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> It forced a reduction in the out-of-control government spending No, it didn't. California just kept adding taxes everywhere else to make up the difference a

> It forced a reduction in the out-of-control government spending No, it didn't. California just kept adding taxes everywhere else to make up the difference and still had an annual deficit most of the 13 years I lived there. > It saved seniors from losing their houses Why are seniors magically allowed to be immune to basic market forces when no one else is?

Supermancho 4y ago
> Why are seniors magically allowed to be immune to basic market forces when no one else is? Because they have fixed incomes (generally). This income is immune to market forces. That's why. While many elderly invested wisely (and at the right time) to become wealthy, especially when leveraging dips (like during the 80s), it doesn't change the average case. Living month to month on a fixed income is the norm after retirement.
- abeppu 4y ago
  Except, while it was always rhetorically useful to talk about seniors with limited and fixed incomes being able to stay in their homes, Prop 13 also benefits people with multiple homes, landlords with rental properties, kids inheriting their parents house and running it as an AirBnb, etc. It benefits _corporations_ and non-residential property. Corporations can also skirt around it by not triggering a reassessment by not transferring ownership all at once. Meanwhile, why are only senior home owners worthy of that stability? Why do seniors who rent not get rent stabilization as a matter of law? If this were really motivated out of altruistic concern for vulnerable retirees, the law would look very different.
  - throwaway_4ever 4y ago
    > kids inheriting their parents house and running it as an AirBnb This doesn't exist anymore as of Prop 19. If an inherited home is not primary residence, it is taxed at full market value.
    - abeppu 4y ago
      Oh, right I'm sorry, since the beginning of 2021 if you inherit a home in CA you should move into it and run your _prior_ home as an AirBnb. My understanding is you need to make it your 'primary residence' within 1 year, but it doesn't say how long it must remain your primary residence? With the "portability" affordances for people over 55, and with the special treatment of farms, I think there's still plenty of room for heirs to receive properties with ridiculously low assessments. A savvy person trying to give the greatest tax advantage to their heirs would sell their property with the lowest assessment, and buy the most expensive property they can, make it their permanent residence, and leave it to a child or grandchild. In combination with the special treatment for farms, I think there's plenty of room left for people to inherit property which they don't actually need, with ridiculously low assessments.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  That doesn't mean they should be excused from paying their fair share, especially since the elderly make greater use of public services. Float the tax rates to the market level and allow fixed income elderly to accrue a lien against the property that can be paid out of the estate when they die.
  - Supermancho 4y ago
    The question was why, and fixed income is the rationale. How effective it is or what you or I or the voters think is fair, is incidental.
    - arrosenberg 4y ago
      How is it incidental? Its a bad answer for why because there is a way to solve the problem you described without letting the elderly freeload off the backs of the young.
- negamax 4y ago
  I do not think elderly invested wisely. Cities grew. They got lucky. It's as simply as that. The remote working is taking pressure off the cities. And you can see many crying about return to office, who have multi year leaseholds or own the buildings.
  - Supermancho 4y ago
    I specifically called out that this is a minority situation, so the characterization you put forward seems like a wild overstatement. Some seniors bought post ww2 bonds at phenomenal rates. There were many ppl who made wise investments, regardless. Patience turned thousands into hundreds of thousands outside of the housing prices.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Fixed incomes while complaining that their land is going up in value which lead to high property taxes? That kind of thing?
  - Supermancho 4y ago
    This was an argument for prop 13. The GP seemed to be puzzled about the reasoning, when it was sold to voters on this simple premise.
anonymousiam 4y ago
I lived in California for most of my life and I remember the effects of Prop 13. Before Prop 13 the parks had recreation coaches, the libraries were open seven days a week, and schools had more than enough teachers. As is typical with any forced budget reduction, the changes were targeted for maximum effect on public perception. The federal government went through a similar activity a few years later when Reagan slashed budgets. Everyone survived. The state/federal budgets today are astronomically higher, even after accounting for inflation. Below is a newspaper article I saved from over 30 years ago: -- See Dick and Jane-and Simple Simon-Solve the School Budget By ALICE J. GLASSER Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was a schoolhouse with a few children and a teacher. The children went to school to learn and the teacher went to teach. It was all very simple. Then a few more kids came, so they hired another teacher. Now, with two teachers, they needed someone to supervise. So they hired a principal. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came, but just one more teacher.) So the principal hired an assistant. But still more kids came, so they built another school and hired another principal. And now, with two principals, they needed someone to supervise. So they hired a superintendent, an assistant superintendent, a supervisor of Here and a supervisor of There. And since they needed a place for all these people, they built their own building and called themselves Unified. And they were happy until someone pointed out that there wasn't enough for them to do. So they hired a director of This and a director of That to develop pages and pages of things for them to do. But there still was a problem. Unified had no one to implement these pages and pages of plans. So they hired coordinators of This and coordinators of That to decide which of the pages and pages of plans they should implement. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came but just a few more teachers.) Now Unified needed a bigger building for all their people. So they bought a really big place. So big that they hired a few more Heres and Theres and Thises and Thats to fill up the space. And they were happy until they realized that they had run out of money. Their budget didn't balance. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came and an occasional teacher.) So they hired a financial expert of This and a resource planner of That, and Unified came up with a Plan to balance the budget. They would break down all the walls between all the classrooms and once again have just one schoolroom. Only this time there would be 500 kids and one teacher. Of course, the teacher couldn't really teach and the kids couldn't really learn, but Unified was happy. Their budget was balanced. It was all very simple. ---- As chairperson of the Mar Vista School Site Council in West Los Angeles, Alice J. Glasser has been wrestling with Los Angeles Unified School District budgeting problems. By profession, she is a physician. Update: I found it online here: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-08-me-1359-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-08-me-1359-s...
dragonwriter 4y ago
> California just kept adding taxes everywhere else to make up the difference and still had an annual deficit most of the 13 years I lived there. The state taxes were added to partially backfill the lost local taxes. Prop 13 was a major contribution to moving control from local governments (which it kneecapped fiscally) to the State (which it also kneecapped, because of the supermajority requirement to raisd any tax, but not as badly.)

