Overturning of Prop. 13 sought in lawsuit (California)

[schmice]

79. Maybe if you had read all my comments on this thread

you would have realized that I was talking about the politicians and the bureaucrats who have a way of dissipating the money earmarked for the poor and needy before it even gets to them. To say that I don't care about anybody but myself if I defend Prop. 13 is untrue. You are either not from California or else you are too young to remember why it was overwhelmingly passed. There was a time before the election when Prop 13 looked like it was going to be defeated. Tax bills were ready to be sent out but Mr. Pope tried to put the mailing off until after the election so that the voters wouldn't know about that. Somehow, some of those tax bills with their incredible hikes for ALL people were accidentally sent out before the vote. There was a scandal about that and people realized that they would not be able to afford such a tax hike and were in danger of losing their homes. We aren't talking about the very wealthy. We are talking about many of the elderly and people on fixed incomes. They felt lied to, betrayed and realized that they were being played. Prop 13 passed overwhelmingly. The politicians were spending money freely and in many cases unwisely and people just revolted.

Your statement that I cheer for massive spending on megaprisons which are mostly just concentration camps for minor drug offenders of color is the farthest thing from the truth. My job is to keep people out of prison. If you had read all my comments you might have picked up on that. Unfortunately, you just chose to shoot from the hip without putting anything in its proper context. I don't believe that people in possession of drugs should be jailed. It is a waste of resources and does not address the real problem which is addiction. As for people who deal hard drugs and help people ruin their lives, I'm not so sure. Drug dealers are a scourge to the community. When they enslave people to the needle or to the crack pipe and don't care except that they make their profit, I have a real problem. They are predators. On the other hand, imprisoning them and rendering them virtually unemployable isn't working either. When they get out, they are going to go back to the only trade they know will bring in an income. In the process, they will ruin more lives. Still, I will advocate zealously for them because even they deserve a strong defense.

I agree that Prop 13 has had detrimental effects. Many of those effects, however, might have been minimized if the politicians had realized that they had to come up with a coherent plan to govern in a fiscally responsible way. It is possible to do both.