing, so California may yet arise from the davis ashes.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

No problem Gray, Uncle Sam will bail you out. Just look for the envelope with Ed McMahon and Dick Clark on it.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Is it just me, or is this guy(Scott Browne) certifiably delusional?

[NormsRevenge]

Gov. Gray Davis, his Democratic allies and a too-soft Republican opposition have frittered away a massive state budget surplus on social programs implemented for the sole purpose of creating Democratic voters. Instead of investing the surplus in the infrastructure needed to help support the state's continuing growth - power, water, roadways, new schools - we now have neither infrastructure nor funds available to operate existing programs.

But it felt soooo good at the time. Idiots!

[A CA Guy]

Of all these things, the repeal of Proposition 13 will destroy older and poorer residents of California.

The Premise behind the 1% tax limit with only permission of 2% growth a year on the home is that it protects people who are no longer working today and whose money making hay day was long ago.

Today if you buy a home your tax would be 1% plus voted debt on your property tax. So in CA if your home is $300,000 today, as a new owner your tax is over $3,000 and you also pay about $800 in public taxes added on for schools, streets and bonds voted in by a stupid public.
A person in the same block who is 60 might have bought the same house for $35,000 and today their property tax might be only $680 compared to a current $3800 for a new buyer.

So why and how is that fair you ask perhaps?
Well a couple of people today in CA might earn a combined income of $110,000 buying a $300,000 home and of the higher income, the $3800 is a smaller percentage compared to the older buyer who's salary might have been $6000 when they bought the home for $35,000.
The older home owner was living their hay day in a time when less money bought more, so if you raise the property tax to $4,000 as an example, the retiree with an income of $4000 a year and SS of $650 before Medicare is taken out will lose their homes to taxes and only the old wealthy or new higher earning workers will be able to own a home in California. The rest of the older folks will be forced onto welfare and their home will be lost. They won't even be able to leave it for their heirs upon their death.
This becomes the ultimate death tax and ultimate way to throw old homeowners without earning capacity out on the street.

[Lancey Howard]

Wow. This is a terrific column.
The author is a professor?
He certainly doesn't toe the line of political correctness. Nearly everything he said is the kind of thing that makes scumbag Democrats soil themselves, especially the parts about "God" and "faith" and "family".

[Uncle Hal]

I will lay my body down to keep prop. 13 in place. Once the state starts to modify it we are doomed. RE prices will drop. I guess the first step is to exempt commercial and industrial properties from prop. 13. This is a constitutional amendment passed by the people. I do not see how the state legislature can amend it.