Proposition 13 does not target the elderly. It gives tax breaks to all property investors, including corporations and (due to Proposition 58) inherited estates.

[1] No doubt fanned by the usual anti-government, anti-civic rabble rousers that would eventually come to completely dominate politics.

Another way to determine who it targets is to suggest repealing it and watch who complains the loudest.

1) Elderly who bought early pay low tax, elderly who bought recently pay high tax

2) Younger people who are also rich pay high tax, but can afford it, and it is proportional to the amount of services they are receiving

3) Younger people who cant afford these property taxes are priced out of the area.

I feel like a clean repeal of Prop 13, while it would be good for California overall, just isn't possible.

What I would like to see is: -Prop 13 applies applies to only your lived in primary residence. This applies to new buyers as well. -Commercial and Investment properties have a 10 year sunset clause. That is to say property taxes go up to market rate over a 10 year period. (i.e. first year you're paying 10% more...then 20%...etc) up until year 10

I don't even think THAT is politically feasible here though, and I'm a home owner.

It's ironic that most of the people complaining about Prop 13 driving housing prices up are oblivious to the fact that they, if not born in the bay area, are the sole reason for the astronomical housing price increases. Housing is expensive in the bay area for one reason, more people want to live here than there are houses available. How about addressing the real root cause and implementing a new resident tax? We can use the proceeds to pay for affordable housing initiatives.

My opinion is that Prop 13 provides useful planning benefits to property owners and municipalities, and the rate of increase could be adjusted to still give those benefits, without having quite the same distortion. 5% annual assessment increase cap would probably be much too high, but 3% or 4% might be enough to stay within throwing distance of current values.

As a soon to be former CA property owner it was nice to be able to know for sure my taxes would basically grow at 2% once prices started climt. Municipalities could count on property tax revenues staying flat or even continuing to grow during the housing market collapse because so many owners had their assessments constrained, and many of the sellers had assessments below even the depressed market value. Having constrained assessments also reduces the burden of assessment appeals, which I've heard is significant in locales without constraints.

Prop 13 is framed as something for the rich because it's for the rich and it's the rich who benefit.

As awkward as it is, the purpose of property taxes is to keep land economically productive. These policies are needed to enable governments to provision services and at least slow down the hereditary growth of wealth. If you can't afford the house, that's the policies working as intended. It's time to sell and get something you can afford.

Real pain, and the empathy and compassion that respond to it, do not always justify a change in public policy. Especially in a place like California, where we tend to enact that wonderful empathy and compassion as half-assed public policy that transfers wealth from the young to the older.

If people are worried about high home and property tax prices, isn't it time for them to move to an area they can afford?

Empathy is a powerful emotion, but not a good way to get to sound policy. It's rarely difficult to find a way to evoke empathy on any side of any given issue.