The Need for Funds
Hilzoy writes about California paying the high price for the anti-tax Proposition 13. The price comes in two forms — one is inadequate revenue and the consequences that follow from that, and the other is in distorted policy as when revenue does need to be raised it isn’t raised in the most straightforward and efficient manner:
The result, of course, is that California has been deferring maintenance for a very long time. Now their judges will be working from home, their schools will fall further into decay, and their bridges will continue to crumble. With any luck, Obama’s stimulus plan will help out with the worst of it; my only regret about that is that it will postpone the day when Californians have to confront the idiotic tax policies they put in place.
In fairness to California, however, everyone knows that the California “tax revolt” that led to Proposition 13 went national in at least a metaphorical sense spread nationwide in the 1980s. In practice, it’s been exceedingly difficult to increase revenue at any level of government anywhere. At the same time, the costs of delivering a large set of labor-intensive public services — cops on the beat, preschool teachers, taking care of the elderly, etc. — have gone up while the existing infrastructure has aged and the population has grown. But without the possibility of new revenue, it’s impossible to meet those needs. And an incredibly large proportion of the efforts that have been made in recent decades have had to be packaged inefficiently as “tax credits” rather than properly structured programs.
Thanks to the global recession, concern about the deficit is temporarily out of the window and nobody wants to raise taxes. But if we’re fortunate enough to pull out of this in a reasonable amount of time it’s still the case that getting the country on a long-run path to broadly shared prosperity is going to require the ability to raise revenue.
60 Responses to “The Need for Funds”
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December 27th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Is the problem really that taxes are too low in Cali? Our top rate is 9.3% and kicks in at a measly $40k. Seems like having the highest state income taxes in the country should be fine to offset other peculiarities of the system.
December 27th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
A little background would be helpful here: Prop. 13 was basically the result of a popular backlash against Calif. Supreme Court ruling in Serrano vs. Priest, whereby the Court essentially told the homeowners in rich school districts to drop dead and send their property taxes over to poorer school districts. The state legislature capped the amount of money any district could retain, so in some cases a majority of the revenue were going out-of-district.
This isn’t actually a tax revolt, per se, in a sense, because the disparity in home values between nice and crappy houses are so much greater than generally the disparity in earned income (at the time), so this was essentially a much more drastic redistribution of wealth than, I think, the judges at the time could have predicted. Some districts stood to lose most of their revenue.
In Canada, for example, property taxes remain exclusively within the local district. Schools are funded out of income and general taxation, and thus seems, to most people, much less redistributive than it really is.
December 27th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
If the black market marijuana industry in California were legitimized and heavily taxed, California’s problems would be over.
December 27th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Stephen:
I was about to say more or less the same thing. I took a class with William Fischel, the economist who first theorized that Serrano led to Prop 13. Serrano turned out to be a poor mechanism for equalizing spending – per pupil spending has dropped in California as a whole because richer districts can’t spend more on schools. Any additional property taxes must be spread out across the state instead of going to the schools, so most communities don’t bother raising property taxes. Prop 13 formalized this and made it a rule. Before Serrano, previous initiatives along the lines of Prop 13 failed dramatically. After Serrano, local voters said “To hell with it,” and voted to strongly limit property taxation.
December 27th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Is the problem really that taxes are too low in Cali? Our top rate is 9.3% and kicks in at a measly $40k.
Yes, that is the problem. Effective government need not be onerously expensive, but it’s not cheap, either.
Seems like having the highest state income taxes in the country should be fine to offset other peculiarities of the system.
Apparently it isn’t. I looked into this in detail a couple of weeks ago, so I’m relying on memory, but IIRC, the state government of California spends something like 9% of gross state product — and that puts in the the middle of the pack among the fifty states. Massachusetts is somewhere around 11%, and NY is higher still.
Off topic, does anybody else find that sometimes the html buttons on Matt’s sight appear, and other times they don’t? I’m using Firefox/Vista at the moment if that makes any difference. Just curious.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
In Canada, for example, property taxes remain exclusively within the local district.
AFAIK this is the case in many parts of the US, as well.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Is the problem really that taxes are too low in Cali? Our top rate is 9.3% and kicks in at a measly $40k.
True, but in exchange, you get a great deal on your property taxes, which stay more or less static, even if the value of your property skyrockets. The money people don’t pay on their property taxes has to come from somewhere, so it’s no surprise that income taxes are comparatively high.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Wait. Did you actually just write this?
