I'm so sick of the raise taxes agenda-pushing by the government mouthpiece when Wall Street and wars never want for money.
"’78 tax revolt still felt in California; Strict limits on levy reverberate through economy" October 25, 2011|By Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg News
LOS ANGELES - California voters approved Proposition 13 to rein in property taxes that had doubled in 10 years. More than three decades later, that rebellion has mortgaged the state’s future, saddling it with the nation’s highest debt and lowest credit rating.
Yeah, Wall Street and the whole culture of debt enslavement are never a factor. Paper already makes its bias clear with the use of the word rebellion.
The measure led to reductions that dropped per-student school spending from seventh to 29th nationally, prompted cities to pursue sprawling retail development to compensate for lost revenue, and pushed the state into budget gridlock, including a $705 million revenue shortfall announced Oct. 10, by requiring two-thirds approval for any tax increase.
“Proposition 13 set up an unfair and dysfunctional two-tiered system of property taxes,’’ said Kevin Starr, a history professor at the University of Southern California and the author of a series of books on the state. “It choked off a source of revenue, and the lack of that revenue has brought California to the edge.’’
The measure, approved in 1978, was the inspiration for an antitax movement that has taken hold of the public discourse in Washington and in state legislatures throughout the country. It caps real estate levies at 1 percent of a property’s most-recent sale price. Before it passed, local governments could raise revenue as they saw fit....
The measure also created loopholes that businesses exploit to avoid paying their fair share, says San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a 69-year-old Democrat who has sponsored legislation to tighten rules on business-property transfers.
For instance, billionaire Michael Dell structured the 2006 purchase of an ocean-view hotel in Santa Monica to avoid the automatic tax increase that comes with acquisition of more than a 50 percent interest in any property, Los Angeles County officials said in a court statement.
Yeah, SOMEHOW TAX LAWS ALWAYS BENEFIT the RICH here in AmeriKa.
Proposition 13’s success had another effect as well: It inspired an explosion of ballot measures, from carving out part of the budget for schools to legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes. Since 1978, the state has amended its constitution through initiatives 69 times, compared with 47 times in the previous 65 years, according to the secretary of state....
Yes, HOW HORRIBLE that DEMOCRACY be allowed to take place!
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