☆ Leaders oppose SJ City Council's tax-raising schemes
Howard Jarvis after California Proposition 13 victory by Wikimedia Commons
Community political watcher Tobin Gilman recently broke the story of how SJ's City Council has overwhelmingly approved recommendations about State legislation that would, in Gilman's terms, constitute a "Stealth Tax Hike Agenda" for San Joseans. Pat Waite, head of Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, comments and finds the council's decision-making misguided and counterproductive—and the latest in a history of efforts to circumvent Prop 13. An Opp Now exclusive.
From Tobin Gilman's Medium account:
While most of the policies in the city’s updated legislative agenda (Ed. note: this means policies the city lobbies for in Sacramento) are mundane, reasonable, and non-controversial, there are a handful of major policy positions the city has embraced that many residents might find shocking. Among them:
Support for a proposed statewide measure (ACA 1, Aguilar-Curry) that abolishes the 2/3 voter approval threshold for tax hikes. In addition to supporting this legislation that would undercut a core component of Proposition 13, the council passed a resolution earlier this year to oppose a citizen’s initiative that protects and bolsters Prop 13. It’s called the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (TPA) and will be on the statewide ballot in 2024. By supporting ACA 1 and opposing the TPA, the mayor and council are attempting to make it substantially easier to raise taxes and impose new taxes.
From Pat Waite:
Since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, California politicians have schemed to circumvent its restrictions. This scheming frustrated Californians so much that they overwhelmingly approved Proposition 218 in 1996. The supporters of Prop 218 pointed out that “local governments have subjected taxpayers to excessive tax, assessment, fee and charge increases that... frustrate the purposes of voter approval for tax increases.”
Well, here we go again. Politicians are hiding behind the canard that ACA 1 brings power back to the voters to provide financing options for affordable housing and public infrastructure. But voters already have that power. ACA 1 simply makes it easier for advocates to pass measures for such projects by reducing the threshold to pass tax increases to 55% from today’s two-thirds requirement.
California has thrown billions of dollars at our homelessness crisis to no avail. Why should we double down on a strategy that has so far failed so spectacularly to alleviate the problem—and one that is so reliant on taxpayer-funded subsidies?
A look at the supporters of ACA 1 tells you something about their motivation. A notable proponent is NPH Northern California (NPH standing for “Nonprofit Housing”), a consortium of nonprofit and construction entities including the Santa Clara County Housing Authority, Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley, Destination: Home, the City of San Jose Department of Housing (!?), and a long list of contracting companies. I suspect that their support is more closely linked to their desire to keep the funding spigot for affordable housing projects wide open, rather than their desire to alleviate the suffering of people unfortunate enough to find need for the housing services that they offer.
Read Gilman's full Medium post on Stealth Taxes here.
For more on Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, click here.
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