9 ms·

California is gripped by economic problems, with no easy fix

19 points by jseliger 3y ago

jseliger 3y ago
Repealing Prop 13 and removing local control of zoning decisions can be done via votes in the legislature, no new technologies required, so I beg to differ with the "no easy fix" tag.
- NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
  Then why do you think the tax-happy Democrats who control the legislature haven't repealed Prop 13 yet? After all, it is a relic of an era when anti-tax Republicans still had influence in California politics. My theory is that if it were repealed, and people had to pay property tax on something approaching the actual current market value of their homes, home values would tank. Homeowners would then "lose" a significant fraction of their net worth, get pissed off, and immediately vote out anyone who had voted for the repeal.
  - seiferteric 3y ago
    Propositions can’t be repealed, it would have to be put on the ballot, but doubt it will happen.
    - NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
      Parent comment said "Repealing Prop 13 and removing local control of zoning decisions can be done via votes in the legislature". I don't know if that is true or not, I'm responding to that premise. Either one of you could help the discussion by providing a source backing up your conflicting claims.
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        Local zoning decisions could probably be done given that they are not expressly enumerated in the California constitution today. Cities' current authority to do so is defined by Article XI Section 7, which just says "A county or city may make and enforce within its limits all local, police, sanitary, and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws.[1] ". Theoretically the state could just pass a general law that now conflicts with this and then localities have restrictions on zoning. Prop 13 was passed in 1978 as a constitutional amendment, so the only way to repeal or reform that would be another amendment. The process for doing so via the legislature requires a two thirds supermajority in both houses, and then it goes to the ballot anyways. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Constitution#Amending_the_constitution https://ballotpedia.org/California_Constitution#Amending_the...
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        Prop 13 is factually a CA Constitutional amendment, the reversal of which would require following the process to amend the state constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://www.dgs.ca.gov/Resources/SAM/TOC/6000/6920#:~:text=A%20constitutional%20amendment%20can%20be,at%20the%20next%20general%20election https://www.dgs.ca.gov/Resources/SAM/TOC/6000/6920#:~:text=A.... Zoning control changes could (as far as I can tell) be done via legislative action alone (and probably fading some resulting lawsuits).
    - dilyevsky 3y ago
      Few years ago there was a prop to strip prop 13 from commercial properties and fund schools. It was sponsored by the zuck foundation. Even that didn’t pass
  - guyzero 3y ago
    Every rational repeal proposal is a phase out with a few exceptions for seniors. And the reason it hans't been phased out is that the state has significant issues with legislative process as well as economic management. i.e. passing constitutional amendments by popular vote instead of just regular laws which makes them borderline irreversible.
  - acchow 3y ago
    Homeowner ownership rate in California is 43.5%. Change is possible.
    - NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
      Home owners vote at higher rates than renters.
      - hnav 3y ago
        they should split the state into regions (groups of counties) and put the repeal on a ballot at region granularity to see if the "fuck-you-I-got-mine" set would sink each other
        nradov 3y ago
        There is no Constitutional provision for splitting the state based on counties for ballot propositions. https://www.dgs.ca.gov/Resources/SAM/TOC/6000/6920 https://www.dgs.ca.gov/Resources/SAM/TOC/6000/6920
      - acchow 3y ago
        But the renters can still use their vote for change, no?
  - hnav 3y ago
    They definitely cannot just repeal it outright, but they could give the housing marking a "soft landing" by just changing the max increase %. Let's say that we want to deal with the case of properties' real values being 5x the assessed tax value, assuming 0 future appreciation here's how long it would take for property taxes to catch up at 2%: log(5)/log(1.02) = 81 years and at 8%: log(5)/log(1.08) = 21 years
- Justin_K 3y ago
  How would ruining the financial plans for millions of homeowners solve the problem? It's so easy to say "just increase taxes" but the reality is our spending is insane.
  - rapsin4 3y ago
    sunset it over 10-15 years...
    - hnav 3y ago
      Don't even have to, just tweak the maximum increase from 2% to some number that better reflects the growth of CA property values.
  - NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
    Agree that spending needs to be cut. But my understanding is that before Prop 13, California's tax revenue was more balanced between property, sales, and income taxes, and thus less subject to the boom and bust cycles that we see now (https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-budget-whiplash/ https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-budget-whiplash...).
  - AbrahamParangi 3y ago
    California has the lowest rates of home ownership in the country at 18%. More people are subsidizing the current system than are benefiting from it.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      I feel like homeowners in California are giving more than they are taking overall.
