No, it didn't. California just kept adding taxes everywhere else to make up the difference and still had an annual deficit most of the 13 years I lived there.
> It saved seniors from losing their houses
Why are seniors magically allowed to be immune to basic market forces when no one else is?
Because they have fixed incomes (generally). This income is immune to market forces. That's why.
While many elderly invested wisely (and at the right time) to become wealthy, especially when leveraging dips (like during the 80s), it doesn't change the average case. Living month to month on a fixed income is the norm after retirement.
Some seniors bought post ww2 bonds at phenomenal rates. There were many ppl who made wise investments, regardless. Patience turned thousands into hundreds of thousands outside of the housing prices.
Meanwhile, why are only senior home owners worthy of that stability? Why do seniors who rent not get rent stabilization as a matter of law?
If this were really motivated out of altruistic concern for vulnerable retirees, the law would look very different.
This doesn't exist anymore as of Prop 19. If an inherited home is not primary residence, it is taxed at full market value.
The state taxes were added to partially backfill the lost local taxes. Prop 13 was a major contribution to moving control from local governments (which it kneecapped fiscally) to the State (which it also kneecapped, because of the supermajority requirement to raisd any tax, but not as badly.)
The federal government went through a similar activity a few years later when Reagan slashed budgets. Everyone survived.
The state/federal budgets today are astronomically higher, even after accounting for inflation.
Below is a newspaper article I saved from over 30 years ago:
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See Dick and Jane-and Simple Simon-Solve the School Budget
By ALICE J. GLASSER
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was a schoolhouse with a few children and a teacher. The children went to school to learn and the teacher went to teach. It was all very simple.
Then a few more kids came, so they hired another teacher. Now, with two teachers, they needed someone to supervise. So they hired a principal. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came, but just one more teacher.)
So the principal hired an assistant. But still more kids came, so they built another school and hired another principal. And now, with two principals, they needed someone to supervise. So they hired a superintendent, an assistant superintendent, a supervisor of Here and a supervisor of There. And since they needed a place for all these people, they built their own building and called themselves Unified. And they were happy until someone pointed out that there wasn't enough for them to do. So they hired a director of This and a director of That to develop pages and pages of things for them to do.
But there still was a problem. Unified had no one to implement these pages and pages of plans. So they hired coordinators of This and coordinators of That to decide which of the pages and pages of plans they should implement. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came but just a few more teachers.)
Now Unified needed a bigger building for all their people. So they bought a really big place. So big that they hired a few more Heres and Theres and Thises and Thats to fill up the space. And they were happy until they realized that they had run out of money. Their budget didn't balance. (Meanwhile, a lot more kids came and an occasional teacher.)
So they hired a financial expert of This and a resource planner of That, and Unified came up with a Plan to balance the budget. They would break down all the walls between all the classrooms and once again have just one schoolroom. Only this time there would be 500 kids and one teacher. Of course, the teacher couldn't really teach and the kids couldn't really learn, but Unified was happy. Their budget was balanced. It was all very simple.
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As chairperson of the Mar Vista School Site Council in West Los Angeles, Alice J. Glasser has been wrestling with Los Angeles Unified School District budgeting problems. By profession, she is a physician.
Update: I found it online here: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-08-me-1359-s...
