# How was Jerry Brown as Governor? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 24, 2010, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597 "2010-03-24T09:14:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Piker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@Piker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Piker)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/21 "2010-03-25T16:16:40Z")
> [@Snnipe\_70E](#): > > Thanks to Prop 13 I still own my house. With out Prop 13 I would guess the taxes on my home would be around $20,000 per year. So the only way to approach a _legitimate_ problem in rising property taxes was to pass a conservative’s wet-dream law that deprived local governments from a major source of revenue, forever changed local-state government relations for the worse, and eliminated the tools necessary to address budget problems? Great, you still live in your house. Thanks. (From the generation of Californians that are going to have to fix this fiscal mess) ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/22 "2010-03-25T19:43:11Z")
> [@Piker](#): > > Thanks. (From the generation of Californians that are going to have to fix this fiscal mess) Seriously. I mean, I can’t fault anyone for, y’know, wanting to live in the house they own, but taking a step back, Prop 13 is certainly not a Good thing. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/23 "2010-03-25T21:16:09Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Prop. 13? That bill of goods that’s directly responsible for the fiscal mess we find ourselves in today? > > Get me my absentee ballot. I’m voting for him RIGHT NOW. Heck, I’ll **move** to Cali. to vote for him! ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/24 "2010-03-25T21:41:41Z")
> [@Piker](#): > > So the only way to approach a _legitimate_ problem in rising property taxes was to pass a conservative’s wet-dream law that deprived local governments from a major source of revenue, forever changed local-state government relations for the worse, and eliminated the tools necessary to address budget problems? > > Great, you still live in your house. Thanks. (From the generation of Californians that are going to have to fix this fiscal mess) As a Californian who is also living the hell of our current fiscal issues - I am happy to have Prop 13 protecting me. My house would have tripled in taxes under another state’s system, leaving me with the choice of selling and commuting further, or leaving completely. We are 10th in per capita taxes (2005) according to the US Census: [http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/05staxrank.html](http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/05staxrank.html) We are 6th according to the Tax Foundation: [http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/443.html](http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/443.html) We are 11th per wikipedia: > **[State tax levels in the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_States)** > > State tax levels indicate both the tax burden and the services a state can afford to provide residents. > States use a different combination of sales, income, excise taxes, and user fees. Some are levied directly from residents and others are levied indirectly. This table includes the per capita tax collected at the state level. > This table does not necessarily reflect the actual tax burdens borne directly by individual persons or businesses in a state. For example, the direct state tax burden o... I don’t know if Jerry will be tough enough to take down the unions and the Democrat controlled assembly. I don’t know if he will be charismatic enough to reform how our budget is written. I don’t know if he is nimble enough to convince Californians that we can not keep on adding services without paying for them. Then again - I have no idea if Meg is capable of getting anything done either. ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/25 "2010-03-25T22:00:30Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Prop. 13? That bill of goods that’s directly responsible for the fiscal mess we find ourselves in today? > > Get me my absentee ballot. I’m voting for him RIGHT NOW. You give a simple response to a not so simple situation: California’s property taxes were rising totally out of line with wages and income and especially for those on fixed incomes. In 1978, Howard Jarvis started an initiative to lock in the current property taxes allowing only a 2 percent raise per year (in 50 years taxes could rise 100 percent). It was named Proposition 13. It was passed by the electorate. I consider it a good thing but a stopgap measure and more work should have been done to equalize taxes around the state, but you know how that goes with government bureaucrats. Nothing was ever done to ameliorate the tax burden of the property owner, so Prop 13 is till in effect and takes it’s licks as the bad guy from the likes of posters like **kaylasdad99**. You really had to have been there and experienced the situation for yourself, as I was. A little more info, is here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California\_Proposition\_13\_%281978%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281978%29) Oh, and about Jerry Brown, he was out of the state or just out of it dreaming up new things for Californians to day during his term. I won’t be voting for him this time. The man is a total flake. ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/26 "2010-03-25T22:07:29Z")
Missed the window: should be ‘to do during his term’ not ‘to day during his term’ Sorry ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/27 "2010-03-26T00:59:00Z")
