California columnist TD Elias claims that the "parcel tax" is unfair.
Frankly, any property owner who has to pay more taxes because a simple majority in the community says so is unfair, and patently so.
The state legislature now contemplates lowering the threshold for passing future parcel taxes, from 2/3 majority to 55%. The power to tax is the power to destroy, and all of these taxes are driving away homeowners and businesses who are hardly getting by as it is.
"Fair" in in itself causes more problems than it solves in most arguments. "Fair" in essence permits the majority to define the limits of appropriation and redistribution. The dwindling number of job creators and homeowners will only permit more people to raise taxes on fewer people who will pay them.
I have often considered Mr. Elias to be a center-left commentator, one who esteems public sector unions, who has no problem with tax increases to pay for state services.
For anyone to expect Democrats in California to go easy on the spending and watch the taxation from going too far makes as much sense as permitting a drug addict to run the DEA. Like the pothead expected to take potshots at drug users, the Democrats in Sacramento will gladly take the money, but they will only further their own perverse and dysfunctional ways.