Supermancho 4y ago

> Why are seniors magically allowed to be immune to basic market forces when no one else is? Because they have fixed incomes (generally). This income is immune to market forces. That's why. While many elderly invested wisely (and at the right time) to become wealthy, especially when leveraging dips (like during the 80s), it doesn't change the average case. Living month to month on a fixed income is the norm after retirement.

abeppu 4y ago
Except, while it was always rhetorically useful to talk about seniors with limited and fixed incomes being able to stay in their homes, Prop 13 also benefits people with multiple homes, landlords with rental properties, kids inheriting their parents house and running it as an AirBnb, etc. It benefits _corporations_ and non-residential property. Corporations can also skirt around it by not triggering a reassessment by not transferring ownership all at once. Meanwhile, why are only senior home owners worthy of that stability? Why do seniors who rent not get rent stabilization as a matter of law? If this were really motivated out of altruistic concern for vulnerable retirees, the law would look very different.
- throwaway_4ever 4y ago
  > kids inheriting their parents house and running it as an AirBnb This doesn't exist anymore as of Prop 19. If an inherited home is not primary residence, it is taxed at full market value.
  - abeppu 4y ago
    Oh, right I'm sorry, since the beginning of 2021 if you inherit a home in CA you should move into it and run your _prior_ home as an AirBnb. My understanding is you need to make it your 'primary residence' within 1 year, but it doesn't say how long it must remain your primary residence? With the "portability" affordances for people over 55, and with the special treatment of farms, I think there's still plenty of room for heirs to receive properties with ridiculously low assessments. A savvy person trying to give the greatest tax advantage to their heirs would sell their property with the lowest assessment, and buy the most expensive property they can, make it their permanent residence, and leave it to a child or grandchild. In combination with the special treatment for farms, I think there's plenty of room left for people to inherit property which they don't actually need, with ridiculously low assessments.
arrosenberg 4y ago
That doesn't mean they should be excused from paying their fair share, especially since the elderly make greater use of public services. Float the tax rates to the market level and allow fixed income elderly to accrue a lien against the property that can be paid out of the estate when they die.
- Supermancho 4y ago
  The question was why, and fixed income is the rationale. How effective it is or what you or I or the voters think is fair, is incidental.
  - arrosenberg 4y ago
    How is it incidental? Its a bad answer for why because there is a way to solve the problem you described without letting the elderly freeload off the backs of the young.
negamax 4y ago
I do not think elderly invested wisely. Cities grew. They got lucky. It's as simply as that. The remote working is taking pressure off the cities. And you can see many crying about return to office, who have multi year leaseholds or own the buildings.
- Supermancho 4y ago
  I specifically called out that this is a minority situation, so the characterization you put forward seems like a wild overstatement. Some seniors bought post ww2 bonds at phenomenal rates. There were many ppl who made wise investments, regardless. Patience turned thousands into hundreds of thousands outside of the housing prices.
imtringued 4y ago
Fixed incomes while complaining that their land is going up in value which lead to high property taxes? That kind of thing?
- Supermancho 4y ago
  This was an argument for prop 13. The GP seemed to be puzzled about the reasoning, when it was sold to voters on this simple premise.

