RE: Re: [Pen-l] California Fiscal Bait and Switch

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

Jim Devine and Doyle Saylor write:

>> > in addition, rising house prices and assiduous property assessors
>> > (trying to raise revenue for the financially-strapped state and local
>> > governments) led to soaring tax assessments, which squeezed a lot of
>> > home-owners whose incomes were not rising as quickly (e.g.,
>> > pensioners). This helped form a largely suburban base for the "tax
>> > revolt," which was exploited to the max by demagogues such as Howard
>> > Jarvis.
>> 
>> Doyle;
>> This is the point given to me by otherwise left leaning working class
>> people I know.  They needed relief from higher and higher taxes on
>> their home.  I figured that was shooting themselves in the foot, but
>> they wouldn't listen to that.  I suspect that was the potent 'anti-
>> tax' argument more that keyed to a budget surplus that could be re-
>> distributed to frightened home owners.

My father, a barber who never went to college and die hard Roosevelt democrat who would never vote Republican, was a strong Prop 13 supporter.  The inflation of the 70s caused assessments to skyrocket, which meant that people like my father, who had no cash but paper capital gains on their house, were in real danger of losing the house.  I was 13 years old at the time, and remember the debates well, which I would characterize as a class war between the middle class private sector taxpayers and the middle class public employees.

David Shemano
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