If you are as fed up as I am with California’s dysfunctional budget and tax system (not to mention the roadblocks in the legislature and our, ahem, “governor”) check this out: Close the Loophole.
This is a movement to set right the terrible problems created by Proposition 13 in California several decades ago. I’m not against reasonable control of taxation, but this thing has gone (predictably, I might add) out of control in a whole bunch of ways, including:
- The tax burden has shifted from steady and predictable property taxes to unreliable, variable, and regressive sales taxes and fees.
- Because people (like me!) who have owned their property for many decades are locked in to much lower levels of property tax, next-door neighbors pay wildly different amounts of property tax.
- The real beneficiaries of this proposition are huge commercial property owners in the state who don’t “turn over” their property and who now pay far less tax as a percentage to the state than they did before the proposition was enacted – and this trend will continue indefinitely and push a greater and greater percent of the burden onto individual homeowners.
Proposition 13 was a brilliant political calculation. It contained features that raised its short term appeal high enough to get it passed, it was offered at a time of great taxpayer anger, it pandered to citizen’s baser instincts and its passage made discussion of any changes the “third rail” of California politics – to go there was political death. But is also locked the state into a downward revenue spiral that continues to get worse and worse. But it has now become so painfully obvious that California’s system is badly broken – that groups such as Close the Loophole now have a chance of provoking much-needed change – and they need support from all of us now.
July 3, 2009
Posted by gdanmitchell |
Commentary |
3 Comments
Dan's Outside 
Close the Loophole
If you are as fed up as I am with California’s dysfunctional budget and tax system (not to mention the roadblocks in the legislature and our, ahem, “governor”) check this out: Close the Loophole.
This is a movement to set right the terrible problems created by Proposition 13 in California several decades ago. I’m not against reasonable control of taxation, but this thing has gone (predictably, I might add) out of control in a whole bunch of ways, including:
Proposition 13 was a brilliant political calculation. It contained features that raised its short term appeal high enough to get it passed, it was offered at a time of great taxpayer anger, it pandered to citizen’s baser instincts and its passage made discussion of any changes the “third rail” of California politics – to go there was political death. But is also locked the state into a downward revenue spiral that continues to get worse and worse. But it has now become so painfully obvious that California’s system is badly broken – that groups such as Close the Loophole now have a chance of provoking much-needed change – and they need support from all of us now.
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July 3, 2009 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | 3 Comments