Liberal Democrat State Senator Christine Kehoe is right — well, at least about one thing. In today’s Wall Street Journal, there is a sizable article on A3 entitled, “California Ponders Who Should Pay Firefighting Bill.”
The piece talks about the rising costs to the state to battle fires (a 41 percent increase over a year ago).
Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed a statewide property tax on ALL residential and business properties to raise $130 million annually. The key word in the preceding sentence is ALL.
In the article Kehoe says that people that choose to live in fire-prone areas should be paying the freight. I agree.
And so does the Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, who is quoted in the piece saying, “Because the state provides a service – fire protection – that directly benefits a particular group…it is appropriate that those beneficiaries pay for a portion of the state’s costs for fire protection. “
Put in another way, someone who chooses to live where fire risk is low should not be paying to subsidize the riskier decision of another to live in a high fire risk area.