5 ms·

>This is too simplistic, in order to criticize Prop 13 it is important to understand why it came to be. It's that a bunch of middle class people in the post-wa

by scoofy 3y ago

>This is too simplistic, in order to criticize Prop 13 it is important to understand why it came to be. It's that a bunch of middle class people in the post-war auto-boom bought up extremely valuable property adjacent to the ocean, and then when everyone could afford a car, they didn't want to redevelop their own land. There's no reason that justifies Prop 13 beyond NIMBYism. America decided it wanted suburbia instead of incremental development, so it banned multifamily housing. Then California realized that doing that would (obviously) force people out of their homes when property taxes started skyrocketing... so they just voted in a fucking seniority system. It was selfish, bad policy then, and it's selfish, bad policy today.

jjav 3y ago
> It's that a bunch of middle class people in the post-war auto-boom bought up extremely valuable property No, not at all. This is what I mean about misunderstanding where it came from. It was middle class and lower middle class people who bought up cheap property in undesirable (at the time) places. Only later the area becomes desirable and rich people move in driving the prices sky high and consequently the property taxes sky high. Those low/middle class people who have been living there for a long time are mostly still low/middle class and can't afford those taxes. People tend to be protective of their homes so this makes a lot of people very angry and those people vote. > There's no reason that justifies Prop 13 beyond NIMBYism. Of course there is a reason, I just explained it above. You may not agree it is a reason you like, perhaps you feel the free market should simply allow prices and taxes to fluctuate wherever they go. That's a valid take as well, one that produces different outcomes: worse for some, better for some.
- scoofy 3y ago
  > Those low/middle class people who have been living there for a long time are mostly still low/middle class and can't afford those taxes. Property taxes are the one tax that anyone by definition can pay. My point, the point that you seem to be ignoring or just ignorant of, is what a low-to-middle class person who owns a $1.5M property isn’t lower or middle class. They have a net worth in the top percentiles of wealth in the US. > In 2023, $192,084 was the median household net worth in the United States. Don’t tell me lower class folks are being forced from their homes when the are wealthier than I am.
  - jjav 3y ago
    > Property taxes are the one tax that anyone by definition can pay. This is clearly and obviously not true, why would you say that? If your property tax rises to a level that your income is not enough to pay it (along with other basic necessities like food), then you can't afford to pay it. This can and does happen in areas where property taxes can rise without any limit. > a low-to-middle class person who owns a $1.5M property isn’t lower or middle class I'm guessing (maybe I guess wrong) that your argument is that this low-to-middle class person should just sell the property and use those proceeds to pay the property tax. Is that what you mean by "by definition can pay"? Sure, they can pay it that way. Of course then they don't have a home anymore, they got forced to sell it! Now what do you expect them to do? Someone else upthread said they just need to go and move somewhere else (specifically, somewhere else that is cheaper). So, we circle back to the original premise. If property taxes are allowed to grow without limitations, it forces long-term low-to-middle class residents out of their homes because they can't afford to pay the property taxes. So they must sell and uproot their life by moving somewhere else that is cheaper. This isn't debatable, it is simple math. What is debatable is whether this is overall a good or a bad thing. Should society favor keeping long-term residents in their homes, or should society favor the richer newcomer to take over the place? That's the argument that leads to Prop 13.
    - scoofy 3y ago
      They aren’t low-to-middle class when their homes are worth millions of dollars, period. The way they can stay in their homes is to use their equity to add revenue generating additions to their home and take on a renter. This is how it has worked for hundreds of years until the exact same folks who passed prop 13 passed anti-density zoning legislation a few years before hand. Pretending people are being “forced from their homes” in exchange for literally millions of dollars is and absurd framing of a huge windfall.
      - jjav 3y ago
        > Pretending people are being “forced from their homes” in exchange for literally millions of dollars is and absurd framing of a huge windfall. There's no need to put “forced from their homes” in scare quotes, that is literally what happens when property taxes are allowed rise uncontrollably. Not everything in the world is a financial transaction. It is wrong to look at homes as a share of investment to be sold to the highest bidder. The people who bought homes very cheap who are now worth a lot are necessarily very old (because it takes a long time). These people may have been poor when they bought it because it was a cheap house in an undesirable area back then. They may have had low-income jobs all their lives so they are still poor in terms of income. It is not by any stretch a windfall for people in their 80s/90s to be forced to sell the home of a lifetime and have to move to some faraway cheap city. Arguments against Prop 13 are in the end about classism. The idea is that as soon as an area becomes wealthy, poor people need to be removed (through rising property taxes) and sent off to live in some cheap area, so that more rich people can take their place. This does not sound fair. Rich people already have all the benefits, so Prop 13 provides a small counterbalance by allowing lower income people to stay in their lifelong homes even as the area gentrifies.