> [@Piker](#): > > So the only way to approach a _legitimate_ problem in rising property taxes was to pass a conservative’s wet-dream law that deprived local governments from a major source of revenue, forever changed local-state government relations for the worse, and eliminated the tools necessary to address budget problems? > > Great, you still live in your house. Thanks. (From the generation of Californians that are going to have to fix this fiscal mess) An attempt to pass a good property tax relief bill some years earlier. Well ballanced. Taxes would have stayed the same the first year and could raise according to inflation. The legislature blocked it and gave us what they call a better form of property tax relief, the home owners execption. then they both dems and reps attacked the other as a disasture and the home owners execption would work. sorry to say the public believed the polititions. Home owners execption lets me not pay taxes on the first $1700 of assesed valuation. So if my house is is assessed at $400,000 I onlyl have to pay taxes on $398,300. that is not a real tax savings. And the the legislature refused to give any relief on property taxes. Taxes on my home at the time wer increasing 300% a year, and family property that I owned in Monterey county was increasing 400% a year. Prop 13 is a bad law but it passed because something had to be done, and the polititions refused. If you are anti prop 13, did you own a home early in the 1970’s? ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/28 "2010-03-26T01:04:27Z")
> [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](#): > > Seriously. I mean, I can’t fault anyone for, y’know, wanting to live in the house they own, but taking a step back, Prop 13 is certainly not a Good thing. But what we had at the time was a worse thing. If the true prolerty tax relief prop was passed in the 60’s, then prop 13 would not have passed. And after prop 13 was passed all our people in Sac could do was attack prop 13 trying to go back to the old way. Better to damm prop 13 then write a good law? ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/29 "2010-03-26T01:08:20Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > I don’t know if Jerry will be tough enough to take down the unions and the Democrat controlled assembly. I don’t know if he will be charismatic enough to reform how our budget is written. I don’t know if he is nimble enough to convince Californians that we can not keep on adding services without paying for them. Then again - I have no idea if Meg is capable of getting anything done either. I seen him work and I would say he is not compendent enough. but I agree about Meg. We are in real trouble it looks like we are continue going from a bad Gov to a worse Gov. ---
**Author:** ![kevja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/aeb1de/32.png) [@kevja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevja)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/30 "2010-03-26T01:26:22Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I’m not a Californian, but he had an image of being kinda flaky and out-there and liberal-trendy, and just not a serious person. Perhaps unfair, but there it is. Not. He is a very serious person. almost to the point of not having a sense of humor. Some of the flaky thing came from when he first took office in Jan. '75. He didn’t live in the governor’s mansion, drove a regulation stripped down state car instead of a limo. He was very popular his first term and he is a hell of a politician. He gave Bill Clinton all he could handle in the demo prez primary in '92. I’ll be voting him. Again ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/31 "2010-03-26T02:23:29Z")
> [@PhiloVance](#): > > …In 1978, Howard Jarvis started an initiative to lock in the current property taxes allowing only a 2 percent raise per year (in 50 years taxes could rise 100 percent). It was named Proposition 13… A Hollywood tangent: Jarvis plays the old coot left in the taxi with the meter running in the comedy movie _Airplane!_ ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/32 "2010-03-26T16:09:46Z")
A commentary on California’s wacky politics: [California leads nation in wacky politics - CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/26/navarrette.california.politics/index.html?hpt=T2) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/33 "2010-03-26T18:16:16Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Prop. 13? That bill of goods that’s directly responsible for the fiscal mess we find ourselves in today? > > Get me my absentee ballot. I’m voting for him RIGHT NOW. > [@PhiloVance](#): > > You give a simple response to a not so simple situation: Perhaps. But in fairness, so did Messrs. Jarvis and Gann; and at least _my_ simple response isn’t making California ungovernable today. 😛 Although on reflection, I’ll allow that “bill of goods” probably overstates the degree to which Howard and Paul anticipated the havoc this turns-out-to-have-been-a-bad-idea bill would wreak. I do note that neither one of them ever seemed to notice that what they had unleashed was a bad thing, and it makes me sick to my stomach whenever I see or hear of either one of them being spoken of as heroes of some sort. I’ll stop hijacking now. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/34 "2010-03-26T19:24:44Z")
> [@kevja](#): > > Not. > > He is a very serious person. almost to the point of not having a sense of humor. I concur. I know him from his radio show, and I could never understand the “moonbeam” thing. On that show, he made serious commentary, and not a bit of hippie talk. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/35 "2010-03-26T19:57:34Z")
I’ve met him on a number of occasions, and I’ve heard him speak even more. He is much more qualified than Whitman, his opponent to be, but the governor is virtually powerless to do anything about the budget crisis that California faces every year. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597/36 "2010-03-26T20:37:13Z")
Yup – “ungovernable,” just like I said. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-jerry-brown-as-governor/533597.md?page=1)