That is not the same as needing the opposing party in America’s duopolistic system.
On the other hand one really cannot be republican because of things like this: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/anti-trans-repub...
Not really, no - unless you mean in the sense that the Republicans and Democrats are controlled opposition for one another, in which case sure, but that's true nationwide.
> All I can say is this: somebody is pocketing this money. I don't know who, how, or why.
Who: landowners.
How: by artificially capping property taxes and pushing the burden onto the working class via income and sales taxes, and then using rent to capture money that should be going to said working class via wages and welfare.
Why: because they have a vested interest in doing so, and have the political influence to make it happen.
Solution: abolish sales/income tax, replace with 100% land value tax, disburse surplus as UBI. Would solve the vast majority of California's socioeconomic problems pretty much overnight.
The government could and should be pared down considerably if that's the case.
> and it's regressive
It's the literal opposite of regressive, especially when paired with UBI. The tax burden rests entirely on landowners, who already skew toward wealth; ownership of land value correlates strongly with net worth (and is indeed typically a major component of said net worth).
Meanwhile:
> VAT
That's just a fancy sales tax, with all the regression that entails. Bear in mind that the working class is spending a much greater proportion of its wealth on the very goods VAT taxes than the ownership class - which means VAT has in turn a disproportionate impact on the working class v. the ownership class.
With LVT, it's the other way around: the vast majority of people who actually work for a living either don't own any land value at all (and therefore ain't subject to LVT) or own sufficiently little land value for their tax burden to be less under LVT-as-single-tax than it would be under a system funded by income and sales taxes.
Yes, but the vast majority of that equity is in the house itself, not in the land underneath it. On top of that, land in the suburbs is not as valuable as, say, land in Downtown (which is a big part of why the house itself is most of the value of a typical home).
> Most wealthy do not have their wealth in land.
Maybe not directly, but indirectly the vast majority of their wealth boils down to land. Every skyscraper, every warehouse, every factory, every mall, all those consume large swaths of typically-valuable land. In short:
> LVT would mostly fall on middle class homeowners, not the wealthy.
It would mostly fall on whomever owns the most land value - and that is overwhelmingly massive corporations and rich people. A middle class homeowner owns a tiny amount of land value in comparison - certainly far below their equal share, and therein lies the rub: 100% LVT disbursed directly, evenly, and entirely as UBI serves as a self-balancing system:
- If you own less land value than your equal share, you're paid for it
- If you own more land value than your equal share, you pay for it
Homeowners in California largely own less than their equal share of California's total land value; unless you own a single-family home in Downtown SF or something, you're highly likely to come out ahead under LVT+UBI. The lion's share of land value ownership is corporate - and it's accordingly that lion's share that would bear the vast majority of LVT.
Lets take just example from this week: an announcement was made stating that the construction of a tiny house costs $1,600 per square foot [1]. All I can say is this: somebody is pocketing this money. I don't know who, how, or why. Regardless, it's clear that this money is going to someone, and that someone is not homeless.
[1] https://sfstandard.com/housing-development/a-builder-convert...