    - nradov 3y ago
      You're way off. The California home ownership rate is 55%. But some other states are significantly higher. https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/rates.html https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/rates.html
- mistrial9 3y ago
  a secret about Prop 13 is that .. the media spin at the time was "saving aging homeowners from terrible tax increases" mainly by the Howard Jarvis Tax group; however, Corporate entities that own land in California also benefited from this measure, and continue to do so. I have never seen this in the media at any time -- only known by talking to a retired attorney recently
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    There was actually an initiative to repeal Prop 13 for commercial land which failed. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Commercial_and_Industrial_Properties_for_Education_and_Local_Government_Funding_Initiative_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Co...
    - Melatonic 3y ago
      This is the real answer in my opinion. Prop 13 does make some sense (especially in its current form now that the other measure passed that limits prop 13 for homeowners over 1 million in value). But for commercial real estate ? That seems totally ridiculous. There is so much tax that could be collected there!
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        I suspect that given it was rejected in 2020, which was not that long ago, in an election where Prop 19 (the other one you're referring to) passed, the powers that be have divined that revisiting the question now is a little early.
      - mistrial9 3y ago
        California already collects record revenue via State taxes, and has for a long time. Those who run Sacramento dole it out in large quantities. Only Jerry Brown has had the strength and skill to balance a budget in decades. Notably, the current Gov started tenure with a substantial surplus, and mysteriously now has record deficits again.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  California should mandate no new taxes till corruption and wastage of tax funds are measured and a goal is set for reducing that? https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/embattled-nonprofit-mismanagement-providence-19361438.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/embattled-nonpro... https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-city-workers-charged-corruption-scheme-bribery/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-city...
  - margalabargala 3y ago
    Maybe all states should do that. California is not the most corrupt state. This analysis puts it at 24/50 in fact. https://bestlifeonline.com/most-corrupt-state-america/ https://bestlifeonline.com/most-corrupt-state-america/
    - Affric 3y ago
      Needs a more Bayesian understanding of the corruption stats they are using.
    - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
      True! https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-hasnt-been-tracking-homeless-programs-effectiveness-audit-finds https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-hasnt-been-tracking-hom...
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  Prop 13 is a constitutional amendment, so requires a two thirds threshold in both chambers of the legislature and then also an additional majority ballot vote. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Constitution https://ballotpedia.org/California_Constitution
  - scoofy 3y ago
    Or we could amend the way we amend the constitution. The idea that Prop 13 is set in stone is just not the case anymore. I was changed in 2020 and nearly removed completely for corporations.
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      Amending the way you amend the constitution, unsurprisingly would also require a constitutional amendment. The legislature cannot, currently, legally override the constitution.
      - scoofy 3y ago
        My point is that the electorate that passed our ridiculous amendment process is no longer the current electorate. I suspect that our generation would be extremely open to changing the scope of our constitution to not include trivial things like tax legislation.
- AnotherGoodName 3y ago
  Could it be repealed via a legal case? I suspect any law that effectively says "established residents have next to no property tax while new residents have the tax recalculated" would definitely affect some protected groups negatively compared to others. In which case this law cannot exist right? You can't make a law that has a negative effect on a protected group specifically, even if unintentionally. We had a proposition in Palo Alto that only local residents could use some of the parks. That was challenged and now doesn't exist as you can guess how police identified non-locals. Can we do the same for prop 13?
- johnea 3y ago
  Something only the rich could love. Repealing prop 13 would cause the single biggest increase in homelessness in the states history. A huge percentage of California homeowners would be evicted as a consequence of their next 10x higher property tax bill...
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    And then theyd move somewhere cheaper with their newfound wealth. For me kicking people out of their home is frankly the point. If you cant afford you taxes you cant afford your home. Let someone who can afford it live there
- zbrozek 3y ago
  Deleting zoning would be be an incredible boost for the economy, but I don't think it's politically possible. Prop 13 is a constitutional amendment that the legislature can't repeal. Folks are addicted to spending money, and the results don't really matter. It took national outrage to get us to value-engineer a $1.6M toilet down to $1.0M.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  The problem is California isn't taxing people enough?
