More buzz about Prop 13

As Californians waited and watched during the excruciating budget battle this year, more and more people are beginning to agree we have to look at Prop 13 again. The long-ago decision to cap property taxes and to demand a 2/3 vote to approve budget decisions has made California a failed state. Many citizens do not understand how the budget is arrived at and they continue to demand services without approving any move to raise money for them. We can't keep on getting a free lunch forever. No other state in the country has passed legislation that puts the government in such a bind as California's. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass speaks for many legislators when she says its time to put everything on the table. Next month's Tax Commission Report should give some indication of what the possibilities are. Let's calm down, take a look at the possibilities and make some sensible, grown-up decision about how the state will continue to function.

Is California leading the nation to chaos?

From the tranquil green campus of Princeton University, Paul Krugman today writes about the dire state of California. Even though Californians have been making bitter jokes about how the state has lost its way, it is chilling to know that on the other side of the continent a leading economist thinks that if California really still is "where the future happens first" then "God help America". Krugman is worried because the political system in our state simply is not functioning. He points to Prop 13 as the ballot measure that started the trend toward unworkable budgets and an unstable government. Our dependence on income tax to fund almost all government functions leaves us vulnerable to every swing in the economy. And what are we doing about it? So far not much. Everyone knows we need changes in Prop 13 to enable us to make property taxes more equitable. We need to stop allowing a minority of lawmakers to hold our budget process hostage to the need for a two/thirds majority. As citizens we need to take responsibility for supporting change. It's time for every one of us to support the call for a Constitutional Convention and to hold our lawmakers accountable for their decisions. The longer we wait the worse the world will be for our children and grandchildren.

Fixing a tax loophole

The fiasco of the Special Election on May 19 has made it clear that California must make some changes to its budget process. Prop 13, the ballot measure passed in 1978, has been an impediment to sensible budget planning for thirty years, but no legislator has faced up to the challenge of changing it. Now Phil Ting, San Francisco's Assessor-Recorder presents a plan to close at least one large loophole. According to Ting, the people who get most from Prop 13 are large corporations which no longer bear the brunt of property taxes. Commercial property owners paid only 43 percent of property taxes in 2008, while residential property owners paid 57 percent. If the rules were changed so that corporations paid their fair share, California would benefit from increased revenue and a large burden would be removed from many middle-class citizens. The League of Women Voters supports this reform. Let's hope the legislators have the courage to stand firm against corporate lobbyists and make Prop 13 work the way it was intended to work, protecting homeowners, not businesses.