By james art 
If you had a time machine, would you rather visit the future or the past?
You don’t need to choose. For the next few days, Californians will live with both.
On Tuesday, voters will decide whether people in the future, possibly including themselves, will be forced to sell their homes because property taxes are rising year after year despite Proposition 13.
We will decide whether millions of Californians who live in separate rental housing such as detached houses and apartments will be evicted in the future because the owner wants out of the rental business.
We will decide whether nearly a billion dollars more in state tax revenue will have to be paid to Wall Street investors every year for decades before the current needs of Californians can be met.
We’ll decide whether the courts can force the state prison system and county jails to pay the minimum wage to inmates who work, at a potential cost to future taxpayers of billions of dollars a year.
And voters in Los Angeles County will decide whether more than a billion dollars in additional sales taxes will be taken out of their pockets and given to nonprofits each year to continue their expensive but failing work on homelessness.
Therefore, if anyone in the future has a time machine, they are probably here right now to make sure we vote down Proposition 5, Proposition 33, Proposition 2, Proposition 4, Proposition 6, and in Los Angeles County, Measure A.
Proposition 5 makes it easier to raise property taxes. It reduces the two-thirds vote requirement to approve local debt (bonds) to 55%. Local bonds are paid by adding surcharges to property tax bills. Proposition 5 makes it easier to pass these bonds for a myriad of projects and purposes that can often be funded by the taxes you already pay if the budget is a priority.
Proposition 5 bypasses Proposition 13. It is a turbo engine for future property tax increases that will pass through the 1978 voter-approved. measure of 2% annual cap. After a few years of running this engine, tax hike after tax hike, people will start losing their homes. The future you save can be your own. Vote no on 5.
Proposition 33 would eliminate a law that protects property owners, including individuals who own a house or apartment they rent out. The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act of 1995 says that cities cannot impose rent controls on these single-unit rentals or impose other types of unreasonable rent controls.
If Costa-Hawkins goes, so will the millions of rental homes in California. Many owners of single-family or multi-family rental properties will choose to pull these units off the market – or not build them at all – rather than lose money every month. California needs more housing, not less. Vote against Proposition 33.
Proposition 2 is $10 billion in loans for school facilities, and Proposition 4 is another $10 billion in loans for climate change programs. But that money won’t teach people to read or stop the climate from changing. It will just accrue interest that almost doubles the cost.
California already has about $79 billion in outstanding bond debt, another $30 billion has been approved but not yet issued, and $6.3 billion was added with Proposition 1 in March. The governor declared a “budget emergency” so he could dip into rainy day reserve accounts, but the “emergency” is only that spending exceeds revenue. Time to cut up the credit card and stop sticking it on future grandchildren. Vote against 2 and 4.
Proposition 6 would change the provision in the state constitution that prohibits involuntary servitude except to punish crimes. Proposition 6 removes the exception, meaning inmates cannot be required to work (as they currently are under state law). Eliminating the exception also removes the basis for court rulings that inmates are not “employees” and are not entitled to minimum wage.
Senate Appropriations Committee staff analyzed Proposition 6 when it was dubbed ACA 8 in the Legislature and warned of “anticipated” lawsuits. When courts force California prisons and jails to pay inmates state or federal minimum wage for work while incarcerated, future California taxpayers may have to pay billions of dollars more each year. Vote no on 6.
If the future residents of Los Angeles County get mad that the sales tax charges on their receipts are insanely high, and some of the people (still) living in tent camps on the sidewalks, they might stop their time machine for plant a “No to Measure A” sign on every freeway ramp.
Measure A would double the 2017 sales tax increase. for homeless programs, which was temporary, and will make it permanent. It will shore up the current broken system, richly fund its incompetence to the tune of more than a billion dollars every year, forever. Vote against Measure A. Existing funding does not end until 2027. There is time to develop a more effective plan without raising taxes.
Today’s Californians may want to borrow a time machine and go back to 2006 to block the impending gas price hike. Because of state regulations for the low-carbon fuel standard, the price increase could be 47 cents or 65 cents, no one knows. The entire state is on regulatory autopilot to meet the requirements set into law by Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
Last week, reporters asked the California Air Resources Board for answers about next week’s vote to “update” the regulations. Will it raise gas prices? how much No answers could be found. We’d have to go back in time to ask the legislature and then-governor. Arnold Schwarzenegger why they passed AB 32, ignoring concerns that the law would infinitely increase electricity and fuel prices in California (with no effect on the global climate).
If the people of California’s future could get there in time, they might not be future Texans today.
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