  - xvedejas 3y ago
    The problem is the kind of taxation, not the amount. Beyond the fact that property tax is less of a burden on economic activity than income tax, it's also the case that property tax is less likely to bankrupt the state because of reduced revenue during economic downturns.
  - sobellian 3y ago
    The problem is that it creates a distortionary tax. Appreciation has given people multi-million dollar homes that they pay a pittance in tax on. So they hold that property as long as possible to enjoy the low tax rates - if they move their tax bill soars since that event triggers an assessment on their new home. This takes homes off the market and drives prices even higher. The proposition was intended to prevent appreciation from pricing people out of their homes - in other words, to decrease the volume of transactions on the real estate market. This is government interference in the market - on top of the government interfering in the construction of new homes in the first place... If they regularly re-assessed property values while lowering the applied rate, they could collect the same amount of money overall without distorting the market.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    The problem is that its tax scheme sucks
diogenescynic 3y ago
They're mostly self-inflicted. Prop 47 caused a great amount of problems for the state by decriminalizing all drugs and theft up to $1000/per incident. We are just attracting junkies/criminals from other states where they actually enforce the law... Most of the homeless are not even from California when you talk to them. They come here for the lack of drug laws and ability to steal to fund their habit--and many cities even give debit cards to them. We're actively subsidizing the worst of the worst people and encouraging them to move here. Now we have organized shoplifting rings and junkies on fentanyl and meth living under every bridge and overpass. The state is in an epic free fall of quality of life since 2014 when prop 47 passed. There's no common sense anymore and our politicians are all crooks trying to personally enrich themselves or friends/family at the expense of everyone else. The only reason the bottom hasn't fallen out is big tech, Hollywood, agriculture/wine, beaches/Tahoe/tourism, and all the taxes they pay. I don't understand how people aren't more sick of putting up with this. I know I'm sick of seeing open drug use, prostitution, filthy streets, and not feeling like any public spaces are actually safe anymore. Beyond that... it's nearly impossible to build an affordable market rate house, starting a small business is more difficult than anywhere else due to regulation, our public schools are terrible.... but yeah there are some really well run tech companies that pay absurd amounts of money so a lot of people are still willing to put up with it all. I think there will be a breaking point though... Every time some liberal/progressive voter has to clean up feces/needles off their front stoop, is robbed in their driveway, takes their kids to a public park but a homeless person is there doing drugs in the bathroom (or much much worse), or the cops tell them they can't remove the homeless camp on their block, I suspect they become ever-so-slightly more conservative. Eventually this will turn even the bluest state red. Democrats are digging their own grave by pandering to nonsense and ignoring the reality of what it's actually like living here. When I grew up here in the 90s, the homeless were more like 1-5 per 100,000--not it feels like it's 50x to 200x that. They also weren't allowed to just camp in public spaces and leave ecological disasters everywhere they went... Whatever policies we've enacted need to urgently be repealed. Ideology now trumps objective reality.
- cdelsolar 3y ago
  Is this just conservative propaganda? Source?
romafirst3 3y ago
I live in LA and I'm not sure this article is about California. Seems like a grab bag of regurgitated nonsense. I run a business and let me tell you there is no unemployment here, it's hard to retain employees. There is no outflow of migration as far as I can see, housing is extremely scarce. In fact one of the only reasons I would leave is because housing is cheaper elsewhere. California is doing so well, that me and many other people are paying a huge premium to live here. Also SF isn't California, it's a small part of the state.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Whenever I see hit pieces written about my home state CA, that further confirms to me that it's prospering. Otherwise they wouldn't be talking about us.
  - diogenescynic 3y ago
    Prospering for who though? Landlords? Certainly not the average Californian making $50-$60k who can barely afford rent and groceries. Cost of living and quality of life are moving in opposite directions. Yep, big tech, Hollywood, beaches/Tahoe, and a lot of other things are great--but why can't people admit that the state has been getting shittier for the last 30 years? It obviously has. Housing prices going up isn't exactly 'prospering' for most... what other signs can you point to? Our failing schools? Or lack of any consequences for any crime? I would struggle to point to how the state is doing well--other than income potential.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      The complaint about home values is like saying "nobody drives cause there's too much traffic." There's far more housing than before, and many cities that used to be cheap new developments have become sought-after. Irvine and Glendale were cheap places that attracted immigrants and built themselves up. Every person with a home and family can afford it, otherwise they wouldn't be here. That's how I gauge it, combined with the constant complaints from people who've never set foot in CA. If you want a real failure story, it's San Francisco. Plenty of well-to-do people are leaving it, and at best it serves as a temporary workplace for people who don't care about its future.
