Joe Matthews has an outstanding column up at Fox & Hounds. It seeks to isolate the question of property taxes, and whether Prop 13 is the best resolution. And to address this question, Matthews pulls out the ol’ WWMFD question – What would Milton Friedman Do?
Matthews has an interesting position from which to comment, primarily because he conducted an interview with “Uncle Milton” in 2004, just two years before his death. He has some pretty choice quotes from that interview on the question of Prop 13:
When the subject turned to Prop 13, which he had strongly supported in 1978, Friedman said he thought the measure had proven to be “a mixed bag.” He did not regret his vote for Prop 13 because it had sent a tax-cutting message that was important for that time.
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But as a matter of current policy, he said, Prop 13 was problematic. “It’s a bad tax measure because the property tax is the least bad tax there is,” he said. “Think of the original and indestructible properties of the soil. The least dangerous and harmful tax is a tax on something of which there is an inelastic supply.” He argued that protecting Prop 13 was far less important than cutting other taxes, particularly on the income and sales we need more of.
See, the thing with the Republican Party today is not they are principled conservatives ideologically opposed to progressive goals. That sort of logical consistency would block much good progressive legislation, but it wouldn’t have lead us to the free-fall in which we currently find ourselves. Protecting Prop 13 no longer has anything to do with conservative goals or low-tax policy, but it has everything to do with a mindset. From Matthews:
Yes, it’s conventional wisdom that raising property taxes is politically impossible in California. But why is that true? It’s true because California’s conservatives and Republicans have become a party of no. If a proposal increases taxes in any way, they’re against it. In doing so, they ignore the teachings of an economist that they claim to revere.
For more than a generation, conservatives have protected the “least bad tax” to the exclusion of all else. So even as income and sales and all kinds of taxes – with their negative effects on the economy – grow (they’re up again this year), the Prop 13 tax limits remain sacred.
Principled conservatism is frustrating, but you can predict principled conservatives. You can work with principled conservatives. However, you can’t work with a Zombie Death Cult, hell bent only on their own bizarre politics while entirely ignoring good policy
Many people will stop reading this comment because I’m about to drop the ‘f’ bomb. But take a look at fascism.
It links to an article that makes the very cogent point that fascism differs from communism, socialism, classical liberalism, modern liberalism, anarchism, tory conservatism and just about every other
ism in that it doesn’t even purport to be based on any kind of intellectual foundations. In fact, the point is that it is antiintellectual. Thinking just gets in the way of the nationalist (or whatever group) ideal. It gets in the way of dominance.Personally, I think the modern conservative movement used the facade of a few late 20th century intellectuals–including Friedman, Ayn Rand, et al.–to cover a thinly veiled unity of corporate and racial interest. (This libertarian group’s intellectual forebears was so far out of the mainstream in the 1940s because they, among other things, actually opposed World War II) It just so happens that those intellectuals’ ideals tend to skew the rules of the game in favor of the people who already are “haves” (as opposed to say, John Rawls, who wants to set the rules of the game without reference to a starting position) and so it was always just a marriage of convenience.
Sure, there were some people who had a strong intellectual affinity for the kind of elegant mechanical workings of the invisible hand and social Darwinism, but it would never have gained traction as a political movement if it didn’t (arguably coincidentally, arguably not) favor the “ownership society” of whites and corporations.
Because this attachment was only–like I said–a marriage of convenience, once the so-called conservative intellectual principals started working against this arrangement (see, for example, Barry Goldwater’s pro-abortion and pro-gay rights views towards the end of his life) and the out groups started winning from time to time even by these rules that gave them a reverse handicap from the beginning, and the tether between the right wing and these intellectual principles became threadbare.
Once it became mainstream within the conservative movement to reject science–global warming, environmental issues, etc.–the alarms should have sounded. Now, not only is the movement untethered from any intellectual foundation, it is based on rejecting them. Conservatives know they are lying–or bullshitting–about Obamacare killing Trig Palin. But that’s why they cheer it.
You can be the judge of whether this portends an f-word uprising or not. Personally, I think these people are in the process of jumping the shark, but pointing out their hypocrisy vis-a-vis their supposed intellectual founders…well, it’s just par for the course since retard Bush became their leader.
So what’s a good liberal to do? I’ve been one for my whole life; quit the Democtatic Party some years ago because they weren’t/aren’t liberal enough…and yet I support Prop 13. Fiercely.