by scoofy 3y ago

jjav 3y ago

> It's that a bunch of middle class people in the post-war auto-boom bought up extremely valuable property No, not at all. This is what I mean about misunderstanding where it came from. It was middle class and lower middle class people who bought up cheap property in undesirable (at the time) places. Only later the area becomes desirable and rich people move in driving the prices sky high and consequently the property taxes sky high. Those low/middle class people who have been living there for a long time are mostly still low/middle class and can't afford those taxes. People tend to be protective of their homes so this makes a lot of people very angry and those people vote. > There's no reason that justifies Prop 13 beyond NIMBYism. Of course there is a reason, I just explained it above. You may not agree it is a reason you like, perhaps you feel the free market should simply allow prices and taxes to fluctuate wherever they go. That's a valid take as well, one that produces different outcomes: worse for some, better for some.

scoofy 3y ago
> Those low/middle class people who have been living there for a long time are mostly still low/middle class and can't afford those taxes. Property taxes are the one tax that anyone by definition can pay. My point, the point that you seem to be ignoring or just ignorant of, is what a low-to-middle class person who owns a $1.5M property isn’t lower or middle class. They have a net worth in the top percentiles of wealth in the US. > In 2023, $192,084 was the median household net worth in the United States. Don’t tell me lower class folks are being forced from their homes when the are wealthier than I am.
- jjav 3y ago
  > Property taxes are the one tax that anyone by definition can pay. This is clearly and obviously not true, why would you say that? If your property tax rises to a level that your income is not enough to pay it (along with other basic necessities like food), then you can't afford to pay it. This can and does happen in areas where property taxes can rise without any limit. > a low-to-middle class person who owns a $1.5M property isn’t lower or middle class I'm guessing (maybe I guess wrong) that your argument is that this low-to-middle class person should just sell the property and use those proceeds to pay the property tax. Is that what you mean by "by definition can pay"? Sure, they can pay it that way. Of course then they don't have a home anymore, they got forced to sell it! Now what do you expect them to do? Someone else upthread said they just need to go and move somewhere else (specifically, somewhere else that is cheaper). So, we circle back to the original premise. If property taxes are allowed to grow without limitations, it forces long-term low-to-middle class residents out of their homes because they can't afford to pay the property taxes. So they must sell and uproot their life by moving somewhere else that is cheaper. This isn't debatable, it is simple math. What is debatable is whether this is overall a good or a bad thing. Should society favor keeping long-term residents in their homes, or should society favor the richer newcomer to take over the place? That's the argument that leads to Prop 13.
  - scoofy 3y ago
    They aren’t low-to-middle class when their homes are worth millions of dollars, period. The way they can stay in their homes is to use their equity to add revenue generating additions to their home and take on a renter. This is how it has worked for hundreds of years until the exact same folks who passed prop 13 passed anti-density zoning legislation a few years before hand. Pretending people are being “forced from their homes” in exchange for literally millions of dollars is and absurd framing of a huge windfall.
    - jjav 3y ago
      > Pretending people are being “forced from their homes” in exchange for literally millions of dollars is and absurd framing of a huge windfall. There's no need to put “forced from their homes” in scare quotes, that is literally what happens when property taxes are allowed rise uncontrollably. Not everything in the world is a financial transaction. It is wrong to look at homes as a share of investment to be sold to the highest bidder. The people who bought homes very cheap who are now worth a lot are necessarily very old (because it takes a long time). These people may have been poor when they bought it because it was a cheap house in an undesirable area back then. They may have had low-income jobs all their lives so they are still poor in terms of income. It is not by any stretch a windfall for people in their 80s/90s to be forced to sell the home of a lifetime and have to move to some faraway cheap city. Arguments against Prop 13 are in the end about classism. The idea is that as soon as an area becomes wealthy, poor people need to be removed (through rising property taxes) and sent off to live in some cheap area, so that more rich people can take their place. This does not sound fair. Rich people already have all the benefits, so Prop 13 provides a small counterbalance by allowing lower income people to stay in their lifelong homes even as the area gentrifies.