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There is this meme that Prop 13 is responsible for everything bad in California because of course we could pay for anything if we had more money. In reality th

There is this meme that Prop 13 is responsible for everything bad in California because of course we could pay for anything if we had more money. In reality the CA budget has grown faster than inflation for decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/313176/california-state-government-revenue-and-expenditure/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/313176/california-state-...

shuckles 3y ago
That comparison makes no sense. At the very least you’d want to look at per capita figures. Prop 13’s impact on the political economy, empowering comfortable boomers, is probably as bad as its impacts on the budget.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  Prop 13 drives real estate prices up and rents while they lag also follow. And that drives the price of labor up as well. Even more malign it discourages muni's from approving housing because the property taxes don't cover the services that muni's have to pay for.
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > And that drives the price of labor up as well. This is the real reason manufacturing is leaving the West, not regulation and not evil plan by China. This is also the real reason for culture of thowing away things and not repairing -> a new dishwasher costs £300, but a mechanic needs to charge £100 an hour to pay rent. If you rent is 50% of your income, the rent is actuslly 75% of your income -> because when you pay for anything, say get a plumber, 50% of your money goes to pay the plumber's rent. If, hypothetically, rents were zero, the plumber would cost twice less. You would have 4 times more money.
    - gilbertbw 3y ago
      But not 100% of your income goes to paying for labour in your local economy. You buy goods and services that are from elsewhere (food from France, entertainment from America) etc.
- ROTMetro 3y ago
  Prop 13s original beneficiaries were pre-boomer. It was sold as a means to allow grandma to stay in her home as property values skyrocketed around her and rising property taxes were actually pushing (pre-boomer) people out of their longtime homes.
umeshunni 3y ago
Not to forget that CA had a $100B budget surplus as recently as 2021. What did they do with all that money? Nothing.
- conception 3y ago
  I’m gonna say you haven’t looked into how that money can be spent. About half goes into the school and rainy day fund, the stimulus checks were required by law for I think 16? So your question is “what did they do with 34B” which again… pretty easy to figure out. There’s a budget. Looks like it was about 38b https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4432 https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4432 That link also has the allocations for that 38b. You can get 5Gb fiber in my neighborhood now. Some of that is probably due to this budget for instance.
blululu 3y ago
I’ve seen people point to prop 13 as a cause of the budget deficits. Not sure how much any of this goes beyond hearsay, but it is much harder to run a deficit when your tax base is decentralized and fixed. The core idea of prop 13 was to cut income and let spending figure itself out separately. The widening budget deficits in CA happen in the aftermath but maybe that was just the consequence of the same fiscal irresponsibility that motivated the tax cut.
- IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
  The cut was to benefit landlords, especially those who owned apartment complexes.
  - blululu 3y ago
    The majority of voters were homeowners back then. It was created and passed to benefit homeowners and preserve existing communities. But the bigger issue is that there was a flavor of magical thinking among conservatives that cutting taxes would cut spending (starve the beast). Naturally one proved more popular than the other with the electorate.
- Xorakios 3y ago
  Writing as someone who actually live and voted in California in 1978, the core idea was that seniors were being forced to sell their homes because real estate values and taxes were rising faster than their fixed incomes could support. The Jarvis Foundation promoted it as a cost containment measure after the measure had been qualified for the ballot.
mcny 3y ago
My personal opinion, the first thing we should do is a complete ban on all “professional” and/or spectator sport in any and all educational institution. You can still have classes teaching sports but no spectators and definitely no “college spirit” nonsense. It doesn’t matter to me if these sports generate more revenue than it costs. It is a distraction that we don’t need. If people want to participate in spectator sport, there are other places for it. My justification is the same as that Google uses to kill projects. There might be a project at Google that makes a hundred million dollars of “pure profit”. However, if it takes even equivalent of a month of time and attention of the executive leadership team and the board every year, it is decidedly not worth doing and must be scrapped. Similarly, it doesn’t matter to me how much money sports and other such distractions make. If it takes time and attention of the management and or the board of regents, it must be scrapped. Educational institutions exist for education. Cut it all out!
- yarrowy 3y ago
  Except the whole point of college is that it's more than just education.
  - quag 3y ago
    Outside of the USA the point of university is education. Only in the USA have I seen the meme that the point of universities is something other than education. I’m still trying to work out how and why there is a difference. Can you help me understand what the point is if it isn’t education?
    - uoaei 3y ago
      Socializing, learning to live with others, providing opportunities to join social and professional clubs/organizations, navigation of longer-timeline projects and assignments, etc. You could call all of these 'education' but the usual and implicit image of education in people's minds is lectures and tutoring sessions so it's worth highlighting these other aspects. All of these are present in universities around the world in varying degrees.
skybrian 3y ago
Is that per-capita as well as inflation adjusted? (I don't have an account, so I don't see the graph.)
IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
And yet it had that exact effect. Add Reagan into the mix and you destroy things further & end up with the student loan debt crisis.

shuckles 3y ago

That comparison makes no sense. At the very least you’d want to look at per capita figures. Prop 13’s impact on the political economy, empowering comfortable boomers, is probably as bad as its impacts on the budget.

