Californians should think about their future – Daily News

If you had a time machine, would you rather go to the future or the past?

There is no need to choose. Over the next few days, Californians will experience both.

Voters on Tuesday will decide whether people will be forced to sell their homes in the future, possibly including themselves, as property taxes continue to skyrocket year after year despite Proposition 13.

We will decide whether millions of Californians living in single-unit rental homes, such as individual homes and apartments, will be evicted in the future because property owners want to get out of the rental housing business.

We will decide whether nearly a billion dollars more in state tax revenue will need to be paid to Wall Street investors each year for decades before the current needs of California residents are met.

We will decide whether the courts can force the state prison system and county jails to pay minimum wage to working inmates; This will result in a potential cost to future taxpayers of billions of dollars per year.

And L.A. County voters will decide whether to take more than a billion dollars out of pocket each year in extra sales taxes and give them to nonprofits to continue their costly but unsuccessful efforts to address homelessness.

So if there’s anyone in the future who has a time machine, they’re probably here right now to make sure we vote no on Prop. 5, Prop. 33, Prop. 2, Prop. 4, Prop. 6, and in LA County. Measure A.

Proposition 5 makes it easier to raise property taxes. Reduces the two-thirds vote requirement for approval of local debt (bonds) to 55%. Local bonds are paid back by adding extra fees to property tax bills. Proposition 5 makes it easier to transfer these bonds for countless projects and purposes that could be financed from the taxes you already pay, if the budget were prioritized.

Proposition 5 revolves around Proposition 13. It’s a turbo engine for future property tax increases that would exceed the 2% annual cap of the measure approved by voters in 1978. After a few years of running that engine, tax increase after tax increase, people will start losing their homes. The future you save could be your future. Vote no on 5.

Proposition 33 would eliminate the law that protects property owners, including individuals who own homes or apartments that they rent. The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995 says cities cannot impose rent control on these single-unit rentals or enact other unreasonable types of rent control.

If Costa-Hawkins goes, so will millions of rental apartments in California. Most owners of single-unit or multi-family rental properties will decide to take these units off the market or never build them in the first place, rather than lose money every month. California needs more housing, not less. Vote no on Proposition 33.

Proposition 2 is $10 billion in borrowing for school facilities, and Proposition 4 is another $10 billion in borrowing for climate change programs. But this money won’t teach reading or stop the climate from changing. Interest costs will increase, nearly doubling the cost.

California currently owes about $79 billion in outstanding bonds, with another $30 billion authorized but not yet issued, and $6.3 billion added through Proposition 1 in March. The governor declared a “budget emergency” to tap into hard-time reserve accounts, but the “emergency” is only because spending exceeds revenues. It’s time to stop cutting out the credit card and sticking it on future grandchildren. Vote no on 2 and 4.

Proposition 6 would change the provision in the state constitution that bans involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime. Proposition 6 eliminates the exception that means prisoners cannot be required to work (as they are currently subject to state law). Removing the exemption also eliminates the basis for court decisions that prisoners are not “employees” and are not entitled to minimum wage.

Senate Appropriations Committee staff analyzed Proposition 6 when it was named ACA 8 in the Legislature and warned of “anticipated” lawsuits. Future California taxpayers could be forced to pay billions of dollars more each year if courts force California jails and prisons to pay inmates the state or federal minimum wage for working while they are incarcerated. Vote no on 6.

If future residents of Los Angeles County, like some people who (still) live in tent camps on sidewalks, get angry about the impossibly high sales tax charges on their receipts, they can fire up their time machines and post a “No Measure A sign should be on every freeway ramp.”

Measure A would double the temporary 2017 sales tax increase for homelessness programs and make it permanent. It will entrench the current broken system, richly financing its incompetence with over a billion dollars every year, forever. Vote no on Measure A. Current funding won’t end until 2027. There is time to develop a more effective plan without a tax increase.

Today’s Californians might want to borrow a time machine and travel back to 2006 to avoid the impending rise in gas prices. No one knows whether the price increase could be 47 cents or 65 cents due to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard regulations. The entire state is operating on regulatory autopilot to meet the demands legislated by House Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

Last week, reporters demanded answers from the California Air Resources Board about next week’s vote on an “update” to regulations. Will gasoline prices be increased? How much? There were no answers to be found. We will have to go back in time to ask the Legislative Assembly and the then Government. Arnold Schwarzenegger explains why they introduced AB 32, ignoring concerns that the law would infinitely increase electricity and fuel prices in California (even though it has no impact on the global climate).

If people from California’s future had made it there in time, they might not be future Texans today.

Write to [email protected] and follow her at X @Susan_Shelley