“In practice, it’s been exceedingly difficult to increase revenue at any level of government anywhere.”
Seriously. You are suggesting that it has been difficult to increase revenues since the 1980s? You’re nuts. Or dishonest. A four second Gooogle search reveals http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com
Total US government revenue in 1980, in billions: 885.6
2000: 3457.8
2010, projected: 5783.2
Which looks like a sevenfold increase in 30 years.
So how easy should it be to increase revenues? What would have been better? A 20-fold increase? 30-fold?
Come on, man. I mean, maybe I am looking at the numbers wrong. Or I am being ridiculous in some way. But to say that increasing revenues has been “exceedingly difficult” doesn’t seem to pass the laugh test. That is, it’s rubbbish.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Come on, man. I mean, maybe I am looking at the numbers wrong.
Sam, your point is taken, but inflation obviously erodes most of these revenue increases, and natural economic growth will automatically raise revenue in gradual fashion over time. I think Matt was referring to the political difficulty of actually raising taxes on those occasions when you need to — when you can’t wait five years for revenues to naturally increase as a result of economic activity. Also, that site you provide looks dodgy to my eyes. According to them, federal revenues are about equal to state/local revenues, but that doesn’t seem remotely possible, as the former accounts for the bulk (2/3?) of total public sector spending in this country.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Any additional property taxes must be spread out across the state instead of going to the schools, so most communities don’t bother raising property taxes.
Precisely. Simple logic would dictate that districts maintain no more taxation than the maximum allowed to be retained in-district. There was absolutely no incentive whatsoever for any taxation beyond that point, as any additional revenue is essentially confiscated and of no additional benefit howsoever to the taxpayer.
It is dumbfounding how the learned justices in Serrano, or the legislators later on in Sacramento for that matter could not have comprehended this blindingly simple cause-and-effect relationship.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Matt writes:
You obviously don’t know anyone who lives in Minneapolis or St. Paul.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
“I think Matt was referring to the political difficulty of actually raising taxes on those occasions when you need to”
But that’s not what he said. He said it has been exceedingly difficult to increase revenue since the 1980s. But revenue has increased substantially over that time.
As for inflation, $100 in 1980 dollars is worth about
$257 today, according to the BLS (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl) So of the seven-fold increase, only about 2.5 of those folds are due to inflation. Meaning the other 4.5 are due to… whatever else increases revenue. (Actually a bit smaller than that, as the 2008 revenue is less than the 2010 projections.)
Someone call Art Laffer. Perhaps he can forward that napkin of his.
In the meantime, someone so committed to reality-based blogging ought to be careful about saying things like it has been exceedingly difficult to increase revenues during a time period in which revenues have been, you know, increasing dramatically. It has not, in fact, been exceedingly difficult to increase revenues. Perhaps they have not increased as much as he might have liked. But they have been increasing. And not in a way that has been exceedingly difficult. As you point out, it has been difficult to raise rates. So we have seen drastic increases in revenue without taking a larger portion of everybody’s money.
To be correct, he would have to show that government revenues have basically tracked with inflation. But they have far exceeded inflation.
In other words, the claim appears to be incorrect. Unless of course my source is wrong and he has a better source. So… does he have a better source showing revenue flat when adjusted for inflation? Does anyone? He ought to have such a source if he is going to make such claims.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Prop 13 was a bad solution, but it addressed a real problem: Californians had to pay ever-growing property taxes based on paper-only appreciation. Just because your house doubles in value doesn’t mean you have any extra ability to pay. You shouldn’t have to take out a home equity loan to pay your taxes.
Also, I really hate hearing about taxes as a percentage of gross state product. If our economy is growing, it doesn’t follow that therefore the state should be taking more of it.
December 27th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Also, I really hate hearing about taxes as a percentage of gross state product. If our economy is growing, it doesn’t follow that therefore the state should be taking more of it.
I mostly agree, but when the government is taking in less revenue as a percentage of overall economic output than it had before or compared to other states, it’s not really fair to go around crying that the government is taxing too much. One of the reasons why some states have high per-capita tax revenues is because those states have a population of very rich people.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
But that’s not what he said. He said it has been exceedingly difficult to increase revenue since the 1980s. But revenue has increased substantially over that time.
Okay. Great. You win the pedantry award for 2008. Congrats!
