Elizabeth Lesly Stevens has done some good work on the insanity of Prop. 13. Check out this, and this, and this — all of which say, more or less, that rich people are getting a great deal under the tax law, and aren’t paying their share.
Correct. Well said. Good points.
So why did she decide to take a cheap shot at the one local politician who’s actually trying to do something about it?
A column that ran in the New York Times July 3 talks about Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who is leading an effort to reform the worst parts of Prop. 13 — the loopholes that allow commercial property to avoid reassessment, costing the state and local government tens of millions of dollars or more a year.
And what does Stevens, who based on her past writing clearly agrees this is a problem, have to say? Well, she says Ammiano is courageous for taking on the issue — then tweaks him for having a low, Prop. 13-protected assessment on his own house in Bernal Heights:
Yet the feisty Mr. Ammiano is quiet as a church mouse about altering the residential protections of Proposition 13 — of which he is a signal beneficiary.
Mr. Ammiano, who is also a comedian, pays just $530 a year in taxes on the Bernal Heights home he has owned since 1974. As far as the city and Proposition 13 are concerned, his house is worth $45,600. Zillow estimates its current worth at $645,000. At that value, the tax would be about $7,500.
That’s all perfectly true. It’s also true that Ammiano is (a) not rich and (b) has spoken for years of the need to reform all of Prop. 13, not just the commercial loophole he’s going after right now. I’ve known Ammiano a long time — and I can tell you that, since the days he was on the San Francisco School Board in the 1990s, he has consistently favored amending Prop. 13, including the residential benefits that he now enjoys.
So he hasn’t been “quiet as a church mouse.” He’s been pretty loud, for a pretty long time.
He also knows, as does Stevens, that repealing Prop. 13 entirely is a political nonstarter. Not going to happen. Too bad, but even talking about it is a waste of time right now. So Ammiano’s going after the only reform he has a chance of winning — and, by the way, attacking the most outrageous loophole.
I don’t think Stevens meant this to be a hit piece or anything; she, and her editors, are just fascinated by this strange law we Californians call Prop. 13. But when I read her piece, what I got out of it was: Here’s a guy who wants to make other people pay more taxes — but he’s not going to do anything about his own tax breaks. I just don’t think that’s terribly true, or terribly fair.
(By the way, Stevens is on vacation with her family, and, as is her usual practice, didn’t want to comment. She just said people can make their points in the comments section of her piece.)