The bulldozing of farmland in the Central Valley began long before Prop 13. In the 1950’s my family heated our house in Modesto with wood from productive orchards that were being bulldozed for development — if you cut the trees up, you could have the firewood free. My parents went from living in the country to being 5 miles inside the sprawling city in 15 years.

How must the Oregon state legislature respect a voter initiative? The reason why voter referendums are crippling California is they are very hard to override and have no sunset clauses. California is very different today from the 1970’s when Prop 13 was passed. Does Oregon have any sort of sunset clauses, or can the legislature override it because it is not practicle?

Prop 13 not only had an effect on California’s school, but also on the layout of its cities. A while back Richard Florida posted a study by the Brookings Institute that found the majority of jobs were moving into the suburbs. Elizabeth Kneebone, who authored the study, found in California, caps on property tax forced municipalities to promote execessive development in order to maximize property. Towns are basically bulldozing every open spot of land in order to collect more property tax revenue.

I think many of the problems, like Prop 13, were initiatives rather than referendums. I’m not sure about California, but the Oregon initiative system has been distorted beyond recognition by paid petition gatherers which the State Supreme Court has labeled free speech. All kinds of alarmist initiatives get on the ballot with millions of dollars behind them and get passed with scare tactics. Much of this is beyond the control of the political parties. The legislature is basically powerless, since any tough decisions are going to be challenged by initiative.

A few years ago I was visiting my mother in Modesto and saw she had a bumper sticker that said “save our homes”. I asked about it, and it was opposing a property tax levy for schools. I said “your property taxes are almost nothing, this doesn’t threaten your home”, which she acknowledged but she had been scared by the direct mail propaganda.

We spent the weekend with my wife’s sister & her husband who live in Chico. They were saying the same thing about the need for a new California constitution. It’s not only 130 years old, but has hundreds of amendments which make it incoherent and unworkable. The US Constitution is over 200 years old and still works, but is hard to amend.

One of the worst effects California’s Prop 13 had on the state was it led to the overuse of public referendums. Both political parties are guilty of abusing referendums. Democrats would get social programs through the legislature by using public referendums, while Republicans will get their tax cuts through the public referendums. Obviously people will vote for tax cuts and programs. As a result there would be low revenue with high expenditures.

California has other problems as well, such as the legislature needing 3/4 majority in order to pass the budget. Term-limits and over gerrymandering have basically killed any sense of cohesion in Sacramento. Especially since the state is so diverse. The state needs to reconstruct its political system. According to former governor Grey Davis-who was kicked out by a recall-”in theory the state is governable”.

The state needs a new constitution that reflects the realities of today, rather than of 1879 when it was ratified in its current form.

Texas is different from Florida in the sense that it has industrial centers. Austin is a major hub for the IT industry, University of Texas in Austin has a reknown computer science department, and has a thriving arts scene. Houston is a hub for the energy sector, not just oil, but also companies that invest in renewables also set up shop in Houston. It is because the state has real industries, thus the state can weather the financial storm the country is in.

The oversupply of homes is very unique to Florida and areas which only has cheap land to offer investers, such as California’s Inland Empire. This was only way for Florida to make money. Try to bring as many people as possible, so long as there are enough people coming in tomorrow, we will be ok today.

So what if retiring boomers are coming to Florida or Phoenix, they’re not going to start up companies, nor create industries. These states are going to have to rely on retirement packages and social security checks.

Deep,
the problem wasn’t demand, it was the oversupply (and that wasn’t unique to Florida). You are correct that Florida has had a brutal real-estate correction, high unemployment, but I think you are missing the appeal of nice weather for all those boomers who are just beginning to retire.

More importantly though, I wanted to point out to you the contrast between Texas (who is doing well all things considered) that uses a sales tax instead of income tax, versus California. If you can’t see the obvious benefits of a simpler tax structure to fund the government, I guess there’s nothing left to say…