Gibbon1 3y ago
Prop 13 drives real estate prices up and rents while they lag also follow. And that drives the price of labor up as well. Even more malign it discourages muni's from approving housing because the property taxes don't cover the services that muni's have to pay for.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > And that drives the price of labor up as well. This is the real reason manufacturing is leaving the West, not regulation and not evil plan by China. This is also the real reason for culture of thowing away things and not repairing -> a new dishwasher costs £300, but a mechanic needs to charge £100 an hour to pay rent. If you rent is 50% of your income, the rent is actuslly 75% of your income -> because when you pay for anything, say get a plumber, 50% of your money goes to pay the plumber's rent. If, hypothetically, rents were zero, the plumber would cost twice less. You would have 4 times more money.
  - gilbertbw 3y ago
    But not 100% of your income goes to paying for labour in your local economy. You buy goods and services that are from elsewhere (food from France, entertainment from America) etc.
ROTMetro 3y ago
Prop 13s original beneficiaries were pre-boomer. It was sold as a means to allow grandma to stay in her home as property values skyrocketed around her and rising property taxes were actually pushing (pre-boomer) people out of their longtime homes.

umeshunni 3y ago

Not to forget that CA had a $100B budget surplus as recently as 2021. What did they do with all that money? Nothing.

conception 3y ago
I’m gonna say you haven’t looked into how that money can be spent. About half goes into the school and rainy day fund, the stimulus checks were required by law for I think 16? So your question is “what did they do with 34B” which again… pretty easy to figure out. There’s a budget. Looks like it was about 38b https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4432 https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4432 That link also has the allocations for that 38b. You can get 5Gb fiber in my neighborhood now. Some of that is probably due to this budget for instance.

blululu 3y ago

I’ve seen people point to prop 13 as a cause of the budget deficits. Not sure how much any of this goes beyond hearsay, but it is much harder to run a deficit when your tax base is decentralized and fixed. The core idea of prop 13 was to cut income and let spending figure itself out separately. The widening budget deficits in CA happen in the aftermath but maybe that was just the consequence of the same fiscal irresponsibility that motivated the tax cut.

IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
The cut was to benefit landlords, especially those who owned apartment complexes.
- blululu 3y ago
  The majority of voters were homeowners back then. It was created and passed to benefit homeowners and preserve existing communities. But the bigger issue is that there was a flavor of magical thinking among conservatives that cutting taxes would cut spending (starve the beast). Naturally one proved more popular than the other with the electorate.
Xorakios 3y ago
Writing as someone who actually live and voted in California in 1978, the core idea was that seniors were being forced to sell their homes because real estate values and taxes were rising faster than their fixed incomes could support. The Jarvis Foundation promoted it as a cost containment measure after the measure had been qualified for the ballot.

mcny 3y ago

My personal opinion, the first thing we should do is a complete ban on all “professional” and/or spectator sport in any and all educational institution. You can still have classes teaching sports but no spectators and definitely no “college spirit” nonsense. It doesn’t matter to me if these sports generate more revenue than it costs. It is a distraction that we don’t need. If people want to participate in spectator sport, there are other places for it. My justification is the same as that Google uses to kill projects. There might be a project at Google that makes a hundred million dollars of “pure profit”. However, if it takes even equivalent of a month of time and attention of the executive leadership team and the board every year, it is decidedly not worth doing and must be scrapped. Similarly, it doesn’t matter to me how much money sports and other such distractions make. If it takes time and attention of the management and or the board of regents, it must be scrapped. Educational institutions exist for education. Cut it all out!

yarrowy 3y ago
Except the whole point of college is that it's more than just education.
- quag 3y ago
  Outside of the USA the point of university is education. Only in the USA have I seen the meme that the point of universities is something other than education. I’m still trying to work out how and why there is a difference. Can you help me understand what the point is if it isn’t education?
  - uoaei 3y ago
    Socializing, learning to live with others, providing opportunities to join social and professional clubs/organizations, navigation of longer-timeline projects and assignments, etc. You could call all of these 'education' but the usual and implicit image of education in people's minds is lectures and tutoring sessions so it's worth highlighting these other aspects. All of these are present in universities around the world in varying degrees.

skybrian 3y ago

Is that per-capita as well as inflation adjusted? (I don't have an account, so I don't see the graph.)

IOT_Apprentice 3y ago

And yet it had that exact effect. Add Reagan into the mix and you destroy things further & end up with the student loan debt crisis.