anonymousiam 4y ago

I lived in California for most of my life and I remember the effects of Prop 13. Before Prop 13 the parks had recreation coaches, the libraries were open seven days a week, and schools had more than enough teachers. As is typical with any forced budget reduction, the changes were targeted for maximum effect on public perception. The federal government went through a similar activity a few years later when Reagan slashed budgets. Everyone survived. The state/federal budgets today are astronomically higher, even after accounting for inflation. Below is a newspaper article I saved from over 30 years ago: -- See Dick and Jane-and Simple Simon-Solve the School Budget By ALICE J. GLASSER Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was a schoolhouse with a few children and a teacher. The children went to school to learn and the teacher went to teach. It was all very simple. Then a few more kids came, so they hired another teacher. Now, with two teachers, they needed someone to supervise. So they hired a principal. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came, but just one more teacher.) So the principal hired an assistant. But still more kids came, so they built another school and hired another principal. And now, with two principals, they needed someone to supervise. So they hired a superintendent, an assistant superintendent, a supervisor of Here and a supervisor of There. And since they needed a place for all these people, they built their own building and called themselves Unified. And they were happy until someone pointed out that there wasn't enough for them to do. So they hired a director of This and a director of That to develop pages and pages of things for them to do. But there still was a problem. Unified had no one to implement these pages and pages of plans. So they hired coordinators of This and coordinators of That to decide which of the pages and pages of plans they should implement. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came but just a few more teachers.) Now Unified needed a bigger building for all their people. So they bought a really big place. So big that they hired a few more Heres and Theres and Thises and Thats to fill up the space. And they were happy until they realized that they had run out of money. Their budget didn't balance. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came and an occasional teacher.) So they hired a financial expert of This and a resource planner of That, and Unified came up with a Plan to balance the budget. They would break down all the walls between all the classrooms and once again have just one schoolroom. Only this time there would be 500 kids and one teacher. Of course, the teacher couldn't really teach and the kids couldn't really learn, but Unified was happy. Their budget was balanced. It was all very simple. ---- As chairperson of the Mar Vista School Site Council in West Los Angeles, Alice J. Glasser has been wrestling with Los Angeles Unified School District budgeting problems. By profession, she is a physician. Update: I found it online here: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-08-me-1359-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-08-me-1359-s...

dragonwriter 4y ago

> California just kept adding taxes everywhere else to make up the difference and still had an annual deficit most of the 13 years I lived there. The state taxes were added to partially backfill the lost local taxes. Prop 13 was a major contribution to moving control from local governments (which it kneecapped fiscally) to the State (which it also kneecapped, because of the supermajority requirement to raisd any tax, but not as badly.)