I want you to close your eyes and picture

a quiet, upscale residential neighborhood anywhere in California.  Wait, make it somewhere in Los Angeles County.  Nice houses, but not mansions.  Depending on where you are imagining this, the houses might be worth $250,000 or $750,000.  Let's split the difference.  Close in on two houses that are side by side.  Both are worth $500,000, both are about the same size, the same age and the same everything.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones live in the house on the right.  Mr. Jones inherited the house from his father, who inherited it from his father before him.  The Jones family paid $20,000 for the house back in 1960 and in 1975 its assessed value was $50,000 as property values had risen dramatically in the 15 intervening years.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith live in the house on the left.  They bought their home five years ago for $600,000 and have seen its value decline by $100,000.  They are upside down on their mortgage.

Their property tax bills that are due on December 10th have just arrived.  Let's look at them.  Mr. and Mrs. Jones got a bill for $312.50, half of their annual property tax of $625 based on 1.25% of the assessed valuation of $50,000.  Mr. and Mrs. Smith got a bill for $3,125, based on 1.25% of the assessed valuation of $500,000.  That's the net impact of Proposition 13, known as the "third rail" of California politics.  Oh, and Proposition 58, which exempted property transfers between parents and children from causing a reassessment of a property's valuation.  And Proposition 193, which did the same for transfers of property between grandparents and grandchildren.  I'm sure someone out there is working on another proposition that will exempt property transferred between any blood relatives whatsoever.

All of you who fervently support these propositions should consider that this inequity is the primary reason that California is rapidly going broke.  Oh yes, the too rich public employee pensions, government spending on things we don't need, like billions for a high-speed rail system that doesn't have a target market to make it self-sustaining and the like are factors.  But the primary factor is that the property tax base of the state of California doesn't support the cost of K-12 education and other tax revenues are being diverted to make up the difference.

I can see that there is an argument to be made for keeping the valuation low for the generation that owned the property in 1975.  But there's no argument for passing the valuation on generation after generation.  Imagine what this disparity would look like 100 years from now, if nothing is done.  It's not a pretty picture.

There are solutions.  The fear that people will lose their homes because they can't pay their property taxes can be addressed by allowing the difference between the Prop 13 tax amount owed and the amount that would be owing under the present, accurate valuation, would be simply added to a property tax lien recorded against the property each year.  When the last of the couple that owns a home passes on, the heirs can either pay the property tax bill off, and accept a valuation of market value on that date, or sell the house.  Then the property tax bill owing would be paid off from the sale of the house.

Yes, this might prevent people from passing their house on to their kids.  But the present system doesn't work.  It creates unequal treatment which is supposed to be illegal in this nation, although the Supreme Court has ruled at least once that Prop 13 does not violate the 14th Amendment.  Perhaps it's also time for someone to challenge that ruling again, after the election and two new SCOTUS appointments are made.

I don't want to see a single person forced out of their home because they couldn't pay their property tax bills.  Particularly in an economy that is creating far too many foreclosures already.  But this is a problem that isn't going away.