readingatwork posted:

To be completely fair Prop 13 came about for legitimate reasons. For the uninitiated before prop 13 property taxes in CA were based on a home's current value rather than what you paid for it. This was fine until property values started going up at an insane rate and all of a sudden people found themselves taxed out of their own homes through no fault of their own. Prop 13 protected homeowners from this by basing these taxes on the value at purchase and limiting increases to 1% yearly (unless you sell the house of update it). This sucks for the general fund and it lets the wealthy get away with murder, but at the same time I'm not sure I'd want to own a home in this state without it.