Prop. 13 or Bankruptcy
Some judges may find themselves working from home:
"I've been on the bench for 23 years, and I've never seen anything like this," said David G. Sills the presiding justice for the Fourth District Court of Appeals, Division Three."
Some say answer: is to end prop. 13, which "was cleverly designed to make it virtually impossible for California to raise taxes...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."
Others say, "We have reached the tipping point and fell over. This is the right time for the State to declare bankruptcy, defeat those that approve of illegal tax increases--which if enacted will bring about more unemployment--and repeal those laws that kills jobs and growth."
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Economic Alert is a daily blog on business and the economy in the San Gabriel Valley and beyond, featuring updates and observations from the staff of the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. SGVN includes the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News and Whittier Daily News.
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Kevin Smith is business editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Over the past 15 years, Smith has covered development, housing, employment, technology and financial trends for a variety of newspapers.
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Ryan Carter covers business and the economy for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.
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Your hosts:
Kevin Smith is business editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Over the past 15 years, Smith has covered development, housing, employment, technology and financial trends for a variety of newspapers.
Ryan Carter covers business and the economy for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group.
Proposition 13 was enacted 30 years ago. Just what percentage of properties in California are still covered under prop.13. Definitely not enough to make a difference in the state budget. I would guess that most of the people who live in homes benefiting from prop. 13 are owned by senior citizens. You take away prop. 13 and you will be taking away many of their homes.
All properties are covered by Prop. 13, because it limits tax increases on all properties. In particular, nearly all commercial properties are still going to be assessed on their original ca. 1978 baseline because most businesses lease rather than own the property under their stores/offices. So even when old businesses fold and new ones open, their property is not reassessed. Businesses are hiding behind the skirts of senior citizens to keep their taxes lower than they should be.
Also, the 2/3 majority makes it very difficult to raise taxes to pay for things like school maintenance. So, instead, schools float bonds (which only need 55% approval). They're borrowing for maintenance because they can't get approval for a tax increase to do that. This doubles the cost of maintenance because you need to repay principle and interest. That's a bad business model.