A case in point:
California doesn't have enough money to make the budget work and that is with keeping a status quo investment on infrastructure.
Which means, RELATIVELY NO MONEY FOR IMPROVEMENTS.. We can't even keep afloat the public services that we do have.
So lets look at some pictures:
Here are some pictures I shot from my balcony less than an hour ago. You can't currently buy a house in this area, on my block, or in the zip code for less than $1 Million, ballpark.
Here are some shots of what the streets look like on a block of million dollar homes:
(facing up the street)
(facing down the street)
Why are the roads so bad? Prop 13. No money for public services to fix em because "baby boomers" aren't paying their share in taxes.
Point is, no money for repairs on Million dollar blocks of Los Angeles. What other state in the country has Million dollar homes with roads that look this bad? None that I've ever been to because they pay real estate taxes that go towards public services.. (Not even going to get into the problems of how bad the schools are.)
Second, lets talk about the future. Lets talk about modernization, lets talk about retrofitting, lets talk about keeping California in the 21st century.
This is what our power lines and phone lines and cable lines look like:
Don't you think those utility poles should be underground? Do you think in the year 2008 there should still be wires across america in people's sight lines? Everywhere else I have ever lived, they had tax money to go subgrade. They are installing Fiber Optics, they are not using some archaic and horrendous form of distribution.. Guess what? No money for upgrades cause Baby Boomer ain't paying real estate taxes.
They can't even afford to maintain what's there now. Look at the lines going through the trees. It's been like that for 5 plus years: (and that is a very famous persons house who has a late night talk show.)
So what's more important, giving tax subsidies to vested home owners so they can spend their money on plasma's and ipods. Or raising taxes to a reasonable level so the state doesn't continue to be in a fiscal mess. We can fix what we have now and start planning for the future...
Not giving the 30 year homeowner a gift of only having to pay 1% of what their home was worth in 1980.
Imagine if New York City did this.....
But thanks again Lakai for suggesting I haven't examined the issue.