By:
Steven Ring and Ken Cleaveland
05/20/13 7:14 PM
Why should you care if Proposition 13 opponents raise taxes on commercial real estate properties through their proposed “split-roll” tax? You’ve got no skin in that game, right?
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Initiatives to provide extra funds for BART, Muni, Caltrain and other transit agencies could stand a better chance of approval due to a renewed movement to lower voting thresholds for ballot measures.
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It is easy to spark a lively debate in California with just six syllables: Proposition 13. Arguments over the voter-approved 1978 tax reform initiative have reverberated through the state capital for decades. Politicians — even the many who opposed it — have generally avoided the measure like unfavorable publicity.
But the political winds are shifting. Talk of Prop. 13 reform is all the rage, with several San Francisco state legislators taking up the cause.
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The supermajority of Democrats that is shaping up the state Legislature will have the power to do more than just put initiatives before the voters, they will have a veto-proof majority to make other changes.
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To borrow a phrase from Whoopi Goldberg’s character in the movie “Ghost”: Proposition 13, you in danger, girl.
Backers of Proposition 32 smacked a beehive, inadvertantly handing the Democratic Party its first supermajority since 1888. The tax increases and constitutional amendments that are certain to follow are the true legacy of the Yes on 32 campaign.
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With a $16 billion deficit and facing draconian cuts to basic services even if Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax proposal passes, Californians are fearful and angry at our state government.
A recent poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California showed that only 17 percent of likely voters approve of the job being done by the Legislature and 88 percent believe that “some” or “a lot” of the money we give to the state government is wasted.
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It’s an article of faith — indeed, blind faith — among those on California’s political left that the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 began the state’s downward spiral.Before voters limited property taxes, they say, California was a paradise of well-financed public services, but since then has evolved into something like Mississippi, in which a tiny, selfish overclass oppresses a burgeoning, mostly nonwhite underclass.
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The floor was shaking in an upstairs classroom at Monroe Elementary School in the Excelsior district, where two dozen fourth- and fifth-graders were practicing a dance routine. “Waka waka! Hey hey!” the singer Shakira chanted over a boombox as the children jumped, spun and clapped.
For many of the giggling children, dance class was the week’s highlight. And the arts are not merely fun, studies show they help kids do better in math and reading.
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San Francisco homeowners can expect to pay higher property taxes this year.
For a single-family home valued at $500,000, there will be an $82.57 increase in the property tax bill compared to last fiscal year, for a total of $5,821, according to a report from budget analyst Harvey Rose.
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In 1979, a year after California voters adopted Proposition 13 and tightly limited local property taxes, they decreed in another ballot measure that the state should reimburse schools and local governments for state-mandated costs they incur.
That seemingly straightforward decree, however, has evolved into a chronically convoluted wrangle over what is and what is not a reimbursable cost and how much money should flow from Sacramento into local coffers.
Thousands of school dist
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URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/taxonomy/term/9518
