Proposition 13 is not California's problem, read this if you are interested.
http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/afb/archives/034048...
The San Diego Union Tribune is a right wing knee jerk paper. Any commentary in it should be taken with a grain of salt.
You are incorrect, it is capped at a 2% increase per year and of course is reassessed at 1% of the total property value when the property changes hands.
Of course proposition 13 lowers the income from property taxes for the state, that is the point of it. Do you think the state deserves more than a 579% increase in revenue from property taxes since 1980? No other tax has increased as much.
The truth is the California government doesn't know how to spend within its means. Why do you believe we would be in better shape without prop 13? I'm sure we would have simply increased spending and leveraged out the state more. With the devaluation of homes it would have just hit us harder, representing a larger percentage of our income.
It is easy to claim California would have more revenue without prop 13. That is a prima facie argument. What you need to do is prove that taxpayers should have paid more, that California is responsible enough to have handled the money, and that the burden should be borne disproportionately by property owners more than it already is.
Actually, the rate can be higher. The rate in Santa Clara county is over 1.5%.
Note that folks who bought more than a couple of years ago will see a property tax increase this year because their assessed value is still lower than their market value. Folks who bought recently are getting a huge cut.
The net result is that property tax revenues are fairly stable.
In the past, huge run-ups in property values did not result in lower rates - the local govts got huge revenue increases. When property values crashed, they raised the rates to maintain steady revenues.
That's simply not true.
CA's spending has increased 20+% more than population and inflation since 2005 or so. Initiatives are not responsible for a significant fraction of that increase (and most of them are self-funding).
Note that the amount of the increase since 2005 is roughly equal to the deficit, so cutting back to then would balance the budget.
I'd argue that none of the new programs and increases since 2005 have been a significant benefit. Those who do think that their new program is essential are invited to find some pre-2005 fat to pay for said program.
As far as the problem being obvious to "everyone not in Sacramento," clearly you are wrong because here we are, and the voters of California played an active role in bringing us here.
I have a friend who recently bought a house and his property taxes are like rent, it is just that expensive. He could rent a 1 bedroom apartment with his property taxes.
Money is coming in but as you said, too much money is being spent (through ballot intiatives (high speed rail for example) and the legislature gone-wild. But I believe that the gone-wild days have come to an abrupt end and mostly thanks to Schwarzenegger who has nothing to loose by being rational.
Yes, his property taxes are probably higher than they would be without Proposition 13, because he's subsidizing those around him who have owned their homes for twenty or thirty years, and aren't paying their fair share.
If property taxes on residences are too high, they should be lowered across the board. Of course, this means that either spending will need to be lowered, or the money will need to be gained through some other form of taxation.
California's problem is that we keep on spending money like it's flowing in like water, yet the flow was greatly reduced 30 years ago with the passage of proposition 13. Instead of trying to live within our means, we voted people into office who either wanted to spend more, xor reduce taxes and then we made the problem much worse by passing a slew of costly initiatives without being willing to raise the money to fund them fully. So here we are. The governor screwed us, the state senate and legislature screwed us, but ultimately, we screwed ourselves, and now we're going to have to pay for it.
As someone who lived most of my 38 years in this state, went to UC, and has the joy of living in one of the most beautiful places on earth, it makes me profoundly sad to see what we have done to ourselves.