Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

My sister lives in Houston (well, Sugarland technically), so I'm well acquainted with the metro area. It's a very different lifestyle. The housing stock in the Bay Area is uniquely terrible - most of it is 3BR Eichlers that were mass-produced in the 60s. But people don't spend all that much time indoors. Pre-COVID, my wife and I were out every weekend to museums, hiking, the beach, picnics, restaurants, etc. There are 4 parks within walking distance of my home, 2 commercial downtowns, then the mountains are 5 minutes away, the beach 20, SF 30, SJC 30, the Bay 5, etc. And the weather cooperates - it's a consistent 70 and sunny for 8 months out of the year. Meanwhile, my sister's place is 50% larger for a quarter of the price - but it better be, because it's 100 degrees with sweltering humidity for 8 months out of the year. They need to take a highway onramp to get anywhere. They have no friends, because everyone they meet is so far away. Downtown Houston is a little different (my sister went to Rice, Rice Village is pretty nice), but also a completely different story in terms of housing prices - you start seeing million dollar homes once you get to the downtown areas of Houston.

Different strokes for different folks. We could've purchased my sister's house for cash at the time they bought it. I floated the idea by my wife, and she was like "But then we'd have to live in Houston!"

Really? It's almost the end of 2020 and California hasn't passed a single tax increase. Let's look at 2020 ballot measures:

* Requires commercial and industrial properties to be taxed based on market value and dedicates revenue? REJECTED

Source: https://ballotpedia.org/California_2020_ballot_propositions

And legislation?

* AB 2088 - Wealth Tax? REJECTED

* AB 1253 - Tax rate increase on taxpayers making over $1M? REJECTED

* AB 398 - Headcount tax on businesses with 500+ employees? REJECTED

Source: https://blog.armaninollp.com/tax/2020/09/08/ca-legislative-s...

FWIW, Democrats have held a supermajority (>= 2/3) in both the House and Senate all year long.

english is not my first language. economic literacy wrt this topic seems irrelevant.

>After Prop 13 passed, a big chunk of the state revenue was tied up in propping up local governments.

wrong. property taxes are diverted to the state's public education program through a complicated set of formulas called LCFF.[1]

it collects all the property taxes. dumps them in a big pot and redistributes them. for example: an affluent bay area neighbourhood's property taxes will go fund a farm labourer community in central california. 44% of state income goes to public schools. you wont see a dime of it to pursue any of the above stated goals. what is the point in unhousing and imposing punitive taxes on the senior population who have worked hard to buy their homes.

if they are paying low taxes, it automatically means that they bought it years ago. the solution is to regulate housing prices and engage other controls and processes so housing costs dont spiral out of control due to speculative housing markets.

>It will also encourage development (new property developers will no longer be disadvantaged vs. existing landowners), bringing in more money (and reducing blight) and reducing the need to tax individual earners even more.

how? how will increasing taxes on older properties that are still housing original buyers and havent been resold.. 'encourage development' without UNHOUSING existing people with fixed incomes who are already living there.

i think the word you are looking for or didnt mention is 'gentrification'.

people with income and those who consume should be taxed. if someone earns 200k as a FAANG employee, they shouldnt be given more tax breaks than a 70 year old senior houseowner on a fixed income. you are asking that prop 13 punish older houseowners so they will be forced to give up their residences to fund the younger citizenry.

those who consume from smart phones to game consoles to electric cars should be taxed for their higher consumption.

those who have children should be taxed because the children consume resources and need to be educated. the peers of parents should share the burden. not the generation that has already done it's part and is getting ready to retire.

people should be taxed on income. if at all. people shouldnt be taxed because they are old and have fixed immovable assets.

your comment suggests that we should 'reduce the need to tax individual earners' more and by messing with prop 13, you want to increase the burden of taxation on NON EARNERS with non income producing fixed assets. homes are not for income generation or speculative purposes or tax cows.

your proposal wants to add tax paying seniors to the throngs of drug addicted, mentally ill, financially insolvent people, unfortunate people who are already housing insecure.

and we will spend more money on social programs to house them. unless you are hoping that the high taxes will drive them away by making them sell their homes and they will move elsewhere. because the younger generation cannot live within their means and are financially illiterate?

no.

[1]https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/lc/

Today the same engineer at a FAANG would make about $300k. Houses are about $2M and interest rates are about 2%, so relatively speaking things are cheaper. However, unlike in 1993, today's salaries are unlikely to grow by 10x over the next 30 years while the mortgage is paid off!