Doesn't California actually have to be considered "together" before it can fall apart?

Nice to see fixing their stupid referendum process is on the list.

Speaking of supermajorities, why is it that Republicans want California to become a red state again? It's seriously their dream every election.

themindiswatching: Speaking of supermajorities, why is it that Republicans want California to become a red state again? It's seriously their dream every election.

Because, all the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray.

This should be... interesting

MorrisBird: themindiswatching: Speaking of supermajorities, why is it that Republicans want California to become a red state again? It's seriously their dream every election.

Because, all the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray.

And 55 Electoral votes

/on a Winter's day

Anyway, I can definitely see the Democrats farking this up somehow and causing another Proposition 13.

GAT_00: So I'm guessing Subby would also say the new Republican supermajority here in TN is bad too, right? After all, they have enough power they can suspend the normal rules of order and do whatever the fark they want.

Or the one here in WY.

No, we can still blame Prop. 13 and Grover Norquist.

This state has been continually f*cked by a pack of scared retirees in the '70s, and the assholes that pandered to them, because inflation would totally last forever, so we can never, ever adjust property taxes or reassess old properties.

kmmontandon: No, we can still blame Prop. 13 and Grover Norquist.

This state has been continually f*cked by a pack of scared retirees in the '70s, and the assholes that pandered to them, because inflation would totally last forever, so we can never, ever adjust property taxes or reassess old properties.

Most of those retirees from the 70s are long dead. When a property is sold, it gets reassessed and taxed thereafter at current market value. About the only thing I can see left of Prop 13 is the cap on yearly increases (which is moot since property values have decreased lately), and the really stupid part about commercial property taxes

/what do you think we should change?

MaudlinMutantMollusk: About the only thing I can see left of Prop 13 is the cap on yearly increases (which is moot since property values have decreased lately), and the really stupid part about commercial property taxes

/what do you think we should change?

Remove the 1% property tax rate cap, lock the yearly increase cap to CPI and make Proposition 13 only apply to residential property.

Massachusetts has had a Democratic supermajority for a long time. I think the majority will be 37-3 and 127-33 next session. What happens is, the Democrats split into factions. You might call them progressive and traditional, but don't worry too much about the labels. One of the factions chooses a Speaker of the House, who decides how much taxes will go up. The Senate president has a say too. The rank and file mostly do what the boss says. As in parliamentary systems, occasionally they are allowed to vote their conscience instead of following orders.

The last effective thing Massachusetts Republicans did was side with the minority traditional Democrats to block a progressive Speaker. It was like 50 traditional Democrats, 70 progressives, and 40 Republicans. Republicans added their votes to traditional Democrats' to install Thomas Finneran as Speaker. People disagree about whether he was better for Republicans. He was eventually indicted for obstruction of justice, pleaded guilty, was sentenced to probation, and became a talk show host.

And it's true that nobody blames Republican legislators for Massachusetts' problems. It's also true that being a Democrat means you can screw up the state as much as you like. They don't fear being voted out in favor of Republicans. Personal misconduct, drunk driving or drunk groping, is a problem. Professional misconduct and mismanagement is not.

MaudlinMutantMollusk

According to a quick Google, California voters passed a law exempting property inherited from parents from reassessment. How many children and grandchildren of 70s retirees are still living in the family house, nearly tax free?

ZAZ: MaudlinMutantMollusk

According to a quick Google, California voters passed a law exempting property inherited from parents from reassessment. How many children and grandchildren of 70s retirees are still living in the family house, nearly tax free?

Probably some. I did for a while, but it wasn't exactly tax-free. I just inherited the then current tax rate and got the 1.whatever% annual increases while the values were going up. A lot more people who inherited under those circumstances sold while the market was good, so the tax values got reset anyway

themindiswatching: MaudlinMutantMollusk: About the only thing I can see left of Prop 13 is the cap on yearly increases (which is moot since property values have decreased lately), and the really stupid part about commercial property taxes

/what do you think we should change?

Remove the 1% property tax rate cap, lock the yearly increase cap to CPI and make Proposition 13 only apply to residential property.

Works for me

/but then, I'm no longer a property owner, so I shouldn't have much of a say in the issue

I'm hoping for an oil extraction tax. We'll see.

Should be interesting the next few years. Surely the population of California will plummet as people flea the state... amirite?

theknuckler_33: Should be interesting the next few years. Surely the population of California will plummet as people flea the state... amirite?

I'm hoping...

/I'm hoping
//go ahead... make my commute easier
///I dare you

MaudlinMutantMollusk: Most of those retirees from the 70s are long dead. When a property is sold, it gets reassessed and taxed thereafter at current market value. About the only thing I can see left of Prop 13 is the cap on yearly increases (which is moot since property values have decreased lately), and the really stupid part about commercial property taxes

/what do you think we should change?

Except it doesn't just apply to "retirees from the 70s," nor does the fact that property values have decreased "lately" wipe out 30 years of untaxed value increases.

I'll use myself as an example. Property tax in California is assessed at 1% of assessed value. My home is probably worth, in today's market, around $400K. A couple of years ago, it was probably worth $550K. So my tax should be, what, $4000/yr?