To be correct, he would have to show that government revenues have basically tracked with inflation. But they have far exceeded inflation.
Er, no, Matt is correct. He just wasn’t sufficiently precise in his language to satisfy pedants like you. I suspect everybody else on this blog knew what he was talking about, so perhaps the problem is yours, and not his. To satisfy you, he simply could have substituted “raising revenue” with the words “raising taxes.”
December 27th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Jasper, what’s the evidence for your assumption that Californians would get better government if we paid more for it? I haven’t seen anything that would lead me to that conclusion.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Also, I really hate hearing about taxes as a percentage of gross state product. If our economy is growing, it doesn’t follow that therefore the state should be taking more of it.
Please point out where anybody on this thread mentioned taxes as a percentage of GSP. I mentioned spending as a percentage of GSP — and doing so for the purposes of such a discussion has absolutely nothing to do with with whether a state is “taking more” of economic growth. It has to do with comparing it to other states. Pointing out that California is not a sprendthrift by the standard of the fifty states (and especially not by the standards of other rich industrial states) is a valid datapoint because it suggests that California’s fiscal problems are more a revenue issue than a spending issue.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
It’s not pedantry at all. It’s at the heart of the debate. People who write about economics know the difference between tax rates and tax revenue and the complex ways they interact. Or at least they should. This is not some recent dispute that has sprung up. There is a long list of books and articles about these issues. I know that, and I have a crappy undergrad degree in economics.
Again, perhaps he is right and he can show revenue to be flat. I questioned his claim and asked for the source. Why so touchy? And defensive? It’s a legitimate question. Keep in mind that the basis of Matt’s claim is that California has a “reveneue shortage.” To bolster this claim, he went further and said that it has been basically impossible to increase revenue anywhere… FOR THE PAST 28 YEARS. I doubt that is true and I pointed it out. And I asked if anyone could document the claim.
How, again, is that pedantic?
I mean, if it’s his position that rates have fallen and that revenue is in fact up… I think Steve Forbes and the Supply Side Brigade have some writing assignments for him.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
“Er, no, Matt is correct. ”
Really? Total government revenue is falt when adjusted for inflation? Great. All I asked for was your source. Because the datum would surprise me and I would like to check it out.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Jasper, what’s the evidence for your assumption that Californians would get better government if we paid more for it?
Huh? If you paid more for the same amount of government? There is no evidence for this, and I’m certainly not “assuming” this to be the case. I am suggesting that California is likely to have less government if it doesn’t raise revenues — maybe much less. And that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Or at least for Alabama. It sounds like a recipe for a government, in other words, that is not as effective as it ought to be in taking care of vital public sector tasks required in a sophisticated, technologically advanced polity like California.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
They would multiply, so if it were a 7 fold increase, and 2.5 are due to inflation, then the others are only 2.8 fold.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
This is not some recent dispute that has sprung up.
Sam: I think you are the only one who imagines there’s a dispute going on here. Obviously you can have a tax code in place that keeps revenues more or less static as a percentage of the economy. If the economy grows, revenues will rise commensurately. If the economy shrinks, revenue will likewise drop. If for whatever reason (war, expansion of social programs, recession, etc.) more revenue is needed than the economy and tax code working in tandem provide, you need to raise taxes (either rates, or new taxes). I’m not a mind reader, but I’m pretty sure this latter dynamic is what Matt was referring to. Do you disagree?
December 27th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
really? Total government revenue is falt when adjusted for inflation?
Er, no. Obviously not. Why are you under the impression Matt made this claim? Do you have a cite?
…and I have a crappy undergrad degree in economics.
I’ll say.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Another joke post from MattY, trying to blame everything on Prop13 and completely ignoring the fact that CA is growing into a two-tier state with a small number of rich people and a very large number of poor people, many of whom are illegal aliens. One of the major root causes of CA’s problems is that many of its leaders are racial demagogues seeking a power base; MattY can’t mention that lest someone in the DNC gets mad at him.
Also, I would have left this comment at Washington Monthly, except they have a habit of deleting on-topic, non-abusive comments that point out how they’re wrong. See some of those that were deleted here. By deleting comments, they’re disabling fact checking provided by their readers, and that means that everything you read there has to be double-checked.
December 27th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
“they have a habit of deleting on-topic, non-abusive comments that point out how they’re wrong.”
