By: Joseph Mitchener

Joseph Mitchener — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:04:39 +0000

Brilliant! I've been writing letters to the editor here in Colorado Springs, Colorado pushing for the same kind of thing. Only question is . . . how to divy up the $.
I would recommend that it be split up like this:
one part to the state, two parts to the county, four parts to the local gov. = 7 parts total. (If the Federal
gov. were to be included, it should get one half part.)

By: Leo Foley

Leo Foley — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:18:38 +0000

That's a great proposal. Lets hope it gets the necessary signatures to go forward.

By: Scott Baker

Scott Baker — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:41:33 +0000

The ballot, while more complicated than I would like, makes sense from a Geonomy/Georgist perspective. Tax the land, not production. Yes, if people are sitting on valuable, unproductive land, whether for speculation purposes or because their great-grandfather Hillmaster McLandlord, gave it to them, that is land that could otherwise be put to productive uses. Tax it until it's either developed by the original owner, or sold off to someone who can develop it.
What? You actually like having baronial estates chewing up land made increasingly valuable simply by population growth? How does this reward entrepreneurship and productivity? It doesn't. What it does do, is encourage urban sprawl, distant suburbs, and land speculation of which this country is still, and forever, reeling from.
Read George's "Progress and Poverty" – still the best-selling economics book of all time, selling 2 million copies in its first year, 1879! Land was valuable then; it's many multiples more valuable now – and STILL locked up by speculators who pay few taxes with their gamed negative cash flows, while collecting multimillion dollar windfalls for reselling land after sitting on it – developed or not – for a few years. We just had an example here in NYC where a developer bought former amusement park area in Coney Island, sat on it for four year and quadrupled his investment reselling it to an extorted city eager to regain its hastily sold Amusement Park land. He developed nothing, but did raze the park's venues!
California's proposition 13 tax system is the most insane in the country and they are paying the price. They will crash and burn permanently unless they – and eventually, we – do something like this.

Comments on: Yisroel Pensack: Southern California Attorney Submits Ballot Measure to Overhaul State's Tax System

By: Joseph Mitchener

By: Leo Foley

By: Scott Baker