Free Republic

Do you get the impression Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reached a level of flippant frustration in his efforts to “fix Kaleefornya?” The latest budget impasse may be the final, insulting reality that blew away any illusion he had that the nation's most populous state - and one of the world's largest economies - can be rationally governed. His recent executive order to reduce state employees' pay to the federal minimum wage level, and to lay off thousands of part-time state employees, might be an expression of peevish exasperation, but it does strike at the heart of California's chronic budget problem,...

Editorial: Assessment ruling won't serve state well Monday's state Supreme Court decision striking down an assessment by the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority was one more nail in the coffin of California's quality of life. Not that the court was unreasonable. The justices were interpreting Proposition 218, as convoluted and mean-spirited an anti-tax law as California voters ever passed. The 1996 initiative aimed to tighten the rules set by Proposition 13 to make it even harder for government to raise revenue, and it's succeeding all too well. Californians must come to grips with the kind of place they want...

Taxes: Thirty years ago, Californians took to the ballot box to save their homes and put some brakes on the growth of government. Now, even the government is reaping the benefits.It may not get much national notice, but a significant man-bites-dog story has emerged from the debris of California's real estate bust. Cities and counties are finding that their assessment rolls actually are going up while house values are diving. Los Angeles County, for example, has seen its latest roll rise 6.9% to $1.1 trillion even as area home prices have depreciated 23%. Even nearby Riverside County, where the housing...

For decades, Proposition 13 has been cast as the bane of cash-strapped local government, limiting property tax revenues even as California's housing market soared. But this week, as county assessors reported rising tax bases despite the housing slump, they credited the 30-year-old law -- revealing its unexpected role as an economic stabilizer. Counties across Southern California reported that their overall tax bases grew compared with last year's. The corresponding revenue increase occurred despite falling home prices and even though assessors have reduced the property values on nearly 600,000 homes in five Southland counties in the last few months because of...

Los Angeles - California, home to 1 in 9 American schoolchildren, is on the brink of what may be the biggest public education crisis in state history. Facing a $16 billion state budget shortfall, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed $4.8 billion in school-funding cuts, or 10 percent of education spending. In the past week, over 20,000 preliminary pink slips were sent by school districts to teachers and administrators state wide, according to the California Teachers Association. The association estimates another 87,000 (of a total 350,000 public school teachers) could come if Governor Schwarzenegger holds to his budget cut request. Some...

GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) - Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn't want to leave Greenburgh. Greenburgh doesn't want her to leave, either. The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes. "People shouldn't have to sell their house, move away to a place with less taxes, leave behind their family and friends," said Town Supervisor...

California voters in 1978 amended the state constitution to set the bar high for increasing property taxes. Tax bills in those years had been increasing at such rates that many people, especially those on fixed incomes, were priced out of their homes. A taxpayers' revolt resulted in voter approval of Proposition 13, limiting taxes to 1 percent of property value, with annual increases held to 2 percent and establishing a two-thirds supermajority standard at the ballot box to change the limits. It reduced property taxes by about 57 percent. Now freshman Democrat Assemblyman Jared Huffman of San Rafael wants to...

CARMEL VALLEY ---- The state Department of Education is working to place an initiative for a $50 parcel tax on the November ballot as a way to pump an additional $500 million a year into public school education, State Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell said Monday. The tax, an annual assessment of $50 on every property in California, could generate an additional $500 million that would be earmarked specifically for California schools. EdVoice, described by its leaders as an organization of reform-minded philanthropists who support greater student achievement through investment, is backing the measure, said EdVoice president Christopher Cabaldon. The...

www.KaloogianForCongress.com(State Assemblyman 1994 – 2000, 74th Assembly District) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, January 31, 2006 Contact: Sal Russo – (916) 441-3734 POWERHOUSE ENDORSEMENT: Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Endorses HOWARD KALOOGIAN For 50th Congressional District (SAN DIEGO) – Republican Congressional Candidate, Howard Kaloogian (website: www.KaloogianForCongress.com ), has been endorsed in his campaign for U.S. Congress by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association PAC. In their letter of support to Kaloogian, the HJTA PAC wrote: “We appreciate your outstanding record of defending Proposition 13 and the interests of taxpayers. We look forward to continuing to work with you in the years ahead.” Kaloogian...

