> the entire ballot initiative process is actually a mistake

It is also arguably un-American. I thought the whole idea of having a representative government was so the common citizen didn't have to deal with the tedium of actually governing, so we elect people to govern in our stead. The fact the us Californians were expected to have opinions on props related to dialysis clinics in 2018[1], 2020[2], and 2022[3] should be a prime example of this. I have no idea what those props were supposed to do. All I know is the only reason I am being asked to weigh in on them is because someone with money was finding it too hard to pass whatever law they wanted through the legislature, so they tried to circumvent the normal legislative process by coming to us directly.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_California_Proposition_8

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_23

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_California_Proposition_29

As a resident of a nearby state whose real estate market keeps rising because of the steady flow of people forced to leave California because they can't afford it, my favorite of the dumb propositions that is destroying California is Prop 103. Among other complicated things it specifically enumerates what tools homeowner (and auto) insurance companies can use to set rates (global climate catastrophe models? Not a thing when they voted in 1988, so now they can never be used). It also created the Consumer Intervenor process so it takes about two years for a rate hike to be approved, and companies have to prove that they are only using the approved methods and nothing else. This is the reason the California homeowner's insurance market is in grave danger: the company runs the "real" model which tells how much they will pay out in damages over the course the rate period, then they have to figure out a way to justify it to the (as a result of the prop, now elected) California Insurance Commissioner in the face of the Consumer Intervenors (who get their costs, expenses, and attorney fees covered out of the company pocket if they win and the rates aren't approved). If the company doesn't think the lines cross, then they don't offer insurance and start to withdraw from the market. This is why California's homeowners insurance market is so dysfunctional, because of a proposition that passed 35 years ago with 51% of the ballot but now effectively cannot be changed or amended.

Of course, to vote on this, you have to live in the state, and doing that is tough because housing is expensive, because NIMBY homeowners made it illegal to build new homes, because they don't experience the pain of rising property prices in their taxes, because of prop 13.

There are around 40 million people in California. What's hard is that a fair solution to Prop 13 is difficult. You can't just shut it off suddenly or even gradually over a decade because people will lose their homes en masse and property values and current mortgage rates combined make it very difficult to move, and just about impossible for the seniors who Prop 13 was supposed to help. You have to carve a solution very carefully not to screw over a large segment of voters.

Or all the renters can get together and decide to screw over the owners; fuck 'em 'cause they're old anyway. That's certainly a possibility. However, expect your children to treat you the same way.

> What's hard is that a fair solution to Prop 13 is difficult.

I don't think its that hard.

> You can't just shut it off suddenly or even gradually over a decade because people will lose their homes en masse

Eliminate the 2% per annum assessment increase limit entirely for properties transferred after the date of the change. In

Phase it out gradually for other properties but, for owner-occupied primary residences (covered or not) apply the original 2% limit formula as a limit on nondeferrable property tax, allowing deferment of the excess with the state acquiring, in lieu of payment, an interest in the property in proportion to the ratio of the deferred amount to the assessed value (the full tax should decrease as the state acquires interest, but the limit on the non-deferrable amount should not), which the owner can repurchase on the same bases any time before or at transfer.

You could even add an additional limit so that the nondeferrable amount increases at the lowest of 2% or the rate of inflation or (and this is the new bit the owners average annual rate of increase in taxable income over the preceding three year period.)

Seniors don't get forced out of their homes (and not just during a transitional period), and taxes are assessed at full value, and commercial, industrial, and vacation real estate stops getting taxpayer subsidies “justified” by stories about fixed-income senior homowners being forced out of their home.

Some things in policy are hard, but lots of time “its too hard” is really “I don't want to do it, but can't argue against it directly.”

> You can't just shut it off suddenly

Everyone who says this is pushing a false dichotomy. The two solutions are not "create a landed gentry who pass preferential tax rates to their genetic offspring" and "kick grandma to the curb and throw sand in her face while twirling your mustache".

Many other states have allowances/exemptions for a single owner-occupied "homestead" to prevent older people from losing their homes. Just copy their homework. Under those schemes you don't stop owing property taxes, but (with some variations) you can defer them until you sell the property or pass away. And it is beyond sick (and anti-American and probably unconstitutional) that the Prop 13 tax preference can be inherited by children and grandchildren.

The only "problem" with those schemes (from the perspective of Prop 13 proponents) is that they do not allow the creation of a class of "petite nobility".

Didn’t California already have a homestead exemption and a senior exemption?

https://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/homeowners_exemption.htm

https://www.boe.ca.gov/news/2021/NR-21-02.htm

I don't know. Every grandma who got an education in the 70s is doing extremely well right now, much better than lotterying into a house that cost $15,000 and is now worth $1.5m. If you got an education as a doctor, you got a lot more money than that $1.5m (and then, when you sell, you still need a house, and prices have risen everywhere you want to live), but more importantly, you were educated!

I feel for the grandmas who want to live in the same place forever and also did not get educations so were left behind. It was a complicated time. Everyone deserves a community, but maybe not the same community.

> "petite nobility"

The guilded professionals are the petite nobility. The parents of the students in these articles: like, they had a choice. They could fund their schools better and they chose not to. And given that same choice, those same students, they are now adults, and again, they choose not to. Which community do you want to be a part of?

Inheriting the tax has been phased out, unless you make the house your primary residence (which of course many people might choose to do, but it still is stricter than it was until recently).

As long as you make the house your primary residence for like 2 years and then you're free to rent it out with your super low tax rate

I thought you lost it once it ceased to be your primary residence for people who interrupt e after 2023? As dumb as prop thirteen is I'm curious since I may wind up in this situation

Property tax revenue in California is $83.1 billion

It has 40 million residents (who cares if they're citizens or owners or not) - for $2075 per person.

Take another state (I won't even use New Jersey as the highest) - revenue in Texas: $73.5 billion. Population in 2021: 30 million - 2450. Slightly higher, but not much. Texas has no income tax.

Let's take Illinois: $33.8 billion - population in 2020: 13 million - 2600.

I don't think California's woes can be adequately explained by Prop 13.

However, you could fix most of the problem by making commercial property no longer subject to Prop 13.

I see California collected 69.3B & 65.5B in 2021 & 2020 respectively [1] and Texas collected 73.5B & 70.5B in 2021 & 2020 respectively [2]. This leads to more like $1732 for California & 2450 for Texas which is ~40% higher per capita in 2021.

[1] https://bythenumbers.sco.ca.gov/Raw-Data/Property-Tax-Raw-Da...

[2] https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/docs/96-172...

Interesting. I used https://www.boe.ca.gov/news/2023/NR-23-04.htm

if someone is underutilizing an asset like land, to the point that they wouldn't be able to flow enough cash to pay fairly assessed taxes on it, maybe there should be an incentive to sell, rent out, or refinance the property. Lot of empty nesters knocking around 4br homes in the Bay, maybe it's ok to stop subsidizing them. If all else fails, they're sitting on a million+ dollar asset that should keep them living quite well for the rest of their lives, even if they take that cash and grab a nearby condo.

That’s why Germany hasn’t introduced it after WW II.