State of ‘taxiness’
Despite Proposition 13, California is still wasting taxpayer money.
For 32 years, California's Proposition 13 has been denounced by everyone — except the people. Before the June 1978 vote on the ballot proposition to roll back property taxes and make it harder for assessors and legislators to raise taxes, the state's superintendent of public instruction warned that Proposition 13 would "do nothing short of destroying education in California." After its landslide 65%-35% victory, Pat Brown, the Democratic governor from 1959 to 1967, said Proposition 13 had "cut the guts out of a great government."
Late last year, writing in this newspaper, the liberal columnist Harold Meyerson blamed Proposition 13 for "the fiscal straitjackets that make California ungovernable today." The website of the California Federation of Teachers still asserts that "the real problem that needs to be addressed to solve California's budget problems is Proposition 13."
And yet, in a state with huge Democratic majorities in Sacramento, one carried easily by every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992, Proposition 13 remains "the third rail of California government," according to the political scientist Jack Citrin. Jerry Brown, who as governor in 1978 opposed the initiative before promising to make it work, recently said of his 2010 gubernatorial
For 32 years, California's Proposition 13 has been denounced by everyone — except the people. Before the June 1978 vote on the ballot proposition to roll back property taxes and make it harder for assessors and legislators to raise taxes, the state's superintendent of public instruction warned that Proposition 13 would "do nothing short of destroying education in California." After its landslide 65%-35% victory, Pat Brown, the Democratic governor from 1959 to 1967, said Proposition 13 had "cut the guts out of a great government."
Late last year, writing in this newspaper, the liberal columnist Harold Meyerson blamed Proposition 13 for "the fiscal straitjackets that make California ungovernable today." The website of the California Federation of Teachers still asserts that "the real problem that needs to be addressed to solve California's budget problems is Proposition 13."
And yet, in a state with huge Democratic majorities in Sacramento, one carried easily by every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992, Proposition 13 remains "the third rail of California government," according to the political scientist Jack Citrin. Jerry Brown, who as governor in 1978 opposed the initiative before promising to make it work, recently said of his 2010 gubernatorial
Late last year, writing in this newspaper, the liberal columnist Harold Meyerson blamed Proposition 13 for "the fiscal straitjackets that make California ungovernable today." The website of the California Federation of Teachers still asserts that "the real problem that needs to be addressed to solve California's budget problems is Proposition 13."
And yet, in a state with huge Democratic majorities in Sacramento, one carried easily by every Democratic presidential nominee since 1992, Proposition 13 remains "the third rail of California government," according to the political scientist Jack Citrin. Jerry Brown, who as governor in 1978 opposed the initiative before promising to make it work, recently said of his 2010 gubernatorial