At the time of the vote on 13, I didn’t see any other way to stop the legislators from draining the citizens dry. They didn’t seem to have the interests of the citizens at heart and my only thought at the time was to remove this far too easily accessible source of cash from their grasp. I feel exactly the same today. The legislators haven’t changed and so, consequently, neither have I.
What I wanted at the time (and still do) was a fair tax on corporate property. But how can that happen?
The problem, is the fact that the corporations have the same status and protection afforded a citizen. When it comes to property taxes, the citizen and the corporation stand together. A mistake that happened a long time ago and I don’t know how we can remedy that. But someone should be thinking about it instead of condemning Prop 13 which was meant to protect the homeowner.
…both Republicans and movement conservatives are driven primarily by the desire to defeat and destroy liberals and progressives. They want to lay waste to our ideas, our politicians, and our organizations and institutions.
Theirs is not an intellectual movement, nor is it a movement that values consistency and logic. The only unifying thread they have is the motivation to smash anything to their left.
Unless you can show me how I can afford to keep my house — bought in 1983 — under a Prop 13 revision, even a longtime progressive, such as myself, is going to be very skeptical of any change.
I am not saying I would oppose it, but I want to KNOW the impact on affordability of taxes on my house. I have worked for 35 years and been unemployed for 15 months. I am NOT prepared to see my taxes double triple or go up fourfold.
I am sure there are progressive solutions, including deferral until sale, or death. But this is a real issue that cant be ignored, regardless of what renters and recent homebuyers think. That is, unless you are prepared to risk splitting off folks such as myself.
I would prefer to support a reform, but not at the risk of my home.
fix this first:
our so-called progressive income tax:
people earning 47k
pay 9.3%
people earning $1 million
pay 9.3%
then it goes up a 1% and runs forever……
Principled conservatives also support things that liberals support as well such as choice, gays in the military and the legalization of drugs. Let people lead their lives as they wish.
The inconsistency of the new conservatism is mind boggling. Especially when these guys talk about individual freedom and their right to do what they please but they talk about Government impinging upon those rights. What about the corporations that impinge on our rights?
The thing that both the free market and government share is that corrupt people corrupt systems.
But it’s impossible to argue with people who refuse to see these connections, that deny that private insurance gets between doctors and their patience all the time, deciding a course of treatment based on the bottom line rather than what is best for the patient. They DENY this exists.
I’ve had the most absurd arguments in the past few days about things like cash for clunkers and the massive tax breaks to small business people who bought huge SUV’s on my dime. Oh but you know, it’s okay if those people create jobs.
HUH? How do people get to those jobs? They have to DRIVE to those jobs, so they don’t deserve breaks?
I’ve come to the breaking point, to how absurd it all is and how it’s about profit, the I’ve got mines and nothing else. The market can’t solve every problem just as Government can’t solve EVERY Problem.
I’m so frustrated it’s not even funny anymore.
Nobody has painted a clear picture of what repealing Prop 13 would look like. Does it mean assessing homes at 1% of market value on an annual basis? Then property tax revenues would have been nearly as volatile as income tax revenue the last few years. Does it mean assessing at 2% (3%, 5%, 7%, etc) of purchase price? That doesn’t change the structural problem, it simply means government gets more money to paper over the problem for another decade or two.
Our good friend the property owner raises a valid and critical point. Just how will Prop 13 repeal be implemented for existing homebuyers? Any proposal that leads to immediate massive tax increases will be DOA. I also believe people will remember the property bubble of the past decade, and will calculate how any proposal we put forward would have affected them during the housing boom.
Right now I would settle for a split-roll on all non-residential property, with some sort of safeguard for small businesses, and restoring the right of local government to pass and adopt property taxes of their own. Yes we can collect the parcel tax, but if cities, countied and school districts could place millage taxes on the ballot as well, we might reclaim local control.
I’d hate to put the burden on renters. Even If we restrict property tax increases to strictly commercial property, the cost will be passed along to consumers.
There will be objections to that, but a Value-Added Tax will have exactly the same effect. Salaries will have to go up, too, but life will net out being be a little more expensive for everyone.
My feeling is that life should be a little more expensive for everyone. And in exchange, life should be safer, cleaner, healthier, less-polluted, more just, less uncertain, and more compassionate.
We’re a “commonwealth” society as well as an “ownership” society.