A few days ago Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1482. Under this new law property owners across the state cannot increase rent by more than 5% annually. David Chiu (D-SanFrancisco) authored the bill and stated “Our bill ensures tenants are protected against rent gouging …”
I won’t comment on whether I believe this is a good or bad bill because it’s irrelevant to the point I want to make. What I WANT to do is draw attention to the sheer hypocrisy of the governing body of California.
Let’s break this down.
In 1978 a landmark bill named Proposition 13 was passed by California voters. The bill limited the government’s power to increase property taxes to 2% annually. At the time, California County Assessors were pricing people out of their homes with re-assessed home values to try to increase their revenue. Although the government aggressively fought to defeat the passage of this bill … the voters prevailed.
Essentially, it was a law to prevent government from gouging property owners.
California government has constantly tried to repeal or knock down Prop 13 because it dramatically decreased the amount of revenue they can collect from property owners. Now the California Government has a ballot measure on the 2020 ballot to reform Prop 13 to re-assess commercial properties every three years thus creating a windfall in revenues for the State … at the expense of property owners.
In case any of you are having a hard time spotting the hypocrisy … let me spell it out for you. Apparently the government doesn’t like limits being put on it’s ability to collect revenue but they have no problem putting limits on their constituent’s ability to collect revenue. California is trying to get rid of the limit put on them while concurrently putting limits on property owners. I’m no scholar … but that sure seems to be the definition of hypocrisy to me!
Obviously a huge increase in rent is a problem that many people can’t afford. So, on it’s face, the bill seems like a good idea but it goes against free enterprise. I understand that something needs to be done to prevent people from their rent skyrocketing but when you have government stepping in and placing limits on property owners while at the same time trying to strike down a law that puts limits on the government … it just seems a little hypocritical.
Now looking towards the future …
Am I the only one nervous about the Government’s attack on Proposition 13!?
There is no limit to the amount of money the State Government wants to collect from it’s tax payers. What’s worse is that the majority of Californians take joy in fucking themselves over. There was already a state gas tax that goes to pay for roads … but it wasn’t enough for our money hungry state politicians … so they proposed another tax and it passed! Where the fuck are these Californians that keep voting for more taxes!?
Honestly, I’m a bit nervous about this ballot initiative to reform Prop 13 because I don’t have any faith left in my fellow Californians! They seem to be the easiest group of people to dupe! A $9-billion dollar bond Californians passed in 2008 to build a bullet train! Has anyone taken a ride on that bullet train yet!?
The government says it will only reform Prop 13 to affect commercial properties. Yeah, right! … and I’m holding the winning Lottery ticket for tonight’s drawing. Maybe they’ll start with that but once they earmark that money for some free program for illegal immigrants, they will be looking for another revenue source! You don’t think they are going to go after residential home owners when that time comes!?
How gullible are you? Rhetorical question!
TodaysPetPeeve 