I guess you’re in the clear then, since I’ve never seen a single comment of yours that meets that requirement.
December 27th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
As California has shown, when they have more government reveneus they will spend it. Doing away with Prop 13 would not solve any long term problems because the state would have made long term spending plans based upon peak property values.
The real problem in California is the refusal to cut spending and save money during the good times. California benefited form the dot.com bubble and the housing bubble. They should have saved money then instead o making long term commitments to state employees.
December 27th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
“I’m not a mind reader, but I’m pretty sure this latter dynamic is what Matt was referring to. Do you disagree?”
Yes. I disagree. Mat said that it has been exceedingly difficult to increase government revenue over a timeframe in which government revenue has increased seven-fold.
I am having trouble understanding what you don’t understand.
I completely understand that matt thinks the government should be spending more than it does. And that to do so, the government needs more revenue. Fine. That’s a coherent argument to make. But he for some reason decided to say that it has been exceeding difficult for the government to raise money since the 1980s. Need a citation? fine:
“everyone knows that the California “tax revolt” that led to Proposition 13 went national in at least a metaphorical sense spread nationwide in the 1980s. In practice, it’s been exceedingly difficult to increase revenue at any level of government anywhere.”
Pehaps that’s too long a quote for you. So let me distill it down a bit:
“In practice, it’s been exceedingly difficult to increase revenue at any level of government anywhere.”
Not “kind of difficult in some places.” or, “on aggregate, generating revenue has been a tough slog.”
No. He said it has been “exceedingly difficult” to “increase revenue” at “any level of government.”
“Anywhere.”
That’s bullshit. it has been quite easy to raise government revenue, as the economy has been growing. (Hey! Art Laffer again! Thanks, buddy!) And, as demonstrated and not contested, it has been so easy to do so that government revenue growth has EASILY outpaced inflation. And this is across ALL government revenue. So it’s not like states have been jacking up revenue in order to counteract falling federal revenue.
Again, Matt could make an argument that we ought to raise taxes on rich people, on poor people, or anyone else. But to say that it has been exceedingly difficult to increase revenue at any level of government anywhere seems to be wrong on about three counts.
Government revenue has increased substantially since the 1980s. In both real and nominal terms, unless someone has data saying otherwise. So has government spending. Maybe not enough. But it’s simply false to say those things haven’t happened. I guess you don’t care if people say false things while making arguments. Fine.
At any rate, I invite you to do some research on your own and decide of this statement is true or false:
“In practice, it’s been exceedingly difficult to increase revenue at any level of government anywhere.”
I have done some research that seems to indicate that claim is bullshit. So instead of claiming pedantry, like some lame-ass TV pundit, do the research and prove me wrong. I have invited you to do so several times. You keep refusing. Wonder why?
So I guess we learn something anyway.
Again, is that claim true, or is it a load of horse shit? This is a reality based blog. What’s the cold, hard objective truth?
December 27th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Prop 13 was a bad solution, but it addressed a real problem: Californians had to pay ever-growing property taxes based on paper-only appreciation. Just because your house doubles in value doesn’t mean you have any extra ability to pay.
This is precisely true, and it bears repeating. The alternative to Prop 13 is long-time homeowners being priced out of the neighborhoods they already lived in and could afford when they bought their houses. Talk about perverse incentives… without it, there’s an incentive *against* improving your local property values.
That being said, the solution (Prop 13) has created all sorts of perverse incentives of its own.
So if somebody has a real solution to the funding of local government that doesn’t rely on screwing homeowners, I’d be more than happy to hear it.
December 27th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Ok, Matt clearly was inaccurate when he said that revenues haven’t increased, or whatever. But the people making a big deal of it are being purposefully dense. He’s clearly not talking about revenue; he’s talking about the ability to create increases in revenue along with the increases of cost of government.
And yes, that can indeed include inflation, but that’s only part. You also have to take into account increases in the cost of government workers, the cost of medical care (big), infrastructure spending, and a whole host of other things. You can’t just scream that the rate of inflation doesn’t account for the entire increase in government spending and think you’ve made a point.
A better metric, though very rough, is percentage of government spending as a percent of GDP. In 1983 we have ~23% and in 2000 we have ~19%. Nowadays that’s at ~21%, but I suspect that number is fueled by wasteful deficit spending instead of increased ability to raise revenue.
