From: mike@gordian.com (Michael A. Thomas)
Newsgroups: ca.politics
Subject: Re: Prop. 13 and California's fiscal crisis
Date: 18 Aug 92 00:09:36 GMT
Distribution: ca
Organization: Gordian; Costa Mesa, CA

In article <1992Aug17.215343.22479@nas.nasa.gov>, dbailey@wk49.nas.nasa.gov (David H. Bailey) writes:

  Sigh. Some people just don't get it. The problem with tying property
taxes with "Current Market Rate" is that the goverment is not providing
any more services for that increased rate (not that I want them to even
if they hypothetically did). What on earth is _fair_ about this? Sounds
like a perversion of the word to me. 

> PREMISE: Only Prop. 13 can protect limited income homeowners such as
> the elderly from unexpected increases in property tax, increases that
> they may not be able to afford.
>
> This is not true.  After all, in the civilized world only California
> has a Prop. 13 system!  Consider the following:

  Aka the Lemming Defense.
 
> PROPOSAL 1: All property shall be assessed at a uniform rate (such as
> 1%) based on current market value.  However, the amount of tax for an
> individual property that is actually due and payable in a given year
> shall not increase more than 2% from the amount paid in the previous
> year, and the difference between the amount assessed and the amount
> due each year may optionally be postponed until the property is sold.

  Gee, I never thought that I would ever use the "Company Town"
syndrome as an argument against anything but this surely qualifies.
Now lemme see, how *does* that song go... 
  "...I owe my sole to Willie and Pete"
 
> Note that this proposal is very similar to a program already in place
> for California's elderly.  In effect, it allows homeowners to tap
> their growing equity to pay their property taxes.  If desired, this
> proposal could be modified to exclude certain property from the
> postponement option, such as business property or homes of persons
> with incomes above a certain level.

  I just love the word "tap". How about "leach" or "blood-let" instead.
Tap indeed. If this is such a great proposal why don't we set the 
percentage up to say, 5% of assessed value, or maybe 50%. Surely with
all of that "untapped equity" the state could solve _all_ of it's
problems. Right?
  Better yet, why don't we just nationalize all of property and get
_all_ of that "untapped equity". This has the great side effect of
allowing the state to allocate housing. We could instantly eliminate
homelessness to boot! Yeah, that's the ticket.

> PROPOSAL 2: All property shall be assessed at a uniform rate (such as
> 1%) based on current market value.  However, this tax rate shall
> automatically be adjusted each year so that the average tax for
> existing property in a given county increases only by the percentage
> of increase in the cost-of-living index for that county (even if
> property values increase faster).
> 
> If desired, proposal 2 could include a provision, such as a
> postponement option mentioned above, to protect current long-term
> property owners.
> 
> The point is this: It is entirely possible to fashion a property tax
> system that protects low- and moderate-income homeowners from steep
> increases in tax based on paper profits, while at the same time
> providing enough funds to protect our education system from collapse.

  Bwahahaha. Sorry if I fail to believe that your bloated state run
education system is going to get any better even if it has 10 times
the amount of money thrown at it. The solution to education problems
are structural, not monetary (starting with getting the government 
out the business of mis-educating people).
  And Paper Profits!?!? Of all of the misinformed things I've heard.
Assuming that you own a house (which from this and previous posts I
find *highly* unlikely), you surely remember what it is like coming 
up with the first down payment. Hell right? Well with your wonderful 
proposal, we get a *fabulous* choice:

  1) Pay outrageous taxes now, so if we ever want to move again we
     don't have to come up with a new initial down payment.
  2) Defer those outrageous taxes till later, and hope that you
     will be long dead when the next schmuck has to deal with them.

  I love it, where *do* I sign up?

> If a time of desperate fiscal crisis is not the time to change our
> crazy property tax system, when is?

  If these are the choices: WHFO (when hell freezes over, for the
acronym impaired).
-- 

		Michael Thomas	(mike@gordian.com)
	"I don't think Bambi Eyes will get you that flame thrower..."  
		-- Hobbes to Calvin
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