That's less than what my neighbor's property tax is (even though her house is smaller and with less than mine), because she bought hers about 2 years ago, and it was reassessed then. Mine's only about $1700/yr, though, because I bought mine in at the bottom of the market in 1997 and paid only around $130K, and due to Prop 13 the cap on increases hasn't even remotely kept up with the value. How is it fair that my neighbor (a senior citizen, incidentally--the group that Prop 13 was sold as protecting) pays $4500/yr for her smaller, lower value house, whole I pay only $1700 for mine, solely by virtue of when I bought it?

My situation is not the exception--it's the rule. If it weren't for Prop 13, taxes could be equalized, and the percentage rate could be lowered, though based on current value--old farts who owned their home a long time would have a somewhat larger bill, but younger people and other newer buyers would see large tax decreases, and revenue as a whole would increase.

Then, of course, there's the problem that Prop 13--which was sold as a way to keep grandma and grandpa in the family home, also applies to commercial properties. Not only that, commercial landowners completely avoid reassessment even on sale of the property. The do this by holding title in the name of a corporation or other fictitious entity, and instead of selling the "property" they sell 100% of the shares in the holding company (whose only asset is the building). So if the biggest skyscraper in town at 1 Main Street is "owned" by "1 Main Street Management, Inc.," the buyer simply buys 100% of the shares (and assets) of "1 Main Street Management, Inc.," and there's been no change in the title of the property, and thus no transfer of ownership or reassessment under Prop 13 standards. It's a farking scam.

Because California gets little of its tax revenue from property tax--a very stable source of revenue regardless of cyclical economic trends-it's forced to rely on higher income tax and sales tax sources, which are highly dependent on boom-and-bust economic cycles. So when the economy crashes and there's more of a need for government services, California has a lot less income, which puts the state into a double dip death spiral.

Prop 13, more than any other factor, is killing this state.

unit63: In ca a supermajority is required to raise taxes, which is a huge part of the reason why the state continually lurches from one fiscal crisis to another for years on end with nothing getting structurally fixed. The republicans have never even entertained the idea of raising taxes to go along with spending cuts. It's the model of the 2010 Congress, yes, but in CA we've been stuck here for decades now.

Yeah... we missed that in our changes to Prop 13 ideas

/I'm not sure I like the idea of a simple majority rule, but the 2/3 thing hasn't been working well at all
//how can we fix that? Set some other percentage as minimum?

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said it would create a dangerous, one-party rule and leave California "very close to becoming a banana republic."

And I'm sure he'd say the same thing about a GOP supermajority, right? Right?

Actually, California just voted to raise taxes. That's right folks. We realized we would have to cut expenses and increase revenues to fix our economy so we did it. And what starts in California...

Cyberluddite: MaudlinMutantMollusk: Most of those retirees from the 70s are long dead. When a property is sold, it gets reassessed and taxed thereafter at current market value. About the only thing I can see left of Prop 13 is the cap on yearly increases (which is moot since property values have decreased lately), and the really stupid part about commercial property taxes

/what do you think we should change?

Except it doesn't just apply to "retirees from the 70s," nor does the fact that property values have decreased "lately" wipe out 30 years of untaxed value increases.

I'll use myself as an example. Property tax in California is assessed at 1% of assessed value. My home is probably worth, in today's market, around $400K. A couple of years ago, it was probably worth $550K. So my tax should be, what, $4000/yr?

That's less than what my neighbor's property tax is (even though her house is smaller and with less than mine), because she bought hers about 2 years ago, and it was reassessed then. Mine's only about $1700/yr, though, because I bought mine in at the bottom of the market in 1997 and paid only around $130K, and due to Prop 13 the cap on increases hasn't even remotely kept up with the value. How is it fair that my neighbor (a senior citizen, incidentally--the group that Prop 13 was sold as protecting) pays $4500/yr for her smaller, lower value house, whole I pay only $1700 for mine, solely by virtue of when I bought it?

My situation is not the exception--it's the rule. If it weren't for Prop 13, taxes could be equalized, and the percentage rate could be lowered, though based on current value--old farts who owned their home a long time would have a somewhat larger bill, but younger people and other newer buyers would see large tax decreases, and revenue as a whole would increase.

Then, of course, there's the problem that Prop 13--which was sold as a way to keep grandma and grandpa in the family home, also applies to commercial properties. Not only that, commercial land ...

OK... your ideas for change, then?

/we've already covered removing the increase cap

This supermajority will last exactly as long as it takes for a splinter group of the majority party to realize that by threatening to vote against legislation they can force the rest of the party to send some pork bellies their way.

GAT_00: So I'm guessing Subby would also say the new Republican supermajority here in TN is bad too, right? After all, they have enough power they can suspend the normal rules of order and do whatever the fark they want.

4 years from now TN will be complaining that college acceptance standards are unfairly biased against their students.

MaudlinMutantMollusk: OK... your ideas for change, then?

/we've already covered removing the increase cap

The elimination of the annual increase cap and indexing it to CPI or some similar standard (with or without exempting commercial properties from Prop 13) pretty much makes prop 13 a moot point, because that's its centerpiece.

Works for me.

High Speed Rail everywhere!!!!

/seriously...hoping the LA to SF plan happens

California >>>>>>>>>>>>. Texas >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the rest of the shiat holes in the south.

Just FYI, people.