| Dan Walters has an apology piece for Prop 13 this morning. Apology piece is being a bit generous, as it is more of a "LEAVE PROP 13 ALONE" kind of thing. He notes that its critics demand piece-meal reform because a complete repeal won't pass. Well, yes, Dan, we DFHs are pretty crazy that way, we aren't into tilting at windmills and have a strange compulsion to go where victories are easiest. Shocking!
By the way, I don't think you will find many liberals who would say that a complete repeal of Prop 13 would be a bad thing. I support a full repeal myself, anyway.
But once you get beyond tactics, Dan has fun with numbers, citing the large increase of property taxes since 1978. He notes that:
Since then, property taxes have risen 800 percent to more than $50 billion, according to data from the state Board of Equalization - far faster than other revenues, thanks to new construction and transfers.
Of course, he doesn't note whether this is in inflation adjusted dollars or not, so I'll assume it isn't. So, knock off a big chunk right there. Further than that, this is a more meaningless statistic. Yes, property taxes have gone up a lot, because there is a lot more valuable property in California today than there was 30 years ago. THere are more homes, more office buildings, lots more strip malls, and even a few more gas stations. So, yes the property taxes have gone up substantially because there are many new properties. In other words, this is a completely irrelevant statistic.
A more useful statistic would be the share of the income tax of state revenue. It's way up (PDF). But instead of useful statistics, we get talking points from the California Taxpayers' Association. The fact is that if we split the rolls for commercial properties and merely taxed them at their current assessment, the state would get an additional $7 Billion in revenue for the next fiscal year. Not raising the tax rate, nothing that new properties do not face, just taxing properties based upon what they are actually worth today. It is a move that would actually increase fairness and the business climate for new businesses.
But guess what, you know what has really risen in the past 30 years in California? Well, that would be people. People in California who need schools, who need police, who need firefighters, who need streets and who need all sorts of services the state provides. With many properties taxed like it's 1978, they do not provide for their fair share of services.
While Mr. Walters really enjoys the status quo and pinning blame on the "Capitol political culture that's utterly incapable of acting responsibly", he ignores the facts that the system does not allow for anybody to behave responsibly. Let the majority govern, and see if the public supports it. Instead, the supermajority binds the hands of the legislators.
There are other columnists, though, who see Prop 13 for what it is. Like David Lazarus, who said we cannot afford Prop 13 Capitol political culture that's utterly incapable of acting responsibly. Lazarus said back in 2008, referring to Lenny Goldberg:
What he means is that Proposition 13 allows the state to reach deep into the pockets of people and businesses that buy property at market value. But it does precious little to get a piece of the action from those with long-held properties that have soared in value over the years.
Prop 13 is not only a bad governing principle, it is a bad economic rule. Whether or not Mr. Walters chooses to ignore reality, the fact is that Prop 13 needs to go. |