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Some Olympic Peninsula homeowners have enlisted influential support for a bid to limit property taxes by amending the state constitution. The homeowners' group, called Property Owners for Predictable Tax Now, is pushing for a 1 percent annual cap on the increase in a home's assessed value. Organizers say the measure would help keep property tax increases predictable amid hot housing markets, which can push up the estimated market value of a home unexpectedly from year to year. "Once you get on a fixed income, and you get broadsided by one of these gargantuan bills, there's nothing...

A loosely knit band of Silicon Valley's wealthiest is back with a new scheme to increase the burden on property tax payers. This group is mostly the same billionaire boy's club members that spent $60 million in 2000 on a successful campaign to make it easier to increase property taxes for school bonds, while vigorously defending tax breaks for their own industry. Since then, local districts have successfully passed more than $39 billion in local school bonds, but for these hi-tech industry elites, it's not enough. Now they have filed a new tax hiking initiative that would hit every property...

The passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 ignited, as has often been observed, a more or less perpetual fiscal crisis in California - a chronic gap between the promises and expectations for state and local spending and the ability of the tax system to generate revenue to meet those expectations. Proposition 13 also sparked another phenomenon whose effect has been even wider - government by ballot measure. As the Capitol became increasingly polarized and gridlocked, in part because of the aforementioned fiscal conundrum, the purveyors of political causes, whether on the right or left, increasingly turned to the initiative as...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The state's largest teachers union has dropped an initiative that would have poured billions of dollars into schools by raising property taxes on businesses, union officials said Thursday. Instead, the California Teachers Association will work with the opponents of the "Tax Fairness Act" to craft long-term solutions to school funding in the state, CTA president Barbara Kerr said. The CTA had gathered enough signatures - more than 900,000 - to qualify the initiative for the June 2006 ballot, Kerr said. It would have exempted California commercial and business properties from Proposition 13's rule that property value, upon...

Fueled by California's red-hot real estate boom, Los Angeles city and county property tax revenues have soared as much as 40 percent in the last five years, hitting homebuyers hard in their pocketbooks. The revenues have been a boon for local governments, with homeowners paying $9.5 billion in property taxes in fiscal 2004-05, compared with $6.7 billion in 2000-01. But the windfall that's being spent to hire more cops and enhance public service is coming at the expense of new homebuyers, who pay thousands a year more in property taxes than long-term homeowners under provisions of Proposition 13. Dana Ullerich...

The tax revenue windfall. For local government officials, it is the major topic of conversation. They are delighted that the hot real-estate market is providing billions of additional dollars to county coffers around the state. For Los Angeles, it represents a cool $1 billion in new revenue, a nearly 10 percent increase over last year. San Bernardino County anticipates its tax receipts to double to about $320 million. However, you'll have to pardon us if we don't join the celebration just yet. The last time we saw government officials so excited was in the late 1990s after Gray Davis took...

Recently a liberal think-tank, the Public Policy Institute of California, released a study estimating that the population of California will increase from 36.5 million to around 48 million over the next 20 years. A large chunk of the new arrivals will come as the result of "international migration" and many of these future residents will lack the education skills needed to land good jobs. PPIC predicts that unless the state takes action, we face potential disaster in the areas of transportation, education and social services. While concerns for the state of the state in the next two decades should not...