mariodiana 3y ago
Wayback Machine archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20240401233215/https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/03/31/california-is-gripped-by-interlocking-economic-problems-with-no-easy-solution https://web.archive.org/web/20240401233215/https://www.econo...
roenxi 3y ago
This headline is ridiculous, California has a GDP comparable to India, fabulous wealth and a history as one of the most innovative and pleasant places to live globally. They also have the lion's share of influence in the most powerful body on the planet, the US Congress. This is the most capable self-determining polity on the planet. Any economic problems they are having are (1) self inflicted, (2) policy driven and (2) could be fixed very quickly if the locals would admit that it is a problem worth fixing. Presumably the locals aren't worried.
- diogenescynic 3y ago
  Would you rather be an average Californian or an average Danish person? Who has better quality of life? Who has longer life expectancy? Who gets to retire earlier? Who gets more time off per year or parental leave? Who is happier/less stressed? California is great for the ruling elite and people working in big tech, but not that great for everyone else. The only way California is best is if the only thing you care about is income potential.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    Strictly my personal opinion - if you own a home in California, your life is probably better than the average Danish person due to access to better weather and better economy. Homeownership rate for CA is 55.8% - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CAHOWN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CAHOWN Also add people on rent controlled housing, who are in a similar boat, and that number would be even higher. Ultimately, you just have to look at the immigration numbers of "the best and the brightest", who can go anywhere in the world including CA and Denmark. I was one of them and decided to come to CA over any European country. So were many of my friends and many of my European colleagues from countries with all the benefits you mentioned.
    - diogenescynic 3y ago
      You think people in Fresno, Bakersfield, Redding or Lancaster are better off than someone in Denmark? Is your only measurement the net worth of the person and not actually anything else like time off or life expectancy? The only people in California doing better are in Bay Area or coastal cities in Southern California or Tahoe. The rest of the state is worse off than the Midwest or rural Texas.
ur-whale 3y ago
https://archive.is/5NQOa https://archive.is/5NQOa
ajross 3y ago
In the lede "Rising Unemployment". But in fact broader federal numbers show unemployment near historic lows, surely CA can't be that far off, right? Let's google for some data: https://ycharts.com/indicators/california_unemployment_rate#:~:text=Basic%20Info,long%20term%20average%20of%207.15%25 https://ycharts.com/indicators/california_unemployment_rate#.... Yeah, article is making signal out of noise. Unemployment was ~4.1% before the pandemic, spiked, recovered, and indeed has inched up to near 5% since. The graph shape indeed looks basically identical to federal data at FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE So... are we supposed to trust the rest of the article? Not sure I'd bet on it. People love articles that confirm priors, and those are the most dangerous kind.
- leereeves 3y ago
  Of course the spike during the pandemic and the decrease afterwards are similar, as they would be anywhere. But the pattern during the last year is different. The 1 year federal unemployment rate looks like noise: a mix of up and down. Down, down, up, down, down, up, flat, flat, down, flat, flat, up. And the total change over the last year was only 0.3%. There are no months in the last year when the UE rate fell in California. That would be very unusual for noise over a flat trend. Also, it's now 1.4% higher than the federal rate, and the total increase over the past year was 0.8%.
  - ajross 3y ago
    Yeah, but it's not "rising" in the sense of a worrisome trend. It's low, and bouncing around its low value. Sure, the last years trend is mildly upwards where the federal trend is flat, but... so what? There are 50 states. Pull numbers form all of them and realistically half of them will show whatever nonsense trend you want to see. It's just a silly argument. Employment in California is simply not a problem. There are plenty of jobs, both historically and in comparison with the rest of the country.
    - leereeves 3y ago
      Are there plenty of jobs? The article says no: > In California there are roughly 0.8 job openings per unemployed person—the lowest in the country—whereas in America’s other 49 states the overall ratio is 1.6. And that checks out. It's the inverse of (1 divided by) this: https://www.bls.gov/charts/state-job-openings-and-labor-turnover/unemployed-persons-per-job-opening-by-state.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/state-job-openings-and-labor-turn...
WalterBright 3y ago
The solution is easy. Repeal all the tax increases, regulations, spending programs, and policies enacted over the last 10 years.
freitzkriesler2 3y ago
California is great if you are apart of its landed gentry or a business owner. If you're anything else, then it's not worth it.

