Maybe the crabs ate her.

Comment by Barbara M — March 15, 2008 @ 4:07 pm

Thirteen days- still waiting.

“- who WAS at the table?”
David Kirwin
The silence is deafening.

Comment by poguemahone — March 15, 2008 @ 3:18 pm

I will answer tomorrow. I only have 5 minutes. I have to to th the EHS crab feed to support school sports.

Comment by Barbara M — March 15, 2008 @ 4:07 pm

Think you could spare a minute to answer before you get busy this weekend?

Barbara, since you are the vocal representative of the tax proposal writers, what should we think after 6 days of waiting for you to do what you say you will do in 1 day? Will you possibly resurrect your credibility, or will you let your failure to keep your word reflect on your whole group?

#65 Dave – (Not to sound mean…)
You’ve spoken like a true economic professional. You have a sense of “real” that is obviously beyond my world. I must be doppelganged in some odd parallel universe where you and I are taxed at the same rate on homes which we chose to buy at a given price, knowing what it would cost us and how we would be taxed, a world where my property taxes go up exactly like everybody else’s in the state, and just like everybody else, special taxes are added to my property only when they are approved by a majority vote; yet you and a few others claim that the way I am taxed is unfair. This is indeed a strange world.

2. In your “real” terms my mortgage has increased, because inflation has been outstripping any increase in my wages. Therefore the ‘value’ of my mortgage dollar is greater than it used to be. You seem like such an extreme professional because your intellectual and esoteric plane of knowledge has lifted so far beyond this real-world version of reality where I live – where cash flow IS the economic reality.

3&4. If by “obtuse” you mean my ‘angle is more than right’, I agree, and I am glad you are FINALLY beginning to see my point.

5. “consider…what P13 does to gross state funding” – Prop13 clearly has an impact on state funding, but does nothing to either restrict or control spending. It does not affect education budgets.

P13 keeps property tax ‘voluntary’, if we stipulate that ‘voluntary’ means we choose whether or not to buy a property for which we will pay a known tax. As a responsible home buyer, I chose to buy a home for a price consistent with my ability to qualify and purchase a fixed rate loan. I’ll assume you also chose to buy a home within your means. We pay the same property tax rate, we both benefit from Prop 13 in the same way. The fact that you pay more property tax is because you chose to pay more for you house. THE KEY WORD IS CHOICE. Isn’t this by definition a form of “progressive tax”? (Maybe not since the tax rate is the same. In fact it may be more like a recurring sales tax.) But usually prices of home purchases are proportional to income levels.

You buy what you can afford. (Not “you” you, but you in general) Or you’re stupid and you buy what you can’t afford with a loan you can’t maintain, through a company too greedy to maintain a sense of fiscal or fiduciary responsibility. It is not MY choice that morons over-inflate home values beyond ‘real’ value. I have not achieved any real ‘wealth’ just because someone’s perception of value inflates what they think my home might be worth. Likewise I will not have lost any ‘real’ wealth as home prices drop and that again changes “perception” of the value of my home. Again, reality is the cash flow. When someone buys my home, - that is cash flow, and that will create a ‘real’ change in value either up or down.

As for your last paragraph in post #65 – I don’t love what paying taxes really costs me morally or asset-wise. While Oliver Wendell Homes said “Taxes are what you pay for a civilized society”, I think he has likely turned in his grave at what our gov’t is doing with our taxes. Trillions of dollars thrown away at murdering hundreds of thousands and causing unknown grief – not just the gross loss of life, but the de-stabilization of societies and destruction their national infrastructures, incomprehensible destruction and waste, just to support our oil barons – who are not even “our” oil barons. Even here within our own borders the waste of tax dollars is immeasurable. “Riding a gravy train, while others do the work”? – No Dave, you are way off base, and not reality based. “Sucking the P13 nipple”? Please Dave, It really sounds to me that you are whining about the choices you made. Just remember – you made the choice to buy the property of your choice, and I shouldn’t have to pay for your choices. Frankly, I can’t afford to. The sadder part of the story is how our gov’t at every level – Fed, State, even our City, are spending our taxes to assist these ‘morons and gamblers’ of the great housing scandal to such a degree that we will see it happen again, just as we have in the past with the S&L scandal – also featuring high loans without ‘real’ collateral, just ‘milkin’ the appraisals of your make-believe “professional world.”

“You’d gain a lot of credibility if you simply said that you like riding a gravy train while others do the work.”

Duh, count me in on this one. First suggestion you’ve made sense on.

Kirwin

1) Real maens infaltion adjusted, constant dollars, not nominal. Unless you are adding to your debt load, inflation reduces the value of fixed rate debt. Think about it: inflation means a dollar is worth more today than in a year or 30 years. A mortgage that seems large now will seem a pittance in 30 years.

2) P13 came about because inflation was sending assessed values up. When the price of a home rises while its mortgage depreciates, the homeowners assets are growing while his liabilities are shrinking. That it’s not cash flow doesn’t mean it’s not wealth.

3) and 4) You are being obtuse on these points.

5) You have a partial point here it is most directly the state, but consider for a moment what P13 does to gross state funding.

It’s human to dislike taxes. You’d gain a lot of credibility if you simply said that you like riding a gravy train while others do the work. But trying to justify your sucking the P13 nipple makes you look foolish.

Glad to see SOMEBODY on this board is paying attention here in zombie nation.

I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m with you on this and on our schools, even though I am very unhappy with the way the school parcel tax is written I will support it.

I have a real serious problem with multiple units paying paying the same parcel tax as a single unit. It is so illogical.
John P.

P-man, I can see you haven’t paid your syntax lately. Get a grip man, you’re breaking up.