SACRAMENTO -- A proposed initiative ending Proposition 13 protection for commercial property would cost Los Angeles County taxpayers more than $26 million annually to implement, according to an analysis by the California Assessors' Association. The Tax Fairness Act has received almost $2.4 million from a group of influential public employee unions to circulate petitions placing the measure on the June 2006 ballot. Proponents say it would generate $2.8 billion per year in additional property tax revenues statewide. A CAA review of the proposal found it would be difficult and costly for counties to implement, with counties probably having to spend...

Schwarzenegger blasts Democrats and labor unions. Garden Grove, Orange County -- Taxes are the real issue in November's special election, even if the question of a tax hike is nowhere to be seen on the ballot, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday. For the second day in a row, the governor virtually ignored the nuts-and- bolts details of his three proposed initiatives and focused instead on taxes, which he warned that Democratic legislators will boost every time they get a chance. Those legislators "want to raise taxes and punish all of you," he told about three dozen small business owners and...

Santee , San Diego County -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's special election campaign suddenly became all about the landmark Proposition 13 property tax measure Tuesday, when he warned elderly homeowners they could lose their houses to taxes if Democrats and union leaders get their way in the fall. Schwarzenegger accused Democratic legislators of sneaking around with backdoor efforts to tweak Prop. 13, the 1978 initiative that tightly limited property taxes in the state. "I tell them: 'Don't you dare touch Proposition 13, because the people of California voted to protect their homes,' " Schwarzenegger said at an event staged in the...

Santee, San Diego County -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's special election campaign suddenly became all about the landmark Proposition 13 property tax initiative Tuesday when he warned elderly homeowners they could lose their houses to taxes if Democrats and union leaders got their way in the fall. "They want to back us into a corner so eventually they can force us to raise taxes," Schwarzenegger told about 25 people in a back yard get-together at this town outside San Diego. He accused Democratic legislators of sneaking around with backdoor efforts to "tweak" Prop. 13, the 1978 initiative that put tight caps...

Santee -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched his official campaign Tuesday for three reform measures by visiting a retired couple who said they couldn't afford any new property taxes to cover state spending. The governor said he is routinely approached with proposals to "tweak" Proposition 13, the landmark initiative that limits property taxes. "I say, don't your dare touch Proposition 13," he told about 30 supporters and reporters in the back yard of Paul and Hermine Kendrick. Schwarzenegger is backing three ballot initiatives that call for imposing a cap on state spending, stripping lawmakers of the power to draw their own...

Be Wary of Proposed Split Roll Property Tax Change to Prop. 13 Written by Wayne Lusvardi Monday, June 06, 2005 - ChronWatch.com Californians should be wary of a ballot-initiative now being circulated for the June 2006 election that would split in two the State property tax protections of Proposition 13. The California Tax Fairness Act would split the property tax rolls into two separate rates – one for homeowners who would retain Proposition 13 "locked-in" tax rates; and another for commercial property owners (e.g., businesses, stores, industrial land owners) whose taxes would be based on annually reassessed property values. Proposition...

As a longtime observer of government, I've come to realize that no matter how much public money one gives to any government agency or group of government workers, it will absolutely, positively not be enough. The unions representing the agency's workers will always cry poor-mouth, always find ways to shake down the taxpayer for more money. California's public school system consumes more than 40 percent of the budget, guaranteed by constitutional decree, and the governor's budget would increase educationspending by more than 7 percent, yet we've all witnessed the California Teachers Association and its unceasing anti-Arnold rallies and overheated "you're...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Seizing on a proposal by Democratic legislators to raise income taxes on the wealthy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a new television ad Thursday claiming lawmakers intend to hike other taxes and might even tinker with the state's famed property tax-slashing measure, Proposition 13. The new ad came just two days after Assembly Democrats proposed adding $3.1 billion to fund education by hiking income taxes on the state's top earners. But the ad suggests Democrats also want to boost several other taxes, including the sales tax and the vehicle license fee - claims Democrats called misleading and...

