zlacker

I’ve seen people point to prop 13 as a cause of the budget deficits. Not sure how much any of this goes beyond hearsay, but it is much harder to run a deficit when your tax base is decentralized and fixed. The core idea of prop 13 was to cut income and let spending figure itself out separately. The widening budget deficits in CA happen in the aftermath but maybe that was just the consequence of the same fiscal irresponsibility that motivated the tax cut.

>>blulul+(OP)
The cut was to benefit landlords, especially those who owned apartment complexes.

>>IOT_Ap+yc
The majority of voters were homeowners back then. It was created and passed to benefit homeowners and preserve existing communities. But the bigger issue is that there was a flavor of magical thinking among conservatives that cutting taxes would cut spending (starve the beast). Naturally one proved more popular than the other with the electorate.

>>blulul+(OP)
Writing as someone who actually live and voted in California in 1978, the core idea was that seniors were being forced to sell their homes because real estate values and taxes were rising faster than their fixed incomes could support.

The Jarvis Foundation promoted it as a cost containment measure after the measure had been qualified for the ballot.