President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Donald Trump, number 45, all too often ran an offense when he should have been worrying about the defense. Inevitably, he fumbled many more times than he ever scored. But that did not keep the crowds from cheering him on, every step of the way.

But when losses piled up, he never adjusted his game plan or worked to improve himself or the efforts of his team. He always found a convenient scapegoat: the referees, the media. Then, when he lost the Super Bowl by a large margin, his fans stormed the field and threatened to hang NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle.

--If John Facenda narrated the Trump presidency

 

Who knew that close to 2/3rds of the voters could be so remarkably misguided?

 

Oversimplified short-term self-interest resulting in decades of unintended consequences?

Maybe!

https://calmatters.org/politics/2020/10/prop-13-family-tree/

Overly-strict in some places and ambiguous in others, the measure “was particularly poorly drafted,” he said, which has led to continual efforts to prune or graft modifications onto it. That’s to say nothing of the frequent court battles over its precise meaning.

Critics of ballot box budgeting contend that the Legislature is better equipped than voters to make complex taxation and spending decisions, and believe Prop. 13 has resulted in an infuriating catch-22. By making it more difficult for lawmakers to raise taxes, Prop. 13 makes it more likely that increases will require yet another ballot measure.

 

I don't know if it's a Prop 13 thingy, but this makes no sense at all.

Home value: $445,000 (an utter shithole that surely will be torn down)
Property tax: $4,002 (jumped from $1,195 to $3,851 in 2018 --- maybe because the old homeowners sold it?)
6824 Converse Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90001 | realtor.com®

Meanwhile . . .
Home value: $1,299,000
Property tax: $1,203 (no huge jumps of any kind)
3268 Veteran Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90034 | realtor.com®

 

We should definitely trust voters to support good economic policy unless we can't trust voters to support good economic policy. The numbers don't lie!

 

Both California’s Prop 13 and Florida’s Save Our Homes Act (and later added portability provisions) are variations of Welcome Stranger property tax calculation methods. Both are designed to protect property owners from crazy tax increases resulting from crazy increases in property valuation. California’s system, which was upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court in Nordlinger v Hahn (1992) (equal protection challenge) is broader in that it applies to all property, not just homesteaded residences. There are also differences in base calculation. value increase limits, when property is revalued and I don’t think CA has a portability provision. These laws end up creating crazy disparities in valuation and taxation of similar properties, and even next door neighbors, and shift the property tax burden to recent purchasers and, in FL, can shift more burden to commercially owned properties. I think both regimes were well intentioned but could use tweaking. However, when the laws are enacted as citizen propositions or, as in FL, as voter passed constitutional amendments, getting the necessary fine tuning done is pretty hard - especially where that fine tuning will result in higher taxes being imposed on those voting on the changes.

 

You're the best. Hope you're well, my friend.

 

Meanwhile in Canuckistan.
Canada's House speaker resigns over inviting a man who fought for a Nazi unit to Parliament

 

Now he's free to accept the soon-to-be-extended dinner invitation to Mar-a-Lago.

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Judge finds Donald Trump committed fraud with financial statements that exaggerated his wealth, value of his assets.

 

wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut

I'm flabbergasted

 

Pretty big "no shit, of course he did" sort of ruling. No idea what kind of penalty there is for it. Not that he'll actually comply, I assume.