Posted 3:14 PM by Floyd

A quarter century ago, California voters approved Proposition 13, which limits the increase in value of an assessed property to 2% per year. Prior to Prop 13 skyrocketing real estate prices had caused people on fixed incomes to be assessed out of their homes.

Every year or so liberal newspapers like the San Jose Mercury News feel obliged to pillory Prop 13 for its supposed ill effects on schools and other tentacles of state government. (Never mind that the state of California spent a stupendous 101 billion dollars in its latest fiscal year. This is the Golden State analogue to P.J. O'Rourke's observation that it's hard to feel sorry for poverty that wears $150 tennis shoes.) Here is an afterecho of one such round of Prop 13 bashing, from the SJMN letters page:

WITH California in a financial crisis, eliminating Proposition 13 is a hot topic these days. Instead of throwing it all out at once, I suggest we adopt a simple and more feasible solution.

The maximum tax increase for a property today is 2 percent annually. Let's change that number to 8 percent. No one's taxes will double in a year, and no one will have to move. An 8 percent increase is not extreme and should be acceptable to long-term homeowners.

The tax system won't be fair right away, and schools won't be well-funded right away, but things will get better every year. In five or 10 years, we should have a fairer tax system and better schools.

Bob Kochenderfer
Cupertino

Sneaky beaky! No one's taxes will double in one year; instead, at a 8% rate of increase, they will double in 9 years. California's poor and seniors thank Bob for his generosity; I assume he will help them all move out in the year 2012.

And here is some wisdom from the Rocky Mountains:

For the past 10 years, I've been living happily in Wyoming. Property tax rates are much lower than in California. Why? Because everyone pays them, not just the unfortunate suckers who have recently bought.

I shudder to think about how little understanding one would have to have of politics to think that the difference between tax rates in California and Wyoming stems from their means of taxation.