December 27th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Oh, and Prop 13 sucks. It essentially subsidizes old rich people at the expense of the young and productive classes.
Housing costs rise for a simple reason: greater demand for a place to live in an area, associated with people wanting to live in an area to work. Proposition 13 greatly weakened this price signal and distorts economic incentives toward being against mobility of labor and people moving into an area where they’re needed and out of an area where they’re not.
December 27th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
The mechanical problem in California that causes much of the problems in reforming the budget is a 2/3rds requirement for passage of tax and spending measures in the legislature.
December 27th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Has anyone looked at Prop 13’s effects on transportation? It seems the effects might be pretty severe. And the last thing California needs is people driving more. Think about it, when you’re young, you get a good job and buy a house that is close to that job. But the job doesn’t last forever and you get a new job that is no longer near your house. You might want to get a new house near your new job, but you can’t. Prop 13 has trapped you in your house. You can’t afford the tax hit from having a house taxed at current property values. So you stay in your house and have a long commute. I’ve never seen a good analysis of this issue, but it’s very possible that California is spending a lot more on roads than it would without Prop 13. I see the value in not pricing people out of their houses, but Prop 13 often prevents people from being able to move at all. My sister would be bankrupt if she had to move across the street.
December 27th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf
See table 2.1. There has benn about a six-fold increase in federal receipts since 1980.
As for “screaming,” Zephyrus, I plead not guilty. I am not sure what you mean by this, either:
“He’s clearly not talking about revenue…”
As evidenced, I suppose, by the fact that he typed the word “revenue”?
“he’s talking about the ability to create increases in revenue along with the increases of cost of government.”
Well that’s begging the question, isn’t it? The point he ACTUALLY makes is that California screwed itself by making it impossible to increase revenue since the 1980s. And so did EVERY OTHER JURISDICTION, EVERYWHERE. True! Except for the inconvenient fact that it’s completely false. In fact, the government, at almost all levels, has been able to increase revenues. Substantially. Like, you know, six-fold.
Again, he might make the argument that we have hindered our ability to increase revenues ENOUGH. That a 20-fold increase would have been much better. But you have to, you know, go ahead and make that argument. And dispense with bullshit claims that all governments everywhere have found it exceedingly difficult to increase revenue. I might look at the same data and make the old claim about run-away spending. Maybe you all find that argument boring. But at least it has the added value of being based on a real argument. Because, you know, spending has, in fact, increased. At a greater rate than revenue.
For someone so convinced that conservatives play fast and loose with the facts, this was a sloppy post. If you can’t see that… well, that’s OK. We can’t all be committed to reality.
December 27th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Yes, Sam. He misspoke, and that would imply a sloppy post. It’s almost like Matt didn’t use his much vaunted proofreading skills on it. Something, by the way, I made explicit in the first sentence of my comment.
You’re arguing against a miswording that no one is defending. And you keep on shrilling decrying it time after time after time even though it seems no one on the thread is claiming that revenues remained flat. Imagine if he said something like “President Obama” instead of “President-elect Obama,” and you kept on going on and on saying that he’s being presumptuous in that Obama’s strictly not the President. Ridiculous, right? And you’re doing the same thing here.
No one except you seems to have had trouble in understanding what he meant.
So yeah, in the end Yglesias made a sloppy post about a real issue where everyone understood what he meant. Whoop de doo, call the press, this is unheard of!
December 27th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
This is precisely true, and it bears repeating. The alternative to Prop 13 is long-time homeowners being priced out of the neighborhoods they already lived in and could afford when they bought their houses.
Well, there are other alternatives, surely. I personally strongly dislike the very concept of sending someone a bill every year merely because they own a house (I’d rather see higher income and sales taxes), but if you’re going to tax owners of real estate, you could put limits on increases without the draconian method in use in California. In Massachusetts, increases in the amount of any given municipality’s total take from the property tax are limited to 2.5% (nominal) annually, save with an supermajority override from the municipality’s voters.
Mat said that it has been exceedingly difficult to increase government revenue over a timeframe in which government revenue has increased seven-fold.
Yes, and has been pointed out to you by several commenters, everybody else realizes he was referring to actively raising revenues (ie, increasing taxes). Does it feel good to have wasted so much time converting absolutely nobody to your pedantry-ridden world view?
