Bending Prop. 13

PROPOSITION 13 AND THE TAXPAYER REVOLT it launched in 1978 have been politically untouchable for nearly three decades. The measure made it clear that Californians had lost faith in their government’s ability to tax and spend judiciously. It stemmed the revenue flow to Sacramento, to counties and to cities, but the hunger for California-quality services -- schools and libraries, hospitals and police, roads and bridges, parks and pools, even zoos and museums -- remained unabated. So voters began to selectively restore taxes, one at a time, for clearly delineated programs.

We have done it slyly, with one hand on the voting stylus and one over our eyes, to convince ourselves that we are not really rolling back Proposition 13.

With state bonds, for example, to build prisons and schools or to pay for seismic retrofitting, voters never notice the financial consequences -- not directly, at least -- because the investors who buy California bonds get repaid out of the state’s general fund, not our property taxes. But those bond payments leave our lawmakers with less money to pay for the services we continue to demand. We scold the Legislature for failing to balance its budgets, but at the same time, we approve new bonds for programs well outside the traditional bricks-and-mortar uses, like 2004’s $3-billion stem cell research bond.

We tax ourselves directly for some programs, like transportation. We expect our roads, highways and bridges to remain in good repair. So in 1990, voters doubled the gasoline tax. Loopholes remained, allowing Sacramento to divert transportation money for other uses in the event of fiscal crisis. But voters believed that their lawmakers were abusing their power to grab the money and passed a bevy of measures to make sure that the money remains essentially a user fee that can be applied only to transportation. A measure on the Nov. 7 ballot attempts yet again to guarantee this money is used for its intended purpose. But even if it passes, lawmakers will find other loopholes. That’s what legislators do.

We also impose new taxes on people we don’t like much, such as smokers, who foot much of the bill for indigent medical care that all of us once paid.

Now we are going beyond simple ballot-box budgeting and repadding our property tax bills, mostly with local bonds. Unlike deceptively pain-free state bonds, city and county debt to finance schools, libraries and police stations get charged to property owners.

Los Angeles County voters in 2002 imposed a new “parcel tax” to rescue the crumbling trauma-care system. Los Angeles city voters will be asked in November to impose a new property tax to pay for affordable-housing bonds. On the same ballot, voters statewide will consider a $50 parcel tax to renew the state’s once-great commitment to education funding.

As we gradually layer onto ourselves the property taxes we once slashed, we are compelled to reflect on what we are doing. We have distorted not just property taxes, but our entire tax and budgeting system. Our governance, in fact.

It’s foolish to pretend that voters would, or even should, roll back Proposition 13 in its entirety. But the debate is in some sense a false one because we’re doing it piecemeal already. In doing so, we are leaving a complex knot of special programs, hidden taxes, backfill funding and lost opportunities.

Some of this fall’s tax and bond measures may make sense, given our predicament. We must adopt new bonds and taxes to pay our bills, even as those measures produce larger bills down the road. But the time is near when voters and their elected representatives must have a frank conversation about untying the budget knot we began knitting together soon after adopting Proposition 13.