19 points by jseliger 3y ago

Repealing Prop 13 and removing local control of zoning decisions can be done via votes in the legislature, no new technologies required, so I beg to differ with the "no easy fix" tag.

NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
Then why do you think the tax-happy Democrats who control the legislature haven't repealed Prop 13 yet? After all, it is a relic of an era when anti-tax Republicans still had influence in California politics. My theory is that if it were repealed, and people had to pay property tax on something approaching the actual current market value of their homes, home values would tank. Homeowners would then "lose" a significant fraction of their net worth, get pissed off, and immediately vote out anyone who had voted for the repeal.
- seiferteric 3y ago
  Propositions can’t be repealed, it would have to be put on the ballot, but doubt it will happen.
  - NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
    Parent comment said "Repealing Prop 13 and removing local control of zoning decisions can be done via votes in the legislature". I don't know if that is true or not, I'm responding to that premise. Either one of you could help the discussion by providing a source backing up your conflicting claims.
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      Local zoning decisions could probably be done given that they are not expressly enumerated in the California constitution today. Cities' current authority to do so is defined by Article XI Section 7, which just says "A county or city may make and enforce within its limits all local, police, sanitary, and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws.[1] ". Theoretically the state could just pass a general law that now conflicts with this and then localities have restrictions on zoning. Prop 13 was passed in 1978 as a constitutional amendment, so the only way to repeal or reform that would be another amendment. The process for doing so via the legislature requires a two thirds supermajority in both houses, and then it goes to the ballot anyways. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Constitution#Amending_the_constitution https://ballotpedia.org/California_Constitution#Amending_the...
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      Prop 13 is factually a CA Constitutional amendment, the reversal of which would require following the process to amend the state constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://www.dgs.ca.gov/Resources/SAM/TOC/6000/6920#:~:text=A%20constitutional%20amendment%20can%20be,at%20the%20next%20general%20election https://www.dgs.ca.gov/Resources/SAM/TOC/6000/6920#:~:text=A.... Zoning control changes could (as far as I can tell) be done via legislative action alone (and probably fading some resulting lawsuits).
  - dilyevsky 3y ago
    Few years ago there was a prop to strip prop 13 from commercial properties and fund schools. It was sponsored by the zuck foundation. Even that didn’t pass
- guyzero 3y ago
  Every rational repeal proposal is a phase out with a few exceptions for seniors. And the reason it hans't been phased out is that the state has significant issues with legislative process as well as economic management. i.e. passing constitutional amendments by popular vote instead of just regular laws which makes them borderline irreversible.
- acchow 3y ago
  Homeowner ownership rate in California is 43.5%. Change is possible.
  - NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
    Home owners vote at higher rates than renters.
    - hnav 3y ago
      they should split the state into regions (groups of counties) and put the repeal on a ballot at region granularity to see if the "fuck-you-I-got-mine" set would sink each other
      - nradov 3y ago
        There is no Constitutional provision for splitting the state based on counties for ballot propositions. https://www.dgs.ca.gov/Resources/SAM/TOC/6000/6920 https://www.dgs.ca.gov/Resources/SAM/TOC/6000/6920
    - acchow 3y ago
      But the renters can still use their vote for change, no?
- hnav 3y ago
  They definitely cannot just repeal it outright, but they could give the housing marking a "soft landing" by just changing the max increase %. Let's say that we want to deal with the case of properties' real values being 5x the assessed tax value, assuming 0 future appreciation here's how long it would take for property taxes to catch up at 2%: log(5)/log(1.02) = 81 years and at 8%: log(5)/log(1.08) = 21 years
Justin_K 3y ago
How would ruining the financial plans for millions of homeowners solve the problem? It's so easy to say "just increase taxes" but the reality is our spending is insane.
- rapsin4 3y ago
  sunset it over 10-15 years...
  - hnav 3y ago
    Don't even have to, just tweak the maximum increase from 2% to some number that better reflects the growth of CA property values.
- NtochkaNzvanova 3y ago
  Agree that spending needs to be cut. But my understanding is that before Prop 13, California's tax revenue was more balanced between property, sales, and income taxes, and thus less subject to the boom and bust cycles that we see now (https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-budget-whiplash/ https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-budget-whiplash...).
- AbrahamParangi 3y ago
  California has the lowest rates of home ownership in the country at 18%. More people are subsidizing the current system than are benefiting from it.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    I feel like homeowners in California are giving more than they are taking overall.
  - nradov 3y ago
    You're way off. The California home ownership rate is 55%. But some other states are significantly higher. https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/rates.html https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/rates.html
mistrial9 3y ago
a secret about Prop 13 is that .. the media spin at the time was "saving aging homeowners from terrible tax increases" mainly by the Howard Jarvis Tax group; however, Corporate entities that own land in California also benefited from this measure, and continue to do so. I have never seen this in the media at any time -- only known by talking to a retired attorney recently
