Jon Coupal is President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
Two weeks ago, the California Legislative Analyst released a report entitled “Common Claims About Proposition 13.” On balance, the report was a (mostly) objective view about California’s landmark property tax reduction measure.
As the title of the report implies, there are many claims about Prop 13, what it does and what it doesn’t do. In fact, we at Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association have collected a lengthy list of “myths” about Prop 13 that are deeply ensconced in urban legend. For example, the monolithic education bureaucracy repeatedly claims that Prop 13 starved public education in California. But the fact is that we now spend 30% more on a per student, inflation adjusted basis than we did just prior to Prop 13’s passage – a time in which there is broad consensus that education in California was the best in the nation. Whatever it is that caused the decline in the quality of public education, it certainly hasn’t been the lack of revenue.
The release of the LAO report instigated a great deal of reaction, ranging from cheers to jeers depending on one’s pre-conceived opinions about Prop 13. Every interest group, it seems, has cherry picked the report to confirm what they already believe. But objectively, for Prop 13 defenders, we see much in the report that supports what we’ve been saying for decades.
To read the entire column click here http://www.hjta.org/