Everyone says it. Proposition 13 is the third rail of California politics. Any politician who touches it will see his career go up in smoke. Well guess what? It is time to touch the third rail. Don't take my word for it. Listen to some of the top economists in the country -- like Harvard professor Caroline Hoxby, a specialist in the economics of education, who calls Prop. 13 "a really terrible idea. I can't think of anything good about it.'' But then, a lot of people have been saying that since 1978 when the "taxpayer revolution'' swept California and...

I hope it's dawning on the governor that truly big reform -- broad, complex changes in the way Sacramento spends our taxes -- has never been an easy sell. Californians prefer glitzy, one-hit wonders over policy. We're a Proposition 13, term-limits, "three strikes, you're out," gubernatorial-recall kind of state. Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking a page from the playbook of former Gov. Ronald Reagan, who some 30 years ago tried to address rising taxes and legislative overspending with sweeping ballot reform. Reagan was popular and telegenic, like Schwarzenegger. But his complex plan, fought by entrenched interests, was defeated. He didn't give...

California's method of taxing property owners is the most iniquitous system possible, clobbering some taxpayers and letting others skate. Because homeowners got fed up with being gouged on property taxes 25 years ago, voters defied the power brokers, pundits and politicians and approved Proposition 13, rolling back tax rates and tightly limiting increases. That sent a shock wave through the political system. But instead of heeding the public's message and getting down to work on the people's problems, the politicians on both sides of the aisles went on strike. The result is that California's infrastructure has rotted. Public schools have...

It has been said that all taxes are local. They are extracted from the locality of the taxpayer's wallet. This is why the reaction to a trial balloon being floated by some close to the Bush administration is so fascinating. The president has set tax reform, with an emphasis on simplification, as a major goal of his second term. This sounds attractive in principle, but previous efforts have shown that once specifics are introduced, the resistance to change becomes virtually insurmountable. For example, eliminating deductions for charitable donations and mortgage interest are unacceptable to most taxpayers, even if the proposal...

SACRAMENTO – If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wants to close a growing state budget gap without a tax increase, cannot persuade the Legislature to make spending cuts, he may have some outside leverage. A group plans to place an initiative on the ballot that would limit spending to the growth in inflation and population, similar to one passed after the Proposition 13 property-tax cut and then loosened by later measures. The threat of ballot measures helped the popular Republican governor get the Democratic-controlled Legislature to give him two early victories – workers' compensation reform and repeal of driver licenses for...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Grieving families in San Francisco can expect to pay $700 if they want the medical examiner to cremate a loved one's remains. Nightclub bouncers in San Diego are footing a bill of $152 apiece for new worker's permits. And stores that sell cigarettes in the state capital have started counting an extra $300 into their annual cost of doing business. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have strong-armed lawmakers into supporting his "no new taxes" pledge, but Californians still will be paying more for government as a result of the budget compromise struck in Sacramento this week. Legally...

Imagine waking up to a science-fiction world in which voting involves no secret ballots -- the government knows how you voted -- no opposition statements are permitted, multiple votes can be legally cast by the same voter, only property owners vote, nongovernmental friends of the political power structure literally run the elections and voters can change their votes as many times as they like before election day. Is this a scenario for the next century, the voting pattern in Saudi Arabia or Saddam's Iraq or what? No, it's what voters are now facing in Contra Costa County, with mail-in ballots...

<p>Support for a ballot initiative that essentially would have split the property tax rolls and charged more to business and apartment owners collapsed last week - and that's good news.</p> <p>Tax increase opponents discovered in the initiative a drafting error, which could have made the land on which houses are built - as distinguished from the actual houses - subject to annual reassessment. If true, homeowners would have been affected by the initiative as well as businesses.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO – Tax reformers challenged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday to eliminate corporate loopholes in Prop. 13 that they say have cost the state billions since 1978.</p> <p>"There is a hole at the heart of our tax system crying out for reform," said Lenny Goldberg of the California Tax Reform Association, a nonprofit backed by labor and teachers. "There was never any promise to large corporations that they wouldn't be reassessed under Prop. 13, and there's no reason for not doing it."</p>