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  There was actually an initiative to repeal Prop 13 for commercial land which failed. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Commercial_and_Industrial_Properties_for_Education_and_Local_Government_Funding_Initiative_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Co...
  - Melatonic 3y ago
    This is the real answer in my opinion. Prop 13 does make some sense (especially in its current form now that the other measure passed that limits prop 13 for homeowners over 1 million in value). But for commercial real estate ? That seems totally ridiculous. There is so much tax that could be collected there!
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      I suspect that given it was rejected in 2020, which was not that long ago, in an election where Prop 19 (the other one you're referring to) passed, the powers that be have divined that revisiting the question now is a little early.
    - mistrial9 3y ago
      California already collects record revenue via State taxes, and has for a long time. Those who run Sacramento dole it out in large quantities. Only Jerry Brown has had the strength and skill to balance a budget in decades. Notably, the current Gov started tenure with a substantial surplus, and mysteriously now has record deficits again.
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
California should mandate no new taxes till corruption and wastage of tax funds are measured and a goal is set for reducing that? https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/embattled-nonprofit-mismanagement-providence-19361438.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/embattled-nonpro... https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-city-workers-charged-corruption-scheme-bribery/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-city...
- margalabargala 3y ago
  Maybe all states should do that. California is not the most corrupt state. This analysis puts it at 24/50 in fact. https://bestlifeonline.com/most-corrupt-state-america/ https://bestlifeonline.com/most-corrupt-state-america/
  - Affric 3y ago
    Needs a more Bayesian understanding of the corruption stats they are using.
  - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
    True! https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-hasnt-been-tracking-homeless-programs-effectiveness-audit-finds https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-hasnt-been-tracking-hom...
bobthepanda 3y ago
Prop 13 is a constitutional amendment, so requires a two thirds threshold in both chambers of the legislature and then also an additional majority ballot vote. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Constitution https://ballotpedia.org/California_Constitution
- scoofy 3y ago
  Or we could amend the way we amend the constitution. The idea that Prop 13 is set in stone is just not the case anymore. I was changed in 2020 and nearly removed completely for corporations.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    Amending the way you amend the constitution, unsurprisingly would also require a constitutional amendment. The legislature cannot, currently, legally override the constitution.
    - scoofy 3y ago
      My point is that the electorate that passed our ridiculous amendment process is no longer the current electorate. I suspect that our generation would be extremely open to changing the scope of our constitution to not include trivial things like tax legislation.
AnotherGoodName 3y ago
Could it be repealed via a legal case? I suspect any law that effectively says "established residents have next to no property tax while new residents have the tax recalculated" would definitely affect some protected groups negatively compared to others. In which case this law cannot exist right? You can't make a law that has a negative effect on a protected group specifically, even if unintentionally. We had a proposition in Palo Alto that only local residents could use some of the parks. That was challenged and now doesn't exist as you can guess how police identified non-locals. Can we do the same for prop 13?
johnea 3y ago
Something only the rich could love. Repealing prop 13 would cause the single biggest increase in homelessness in the states history. A huge percentage of California homeowners would be evicted as a consequence of their next 10x higher property tax bill...
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  And then theyd move somewhere cheaper with their newfound wealth. For me kicking people out of their home is frankly the point. If you cant afford you taxes you cant afford your home. Let someone who can afford it live there
zbrozek 3y ago
Deleting zoning would be be an incredible boost for the economy, but I don't think it's politically possible. Prop 13 is a constitutional amendment that the legislature can't repeal. Folks are addicted to spending money, and the results don't really matter. It took national outrage to get us to value-engineer a $1.6M toilet down to $1.0M.
WalterBright 3y ago
The problem is California isn't taxing people enough?
- xvedejas 3y ago
  The problem is the kind of taxation, not the amount. Beyond the fact that property tax is less of a burden on economic activity than income tax, it's also the case that property tax is less likely to bankrupt the state because of reduced revenue during economic downturns.
- sobellian 3y ago
  The problem is that it creates a distortionary tax. Appreciation has given people multi-million dollar homes that they pay a pittance in tax on. So they hold that property as long as possible to enjoy the low tax rates - if they move their tax bill soars since that event triggers an assessment on their new home. This takes homes off the market and drives prices even higher. The proposition was intended to prevent appreciation from pricing people out of their homes - in other words, to decrease the volume of transactions on the real estate market. This is government interference in the market - on top of the government interfering in the construction of new homes in the first place... If they regularly re-assessed property values while lowering the applied rate, they could collect the same amount of money overall without distorting the market.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  The problem is that its tax scheme sucks

