David B. Shemano wrote:
>> My father, a barber who never went to college and die hard Roosevelt
>> democrat who would never vote Republican, was a strong Prop 13 supporter.
>> The inflation of the 70s caused assessments to skyrocket, which meant that
>> people like my father, who had no cash but paper capital gains on their
>> house, were in real danger of losing the house. I was 13 years old at the
>> time, and remember the debates well, which I would characterize as a class
>> war between the middle class private sector taxpayers and the middle class
>> public employees.<<
Michael Perelman wrote:
> David, the most powerful interests often acted as if they were speaking for
> the middle class, but that was pure pretense. You are absolutely correct
> that there were inequities in the property tax, but Proposition 13 was a meat
> ax aimed at the entire fiscal system.<
The powerful interests appealed to the short-term interests of the
middle class ("get a tax cut now!"), but went against the latter's
long-term interests (say, in having half-decent public schools, ones
significantly better than in Alabama). By the way, there were a lot of
powerful interests -- e.g., the Bank of America -- who opposed Prop.
13.
--
Jim Devine / "If heart-aches were commercials, we'd all be on TV." -- John Prine
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