<p>Gallo split the purchase among 12 family members, so no single entity could be said to gain control.</p> <p>Hundreds of companies use loopholes in California's Prop. 13 to avoid a property- tax reassessment when they buy a business - costing the state hundreds of millions in tax revenue every year.</p>

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- An appeals court Friday overturned a Superior Court judge's ruling in a property tax lawsuit that could have cost Orange County hundreds of millions of dollars in tax refunds. The county assessor's office may increase property taxes by more than 2 percent in a year following a period when home values dipped or remained flat, justices with the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled. The case involved a lawsuit against the county assessor by Seal Beach resident Robert Pool. Pool, a property tax attorney, alleged the assessor violated Proposition 13 by increasing the taxable property...

<p>If the decrepit conditions of some California public schools make you wonder how the Golden State lost its sheen, check out a PBS documentary tonight about the 30-year downfall of education in the richest state in the union.</p> <p>In the hour-long documentary, award-winning TV journalist John Merrow traces the decline back to the early 1970s, when the California Supreme Court ruled in the Serrano v. Priest case that the state's system of funding schools with local property taxes was unconstitutional. Then voters overwhelmingly passed Prop. 13, which froze property taxes on homes and businesses and protected against new local taxes.</p>

One thing on which most Californians can probably agree is that there isn’t much give remaining in the state’s system of public revenues. The sales tax rate in some counties approaches the level of a church tithe, our top income tax rate of 9.3% supposedly forces all our wealthy businesspersons to flee to Idaho, and people who question our property tax structure are hustled into the village square and clapped in the stocks. Don’t even talk to me about the car tax. So it will be interesting to see how our leaders in Sacramento respond if an Orange County appeals...

<p>As the holidays approach and we prepare for the gift-giving season, it is easy to overlook Proposition 56, a "present" for taxpayers that public employee unions have placed on the March 2004 ballot.</p> <p>Unfortunately, Prop. 56, benignly titled the "Budget Accountability Act," is like the gift the Greeks left outside the walls of Troy. It contains some very nasty surprises.</p>

<p>Less than a month after a historic recall election in which voters overwhelmingly supported keeping taxes down, improving California's business climate and reaffirming allegiance to Proposition 13, the state's biggest teachers union and movie actor/director Rob Reiner announced plans for an initiative to raise new taxes - on business property - by altering Proposition 13. These people really don't get it.</p>

<p>California liberals just don't know when to stop spending taxpayers' dollars. One would have thought the recent recall election, in which this Democratic state overwhelmingly rejected a Democratic governor and replaced him with a fiscally conservative Republican, would serve as a reminder that Californians are sick of taxing and spending.</p>

CALIFORNIANS FOR SCHWARZENEGGER RADIO:60 "TAX" JON COUPAL: THIS IS JON COUPAL, PRESIDENT OF THE HOWARD JARVIS TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO WE SENT THE POLITICIANS A MESSAGE WITH PROPOSITION 13. THIS YEAR WE CAN SEND ANOTHER MESSAGE BY RECALLING GRAY DAVIS AND REPLACING HIM WITH ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, A STRONG FISCAL CONSERVATIVE. HE WILL REPEAL THE CAR TAX AND STAND AGAINST MORE TAXES. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: I STRONGLY SUPPORT PROPOSITION 13 AND WILL FIGHT ANY PROPOSAL WHICH SEEKS TO CHANGE IT. I AM IN PRINCIPLE AGAINST TAXING, BECAUSE I FEEL THAT THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA HAVE BEEN PUNISHED ENOUGH. FROM THE TIME...