diogenescynic 3y ago

They're mostly self-inflicted. Prop 47 caused a great amount of problems for the state by decriminalizing all drugs and theft up to $1000/per incident. We are just attracting junkies/criminals from other states where they actually enforce the law... Most of the homeless are not even from California when you talk to them. They come here for the lack of drug laws and ability to steal to fund their habit--and many cities even give debit cards to them. We're actively subsidizing the worst of the worst people and encouraging them to move here. Now we have organized shoplifting rings and junkies on fentanyl and meth living under every bridge and overpass. The state is in an epic free fall of quality of life since 2014 when prop 47 passed. There's no common sense anymore and our politicians are all crooks trying to personally enrich themselves or friends/family at the expense of everyone else. The only reason the bottom hasn't fallen out is big tech, Hollywood, agriculture/wine, beaches/Tahoe/tourism, and all the taxes they pay. I don't understand how people aren't more sick of putting up with this. I know I'm sick of seeing open drug use, prostitution, filthy streets, and not feeling like any public spaces are actually safe anymore. Beyond that... it's nearly impossible to build an affordable market rate house, starting a small business is more difficult than anywhere else due to regulation, our public schools are terrible.... but yeah there are some really well run tech companies that pay absurd amounts of money so a lot of people are still willing to put up with it all. I think there will be a breaking point though... Every time some liberal/progressive voter has to clean up feces/needles off their front stoop, is robbed in their driveway, takes their kids to a public park but a homeless person is there doing drugs in the bathroom (or much much worse), or the cops tell them they can't remove the homeless camp on their block, I suspect they become ever-so-slightly more conservative. Eventually this will turn even the bluest state red. Democrats are digging their own grave by pandering to nonsense and ignoring the reality of what it's actually like living here. When I grew up here in the 90s, the homeless were more like 1-5 per 100,000--not it feels like it's 50x to 200x that. They also weren't allowed to just camp in public spaces and leave ecological disasters everywhere they went... Whatever policies we've enacted need to urgently be repealed. Ideology now trumps objective reality.

cdelsolar 3y ago
Is this just conservative propaganda? Source?

romafirst3 3y ago

I live in LA and I'm not sure this article is about California. Seems like a grab bag of regurgitated nonsense. I run a business and let me tell you there is no unemployment here, it's hard to retain employees. There is no outflow of migration as far as I can see, housing is extremely scarce. In fact one of the only reasons I would leave is because housing is cheaper elsewhere. California is doing so well, that me and many other people are paying a huge premium to live here. Also SF isn't California, it's a small part of the state.

hot_gril 3y ago
Whenever I see hit pieces written about my home state CA, that further confirms to me that it's prospering. Otherwise they wouldn't be talking about us.
- diogenescynic 3y ago
  Prospering for who though? Landlords? Certainly not the average Californian making $50-$60k who can barely afford rent and groceries. Cost of living and quality of life are moving in opposite directions. Yep, big tech, Hollywood, beaches/Tahoe, and a lot of other things are great--but why can't people admit that the state has been getting shittier for the last 30 years? It obviously has. Housing prices going up isn't exactly 'prospering' for most... what other signs can you point to? Our failing schools? Or lack of any consequences for any crime? I would struggle to point to how the state is doing well--other than income potential.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    The complaint about home values is like saying "nobody drives cause there's too much traffic." There's far more housing than before, and many cities that used to be cheap new developments have become sought-after. Irvine and Glendale were cheap places that attracted immigrants and built themselves up. Every person with a home and family can afford it, otherwise they wouldn't be here. That's how I gauge it, combined with the constant complaints from people who've never set foot in CA. If you want a real failure story, it's San Francisco. Plenty of well-to-do people are leaving it, and at best it serves as a temporary workplace for people who don't care about its future.

