Re: question on constitutional changes

["David B. Shemano" <dshemano@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim Devine writes:

>> the power structure can definitely affect the results via the media,
>> but the example of Prop. 13 (1978) suggests that populist anti-media
>> efforts can be disastrous. After all, the Big Media did not like Prop.
>> 13, while Howard Jarvis and his followers did not like the Big Media.
>>
>> I think that the problems were more structural: I read this "tax
>> revolt" as a right-wing revolt in response to the failures of
>> capitalism.
>>
>> Back in the 1970s, the big problem for most people was stagflation
>> (which I see as caused by the fall in the profit rate after the
>> 1960s). Incomes were falling behind inflation for a lot of people.
>> More specifically, inflation was encouraging the prices of houses to
>> rise steeply, which meant a larger property _tax obligation_. (The
>> state government could have been a bit more moderate here.) The fall
>> of incomes relative to tax obligation for home-owners meant that a lot
>> were threatened with the possibility of having to sell their homes,
>> just to avoid taxes that they couldn't afford. Others simply found
>> that they were being squeezed by taxes. All of this encouraged the
>> revolt of the largely white, largely suburban, middle-class
>> home-owners. Demagogues such as Howard Jarvis joined the revolt and
>> turned it into a bigger movement, which imposed some other silly
>> initiatives on the state government.

The notion that Prop 13 was a "right-wing" revolt is preposterous.  My father, a dyed-in-the-wool Roosevelt democrat, was an adamant supporter of Prop 13.  Because of inflation and other factors in the 1970s, California real estate prices began significantly escalating, and property taxes were being assessed based upon the appreciated, but unrealized, valuations.  This was a lethal combination for the lower-middle class and retirees, whose income did not match the home value appreciation.  There was definitely a class conflict in my neighborhood over Prop 13 -- the homeowners and retirees on one side, and government workers, such as teachers, on the other side, but it could not be fairly characterized as "right wing/left wing."  Remember, Prop 13 passed with over two-thirds of the vote, a truly amazing level of support.

The other major cause of Prop 13, which Leftists usually ignore, is that the California Supreme Court had ruled a few years earlier that it was a violation of equal protection for school districts to be funded by local property taxes.  Therefore, the property tax collections were effectively centralized in Sacramento and then redistributed.  As the increased property tax collections did not stay in the local communities, there was no incentive for property owners to support higher property taxes.

David Shemano