Breath of fresh air on Proposition 13 quickly deflated By Dan Gillmor Mercury News Technology Columnist Making tax sense: There was a moment in California's recall election when a prominent candidate almost offered some straight talk about one of the key reasons the state is in such decline. Unfortunately, Arnold Schwarzenegger chickened out. A predictable howl went up when Schwarzenegger's top financial adviser, Warren Buffett, made the common-sense observation that Proposition 13, the property tax law, is both unfair and fiscally foolish. So the candidate immediately said he wouldn't even consider changing the status quo. Too bad. Proposition 13 may...

<p>Organizers of an initiative that would make it easier for the Legislature to pass budgets and raise taxes said Wednesday that they have more than enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot.</p> <p>"It's a broken process that we're facing, and this is what's going to fix it," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a statewide coalition that advocates for health care coverage.</p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO -- There's a candidate running for California governor by trying to capture some of the same outsider's magic that vaulted former wrestler Jesse Ventura to Minnesota's top political job five years ago.</p> <p>But it's not Arnold Schwarzenegger.</p> <p>The Hollywood film star and former Mr. Universe has often been compared to Ventura, but in a major speech delivered here Wednesday before the prestigious Commonwealth Club, political commentator Arianna Huffington outlined some of the same brash steps Ventura followed in his successful race to shock the political establishment and become Minnesota governor.</p>

<p>NEWPORT HOMES: Warren Buffett’s two Emerald Bay houses are each worth about $4 million. But because of Prop. 13, his property taxes on the two houses last year varied by nearly $10,000.</p> <p>Warren Buffett became the world's second-richest man by following a basic maxim: "We will never buy anything we don't understand."</p>

"Hijacking the political process"? A "circus atmosphere"? Commentators sniping at the use of the Howard Beal line from Paddy Chayefsky's movie Network, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more"? We've heard all this before. Before the Internet. Before cable TV. We've heard it about Proposition 13, the 1978 California voter initiative that limited property tax increases, championed by tax protesters Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann. Jarvis even "wrote" one of those campaign quickie books, titled with the famous quote from Network. Establishment pols loathed Prop 13. Anti-initiative types pointed to it as an object...

The Oracle of Omaha may need a new crystal ball after Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday rejected comments by his adviser Warren Buffett that California property taxes should be increased. Indeed, within hours of Costa's suggestion, top aides to Schwarzenegger moved to distance the actor from Buffett's comments. Mr. Buffett doesn't speak for Mr. Schwarzenegger," said Rob Stutzman, spokesman for Schwarzenegger's campaign. "Arnold Schwarzenegger has supported Prop. 13 for 25 years. ... Arnold is an admirer of Howard Jarvis and has referred to him as the original tax terminator." Jarvis and Paul Gann were the prime movers behind Prop. 13, the...

California taxpayers are celebrating a silver anniversary, as 2003 is the 25th year since the enactment of California's Proposition 13, whose landmark victory in 1978 sparked a national tax revolt. It passed in a landslide vote, with some 65 percent of Californians favoring the measure. The proposition slashed property taxes by limiting property-tax rates to 1 percent of the sales price of a home, and it limited subsequent increases to 2 percent per year -- a radical concept at the time. Previously, tax rates were based on a valuation established by a county assessor. Moreover, voracious local politicians determined the...

<p>One of my political rules of thumb: No reform that has any chance of actually working can be approved without squeals of protest from the elite opinion-makers. The converse is true: Anything that moves forward in a bipartisan fashion and is widely admired in the mainstream media is bound to be a disaster.</p>

Prop. 13 may be put to the testEast Bay lawmaker tells Oakland gathering that property-tax law is crippling the stateBy Susan McDonough, STAFF WRITEROAKLAND -- Twenty five years after California voters passed Proposition 13, a law to limit property tax increases, a group of determined Oakland residents is preparing to challenge the law they say is crippling the state. "The decisions we make over the next few weeks will define whether we are a community or (simply) a collection of people," State Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, told a group of about 100 people Sunday in the cavernous First Congregation Church...