December 27th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Serrano isn’t the only backdrop to Prop 13. Around the same time, the CA legislature seriously reigned in (elected) tax assessors’ independence after a few of them were found rewarding their friends with absurdly low tax bills, but the thing was that these (again, elected) assessors had for a long time been using that flexibility to give low assessments to homeowner-constituents, especially old, long-term residents on fixed incomes. They then made up for this by giving commercial property inflated assessments.
So one thing about that is the snap-back from that raised homeowners’ tax bills a lot at once, combined with background rate increases and appreciation from the high-inflation end of the ’70s, and then Serrano told them all this money would be shipped off somewhere else. It was a perfect storm, really.
The other thing about that is, it instantly created an anti-property tax sentiment among homeowners, at the same time that the business community had built up a big head of anti-property-tax steam under the old regime, and the two overlapped enough to join forces. And arguably, it’s been commercial propertyowners who’ve gained the most – they don’t have to transfer ownership every generation, or if there’s some other market they want to get into. Tenants change, but that doesn’t count, and if you rig it right, and have ownership of the building in a shell company that can itself be bought and sold, you can even transfer ownership without triggering reassessment.
December 27th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Fostert is onto something in comment #32. I’m not sure if Prop 13 is necessarily the cause, but California has spent way too much money the last several decades on road building and replicating infrastructure, due to its suburban sprawl. Which results in even more road building, then more sprawl, and again more infrastructure. Which then (at some point in the future) will also need to be maintained. It is an extremely vicious cycle that California must break if it is ever to get its finances in order.
Given MattY’s interest in transportation and urban planning issues, I’d love to hear him weigh in on this.
December 27th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Proposition 13 was three decades ago. Lots and lots of things have happened in California since then that contribute to its current problems. Most notably, the median family of four’s standard of living in California has dropped to second lowest in the country, due to low incomes and the high cost of living.
December 27th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
California’s 9.3% top bracket of personal income tax sucks a lot of money out of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, but drives out of the state a lot of rich potential residents who would otherwise live there. Very few golf pros, for instance, live in California. For example, life-long California resident Tiger Woods moved his official residency to Florida on the day he turned pro in 1996. I’m sure Tiger would prefer to live on the beach in California with low humidity and mild summer temperatures, but he’s cheap, so he moved to Florida to avoid the state income tax.
December 27th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
California has a bunch of problems, but there are three major ones.
1. The 2/3 budget requirement. Even though Democrats are only 2 or 3 seats from reaching 2/3 in each chamber, it’s still enough to cause endless budget woes.
2. The proposition system. It takes a 2/3 vote of the legislature to balance a budget by raising an extra million dollars in taxes; it takes a simple majority vote to amend the Constitution.
3. The size. California’s an exceptionally large and diverse state. The Central Valley is not the Bay Area is not LA is not the Inland Empire. Bakersfield has much more in common with Oklahoma than Long Beach, and Shasta much more in common with Idaho than San Francisco. This drives the kind of extremism you see in the California Republican Party, instead of a more moderate Republicanism you’d see in Northeastern states.
Prop 13 sucks, but other states have things similar to it without having a totally dysfunctional state government.
December 27th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I am not sure how to say this, but the reason proposition 13 was even possible was because of some addle-brained decision from the California Supreme Court. Yes Senescent, I am aware of the tax assessors’ angle, but to me it seems like that is simply an accessory to a much more potent source of resentment: i.e., suffering tax increases and having all that money shipped out of town.
As always, there is a humour factor: the same court system that sparked the whole series of events by legislating economic equality (or economic justice, as some would prefer) from the bench is now suffering from the effects: the lack of funds for a proper appellate court building. Talk about un-intended consequences.
December 27th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
So folks, it seems to me that there is a lot more wrong with Californian government than just obscure tax policy
December 28th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Er, no. Obviously not. Why are you under the impression Matt made this claim? Do you have a cite? but myhome is http://www.makkale.blogcu.com
December 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Bakersfield has much more in common with Oklahoma than Long Beach, and Shasta much more in common with Idaho than San Francisco.
This is also true, and anybody who says, “Gee, I thought California was a liberal state” doesn’t understand this fact. There are also a lot of conservatives in Orange County and San Diego.
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I am from Turkmenistan and , too, and now am writing in English, give please true I wrote the following sentence: “Ltima edici n – de find cheap airline tickets and flights from corpus christi to syracuse, event tickets and more.”
Thanks
. Marcello.
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