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If Prop 13 goes, each city or county would be able to set its own tax rate. That would allow cities and counties to compete by either lower tax rates to attract people who want lower taxes or raise tax rates for those people who want more government services.

I take it you don't have much of a memory for how high those rates got. In my county, they reached 8.5%. I want you to imagine paying a local tax bill of $75,000 every year. That's what we would face at current valuations... except that our house is paid for. We are approaching retirement. We would have to sell. That is what was happening when Prop. 13 was passed.

So, I don't buy your case.

I lived in Colorado for some time. We did not have Prop 13. I was able to afford my taxes.

The vast majority of states don't have anything like Prop 13. When you see ads for homes in other states they tell you the price of the home and the local tax rates. If you can't afford the price or the taxes, then you look elsewhere.

In Boulder County, in order to keep seniors from fleeing as taxes increased, they allowed the seniors to pay less than what they owed while in their homes. When they passed on, their children could either pay what was owed and keep the home, or sell the home and use some of the proceeds to pay back what was owed. This was a good compromise in my mind.

How would you like to pay a Mello-Roos fee? A fee that is not deductible from Federal Income Tax? That is what I have to do because the Dems who were unable to increase taxes were able to pass legislation that allowed cities to impose fees on new owners.

Now the situation is even more unfair. Someone who purchased a home in my neighborhood a year before the imposition of the Mello-Roos fee pays a lower tax AND pays no Mello-Roos fee. I have to pay a higher tax (based on a higher appraised value for a similar home) and I get to pay Mello-Roos.

How fair is it that corporations can sell their properties to other corporations in such a way that the property doesn't have to be reappraised, but individual citizens like you and me can't? There is corporate owned property that has passed through various owners that is still being taxed at the rates when Prop 13 first went into effect.

My feeling is that if corporations weren't getting the benefits they do from Prop 13 they would fight harder against all of the other nonsense that Sacramento sends their way.

In any case, the vast majority of the benefits of Prop 13 go to corporations. The largest chunk of the small remainder of benefits goes to those homeowners who purchased their homes before or soon after its implementation.

Hardly a model for free market incentives that are supposed to apply equally to all market participants.