mariodiana 3y ago

Wayback Machine archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20240401233215/https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/03/31/california-is-gripped-by-interlocking-economic-problems-with-no-easy-solution https://web.archive.org/web/20240401233215/https://www.econo...

roenxi 3y ago

This headline is ridiculous, California has a GDP comparable to India, fabulous wealth and a history as one of the most innovative and pleasant places to live globally. They also have the lion's share of influence in the most powerful body on the planet, the US Congress. This is the most capable self-determining polity on the planet. Any economic problems they are having are (1) self inflicted, (2) policy driven and (2) could be fixed very quickly if the locals would admit that it is a problem worth fixing. Presumably the locals aren't worried.

diogenescynic 3y ago
Would you rather be an average Californian or an average Danish person? Who has better quality of life? Who has longer life expectancy? Who gets to retire earlier? Who gets more time off per year or parental leave? Who is happier/less stressed? California is great for the ruling elite and people working in big tech, but not that great for everyone else. The only way California is best is if the only thing you care about is income potential.
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  Strictly my personal opinion - if you own a home in California, your life is probably better than the average Danish person due to access to better weather and better economy. Homeownership rate for CA is 55.8% - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CAHOWN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CAHOWN Also add people on rent controlled housing, who are in a similar boat, and that number would be even higher. Ultimately, you just have to look at the immigration numbers of "the best and the brightest", who can go anywhere in the world including CA and Denmark. I was one of them and decided to come to CA over any European country. So were many of my friends and many of my European colleagues from countries with all the benefits you mentioned.
  - diogenescynic 3y ago
    You think people in Fresno, Bakersfield, Redding or Lancaster are better off than someone in Denmark? Is your only measurement the net worth of the person and not actually anything else like time off or life expectancy? The only people in California doing better are in Bay Area or coastal cities in Southern California or Tahoe. The rest of the state is worse off than the Midwest or rural Texas.

ur-whale 3y ago

https://archive.is/5NQOa https://archive.is/5NQOa

ajross 3y ago

In the lede "Rising Unemployment". But in fact broader federal numbers show unemployment near historic lows, surely CA can't be that far off, right? Let's google for some data: https://ycharts.com/indicators/california_unemployment_rate#:~:text=Basic%20Info,long%20term%20average%20of%207.15%25 https://ycharts.com/indicators/california_unemployment_rate#.... Yeah, article is making signal out of noise. Unemployment was ~4.1% before the pandemic, spiked, recovered, and indeed has inched up to near 5% since. The graph shape indeed looks basically identical to federal data at FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE So... are we supposed to trust the rest of the article? Not sure I'd bet on it. People love articles that confirm priors, and those are the most dangerous kind.

leereeves 3y ago
Of course the spike during the pandemic and the decrease afterwards are similar, as they would be anywhere. But the pattern during the last year is different. The 1 year federal unemployment rate looks like noise: a mix of up and down. Down, down, up, down, down, up, flat, flat, down, flat, flat, up. And the total change over the last year was only 0.3%. There are no months in the last year when the UE rate fell in California. That would be very unusual for noise over a flat trend. Also, it's now 1.4% higher than the federal rate, and the total increase over the past year was 0.8%.
- ajross 3y ago
  Yeah, but it's not "rising" in the sense of a worrisome trend. It's low, and bouncing around its low value. Sure, the last years trend is mildly upwards where the federal trend is flat, but... so what? There are 50 states. Pull numbers form all of them and realistically half of them will show whatever nonsense trend you want to see. It's just a silly argument. Employment in California is simply not a problem. There are plenty of jobs, both historically and in comparison with the rest of the country.
  - leereeves 3y ago
    Are there plenty of jobs? The article says no: > In California there are roughly 0.8 job openings per unemployed person—the lowest in the country—whereas in America’s other 49 states the overall ratio is 1.6. And that checks out. It's the inverse of (1 divided by) this: https://www.bls.gov/charts/state-job-openings-and-labor-turnover/unemployed-persons-per-job-opening-by-state.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/state-job-openings-and-labor-turn...

WalterBright 3y ago

The solution is easy. Repeal all the tax increases, regulations, spending programs, and policies enacted over the last 10 years.

freitzkriesler2 3y ago

California is great if you are apart of its landed gentry or a business owner. If you're anything else, then it's not worth it.