Michael Hiltzik: Taxpayer 'protection' or taxpayer 'deception'? A new ballot measure aims to destroy the California state budget
It's indisputable that the decline of state fiscal management in California began with the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978.
The tax-cutting initiative upended the tax structure that provided most of the revenues needed by localities and school districts, undermining the locals' control of their own spending.
It was sold to voters as relief for beleaguered middle-class homeowners, but that was largely a scam: The chief beneficiaries have been the richest homeowners and commercial and industrial property owners, who have received billions of dollars in property tax breaks at the expense of residential owners.
So it may be unsurprising that the heirs of Proposition 13's proponents are trying to pull another fast one on California taxpayers.
Their tool, pushed chiefly by the California Business Roundtable, apartment developers and others of that ilk, is the so-called Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act.
The Business Roundtable spent $6.375 million in 2022 pushing the initiative and an additional $770,000 last year; about $310,000 came in 2022 from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., named after the chief promoter of
