California crashing

The property tax situation in California is complex.

Because of our boom-and-bust real estate cycles, prior to Proposition 13 (which limits property taxes to whatever you were committed to paying upon purchase, plus I think a 1% increase a year) many people found their property taxes quadrupling because of price increases in the market. Unfortunately a quadrupling of the (theoretical) price of my home does not, in itself, confer on me the ability to pay such a huge increase, since the chance that my salary has also magically quadrupled is quite small. If market values behaved rationally this might not present as much of a problem as it does, but here, they don't.

Prop 13 has introduced, however, further complexities into the market. People who buy homes and stay in them for a long time pay taxes at a rate far below that paid by people who bought more recently. That in itself might be OK, but it does form a substantial disincentive to sell one's home and buy another. Thus the market has become somewhat "sticky," with results which would be better evaluated by an economist than by me. Because property tax revenues are limited, California has a high, progressive income tax, a very good thing in itself in my opinion (since it taxes the very people who do have the money to pay), but an income tax is also very sensitive to economic downturns such as the present one.

(People say that income and sales taxes are "dependent on economic prosperity" which I think translates out to, tax people who do have money to pay the tax, which ought to be a good thing, I'd think, as opposed to taxing people who do NOT have the money to pay.)

But it's pointless to whine about all of this. Prop 13 is quite popular among California homeowners, just as rent control is popular among renters; neither one is likely to be revoked, even if both are outstandingly bad ideas.

James P. and Maeb

The illegal alien question is a tricky one. I live in, not "pass through," an area in CA on the border of the US/Mexico where the top industry is agriculture. The following comments are based on my observations and also those of Mexican-born and Mexican-American friends and co-workers, and are in response to Maeb's questions about aliens financially burdening education and healthcare resources in this type of area.

I see how much the industry depends on alien labor - legal or illegal. I also see how education and healthcare are burdened, if not abused. Numerous families have their kids cross the border and attend K-12 local schools (one family will buy a house on the US side, just to have a US address for school purposes), overburdening them with students who don't speak English and, for the most part, never bother to learn it well because of the local culture. At least a couple of my Mexican-American co-workers are unhappy with the situation, including the abuses regarding finanical aid in higher education.

A friend of mine who works in emergency room admissions at a local hospital sees illegals get free medical care all of the time, thanks to California State, in addition to seeing the legals who go to the emergency room (paid for by CA State) at a higher cost for things as trivial as a headache and such (seriously), when these same people could have gone to a doctor's visit for much lower cost. But they're not paying the bill, so they abuse the system. She sees this on a regular basis, with some of the offenders showing up in the emergency room at least a couple times per month. Keep in mind this information comes from my friend, a Mexican-born woman (now naturalized), a single (divorced) mom who is barely making ends meet on $11/hour and who is too proud to take public aid. She is disgusted at how our system is abused.

I'm certainly aware that abuses, here or elsewhere, are not limited to any one particular ethnic group. I'd support comprehensive crackdowns on abuses across all racial/ethnic/gender lines. (Easy to say, of course; I'd love to say I have a plan for this, but I don't.) However, as this post is California-specific and Maeb's comment focused on agricultural areas, I'll say it's the Hispanic population within my local demographics that appears to be at the forefront of burdening state and local resources in terms of education and healthcare. Question is, do the decreased labor costs outweigh the education and healthcare costs? Doubt it.

Erica,

"Wonder if the anti-SSM crowd realizes how much gay weddings could have helped California's economy."

I'm with Denton. First, state fees and money spent on "Industrial Wedding Complex" sized festivities for gay weddings wouldn't save CA's budget problems. Second, I'll bet our gay brothers and sisters are feeling the employment and economic crunch just like the rest of us; so, even if they could get married, do you think they'd be crazy enough to spend Industrial Wedding Complex sized dollars, pumping them back into the economy? I'm guessing many of them would spend less. I've seen articles on how couples are spending less on weddings in these times. Makes sense. I can't see how gay couples would be very different.