4 ms·

Not sure if this is being facetious, but California has prop 13 which means your property taxes cannot go up more than 2% per year. It would be great if a new p

Not sure if this is being facetious, but California has prop 13 which means your property taxes cannot go up more than 2% per year. It would be great if a new prop was passed which reversed it, but polling on reversing it is always very unpopular since homeowners are very consistent voters.

gen220 3y ago
Yea, I used to live in CA and am all-to-aware of the distortions of Prop 13. I'm more giving a theoretical solution to the problem I observe in many US metro areas, rather than something that would specifically work for California tomorrow. FWIW, as more and more California homeowners become non-residents of California (moving to other states such as Florida, Nevada in retirement is fairly common), I think Prop 13 will gradually become less popular among the actual voting-eligible population of CA. But this will take decades, I imagine. It just benefits far too few at the expense of too many to stay law forever.
- fasthands9 3y ago
  I hope you are right but am skeptical. Only because older and wealthier people are very consistent voters - and "don't raise taxes on ordinary homeowners" seems to be very popular as a populist message as well, even among people who are likely to never own a home.
  - gen220 3y ago
    You're very right to be skeptical. Increasingly, "homeowner" is becoming strongly associated with class, especially in urban and suburban California. Eventually the older/wealthier people pass away and the younger people wonder why they can't afford a home, even though they work the same job that their landlord's grandma did. The demographics of prop 13 support are pretty interesting. The slope for prop 13 support is overall trending negative as time goes on, but the "intercept" is still quite high. Hence my statement that I think we're still a few decades away from it becoming a common rally cry for voters – whereas today it's a third rail. FWIW this tax would also explicitly not affect "ordinary" homeowners. I think the main issue is that people are not imaginative enough to dream of a progressive property tax, since it's not progressive today.

gen220 3y ago

Yea, I used to live in CA and am all-to-aware of the distortions of Prop 13. I'm more giving a theoretical solution to the problem I observe in many US metro areas, rather than something that would specifically work for California tomorrow. FWIW, as more and more California homeowners become non-residents of California (moving to other states such as Florida, Nevada in retirement is fairly common), I think Prop 13 will gradually become less popular among the actual voting-eligible population of CA. But this will take decades, I imagine. It just benefits far too few at the expense of too many to stay law forever.

fasthands9 3y ago
I hope you are right but am skeptical. Only because older and wealthier people are very consistent voters - and "don't raise taxes on ordinary homeowners" seems to be very popular as a populist message as well, even among people who are likely to never own a home.
- gen220 3y ago
  You're very right to be skeptical. Increasingly, "homeowner" is becoming strongly associated with class, especially in urban and suburban California. Eventually the older/wealthier people pass away and the younger people wonder why they can't afford a home, even though they work the same job that their landlord's grandma did. The demographics of prop 13 support are pretty interesting. The slope for prop 13 support is overall trending negative as time goes on, but the "intercept" is still quite high. Hence my statement that I think we're still a few decades away from it becoming a common rally cry for voters – whereas today it's a third rail. FWIW this tax would also explicitly not affect "ordinary" homeowners. I think the main issue is that people are not imaginative enough to dream of a progressive property tax, since it's not progressive today.