It's pretty simple, though. Either we spend less money or we raise revenue, or both.
All things considered, our friends in Sacramento aren't going to suddenly discover the value of frugality -- unless packed schoolrooms, broken bridges and crumbling levees are your idea of satisfactory quality of life.
So that means we need to get our hands on some extra cash. And like it or not, that means taxes. That's a bad word, I know. But it's how things work in the real world.
Proposition 13 is as good a place as any to start if we want to raise some serious coin and we want to do it soon.
"It's terrible economics," said Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Assn. "We have the heaviest tax on new investment and no tax on windfall."
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.
