Small property versus big government
Subtitle: social origins of the property tax revolt
By: Clarence Y.H. Lo.
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 1990
Place of publication: Berkeley
Language: eng
Number of pages: 269
Subjects: Property tax -- California -- Public opinion -- History.; Public opinion -- California -- History.; Tax and expenditure limitations -- California -- History.
Description: Tax reformers, take note. Clarence Lo's investigation of California's Proposition 13 and other tax reduction bills is both a tribute and a warning to people who get "mad as hell" and try to do something about being pushed around by government. Homeowners in California, faced with impossible property tax bills in the 1970s, got mad and pushed back, starting an avalanche that swept tax limitation measures into state after state. What we learn is that, although the property tax was slashed, two-thirds of the benefits went to business owners rather than homeowners. How did a crusade launched by homeowning consumers seeking tax relief end up as a pro-business, supply-side political program? To trace the transformation, Lo uses the firsthand recollections of 120 activists in the movement, going back to the 1950s. He shows how their protests were ignored, until a suburban alliance of upper-middle-class property owners and business owners took charge. It was the program of that latter group, not the plight of the moderate-income homeowner, which inspired tax revolts across the nation and shaped the economic policies of the Reagan administration.
Notes: A digital reproduction is available from E-Editions, a collaboration of the University of California Press and the California Digital Library's eScholarship program.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-259).