Amend Proposition 13: Protect Seniors AND Restore Educational Funding

Amend Prop 13: It can protect seniors and return California to educational excellence while more fairly collecting the State's taxes and restoring fair markets to the portion of our real estate that is not inhabited by seniors.

Prior to Prop 13, California had the highest-quality public education system in the country which was the envy of all. Now, California is ranked dead LAST among the states for educational spending (where is the 'fat' in that?) and the public education that is provided is mere shell (no PE, no music, no libraries, no computer labs, no art, deteriorating campuses, large class sizes, etc)

Prop 13 was conceived to protect seniors from being driven from their homes by rising property values once they were on a fixed income (presumably over 65). Instead, not only are seniors given the benefit of Prop 13 tax reductions, corporations, heirs, and many, many people of tremendous wealth also are sheltered from paying market value property taxes that used to support our school systems.

Here is an example of Prop 13's unfairness:

Younger generations can inherit the Prop 13 valuation of their parent's or grandparent's property, thus contributing a pittance in taxes while still being eligible to utilize all of the public resources of their neighbors who are paying market value property taxes. Even worse, the heir does not even have to occupy the inherited property. S/he can rent it, thereby giving this income property an unfair advantage in competition vs. other landlords. There are many ways that Prop 13 deforms the fair and competitive markets for real estate. In this way, Prop 13 has created a 'landed class' of preferential tax treatment similar to the colonial 'land grants' that were preferentially distributed by the King of Spain to his nobles.

Moreover, Prop 13 tax benefits/reductions are provided to Corporations as well--WHY? Who does this benefit? This was not the intent of Prop 13 and should never have been a part of the law. It was a clever Bait-and-Switch by monied interests to defraud California citizens of their public educational system brick by brick, year after year.

Warren Buffet recommended to a former CA governor that Prop 13 be amended but instead that governor stuck his head in the sand and called Prop 13 'the 3rd rail'. After 33 years, it is clear that Prop 13 has created an unfair tax system, preferentially benefitting the wealthy, and while it protects seniors (as it should), it has stripped California residents of one of their most valuable and worthy public institutions.

Prop 13 should be re-written to protect seniors and seniors only. Market-value property taxes should be returned to corporations, non-original owners of property (i.e. heirs), and to income properties. Of course, Prop 13 has created so much market distortion in its 33 years that this would have to be phased-in over some years but I'm certain that California, as a whole, will benefit in the long-run and cheer that some sanity was finally returned to our tax system and some investment returned to educating the next generation.