[Yen]

California's Proposition 13 law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13) "locks in" property taxes on homes at the time you purchase it. Most other states do not do this, the value of your home is re-assessed annually, and your property taxes are based on the current value of your home.

In general, home values have consistently increased, year-over-year, in California. This means that many people pay less property taxes than they would if California didn't have its unique Prop 13.

Many people feel that this is an unfair law, as it largely benefits people who are _already_ financially established.

This article satirizes the situation, by framing the law as an intentional 'welfare program', rather than a tax break with unintended consequences. Part of the humor is that this 'welfare program' benefits the wealthy at the expense of the poor, contrary to how we typically think of philanthropy.

[bombcar]

Many localities apportion property tax out of the budget, so if everyone’s property doubled in price but the budget only went up 2% - property taxes would increase 2%.

In fact, we had a reappraisal recently and my value went up and total tax went down.

[Yen]

Ah, good to know!

[Gibbon1]

> "locks in" property taxes on homes at the time you purchase it.

All real estate whether a 1200 sqft house owned by a 90 year old widow, a foreign owned apartment building, or an oil refinery owned by a multinational.

[lob_it]

After spending some time in SoCal, they do have to live "10 people to a three bedroom" to make the math work.

I was not impressed with much that I saw in Cali other than the natural beauty.

Even the education system established in the 20th century no longer exists.

It looks like California is running on fumes, not anything they made this century (IMO).

[ZeroGravitas]

Note, for historical perspective, California hasn't always been a solid Democratic state, most trace the recent Democrat domination back to a Trump-like nativist politician that pissed enough people off that the Republicans made themselves irrelevant in the state

https://www.cato.org/blog/proposition-187-turned-california-...

[jimmaswell]

Property tax is regressive and nobody should be forced out of their own home because of rising property taxes that might only be due to a housing bubble. I don't see the problem.

[medvezhenok]

Capping property tax increases is similar in effect to rent control; it benefits people that were already there at a given point in time and hurts everyone who moves in afterward (proportionally).

It's a move where the end-game is feudalism.

[kec]

Freezing property tax ends up being wealth redistribution from the entire rest of society to landlords as the article walks through. Second order effects also end up locking up the housing market as a whole and pushing prices ever higher making everyone worse off in the long run.

[dcow]

Then read the article. The problem is that in reality the money flows from low income to high income households. So it works the opposite of how you think it does.