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Do you know any neighbors or relatives or friends who you think are benefiting from prop 13? I do. I see them everyday. Many of them pay a fraction of what I pay and I know new home owners will pay more than me.
Those before me also make a lot less and non inflation adjusted income than I do and the kid next door whines about making ‘only 500k’ as joint income and lives paycheck to paycheck. Because two kids.
The problem is not prop 13. The solution doesn’t lie with prop 13 either. Both of them are with California budget and its allocations. The solution lies in LOWER taxes, not higher. The solution lies in local governance and not regional governance. The solution lies in weaning off the teat of Sacramento that itself is attached to the bosom of the likes of highly taxed Bay Area enclaves and figuring out economic opportunities for every part of California. The solution lies in keeping home prices stable and not allow it to fluctuate. The solution lies in NOT concentrating jobs and earning potentials in small high density enclaves. The only advantage of high density high income cities is that they can be taxed heavily.
Because asset valuation is a function of the GDP and economic health/vigor AT THE TIME of sale. For most people, it’s mortgage debt that demands interest. Which itself fluctuates with the health of the country.
And it happens at Wall Street. You know what else happens at Wall Street? The money that comes back as pensions and 401k. The unions and pension funds and insurance companies invest in Wall Street. The whole thing is a like a pit of vipers all entwined and tangled. If you stick your hand into the viper pit, it’s not the vipers that will be bitten.
We should look to stabilize the property market and stop treating housing as a speculative asset. Instead people are lathered up into a frenzy to attack those who they imagine have an unfair advantage over them.
I know homes that have been bought sight unseen by foreign home buyers who rent it out and flip it to buy multiple properties in 4-5 years. In my neighborhood. Tax them! Maybe we should ban foreign investors and speculative investors who treat our housing stock as a gambling chip. That would be a better strategy to deal with California’s housing woes.
But wait! Try. Just try suggesting it at your city council meeting. Try to move it up to your county seat. Try to make it a bill or a proposition. The blinds will come off our collective vision about the nanny state of CA when we actually hold our politician and elected leaders accountable.
But take heart. You will fail. Because they don’t work for you. You work for them.
A proposal: instead of twin cities all over the world, we should be twinning cities within California to avail more economically developed cities to assist less advantaged regions in California. Having a mentor-mentee relationship and sharing resources between two counties is more viable and sustainable. Results will be quicker and more transparent. We can become one truly golden state because we helped each other.
We should all strive to be Robin Hood. Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men did not..as most believe..’steal from the rich and gave it to the poor’. He took from the tax collector and gave it back to the people. We need Robinhood. Not Karl Marx.