I had a discussion about Prop 13 with Wind Up Bird And Obdicut. That thread is dead, but I have found some documentation to help my point, that being the effect of Prop 13 is used as an exaggerated scapegoat, in part to ignore excess spending and over optimistic revenue projections.

I happen to think this is a worthwhile topic given we have Democrat Jerry Brown running on a full fledged fiscal conservative campaign. If he wins he faces a Democratic controlled pair of state houses that have shown an implacable hostility to fiscal restraint on their part.

Since pages are intended to give us a place for topics of interest that the host our kind host has not focused on. Well, here we have precisely that. A California budget discussion page. All I ask is we keep it classy.
-RWC

Link to a PDF at Reason.org

An excerpt worth noting
The Problem Is Spending, Not Revenue
While Gov. Schwarzenegger has at times characterized the state’s budget problems as the result of runaway spending, he has changed his tune a bit recently. In a December 1, 2008 news release the Schwarzenegger administration claimed “…the dramatic deterioration in revenue projections since
the signing of 2008 Budget Act presents an extraordinary situation which, combined with the volatility of our tax system, creates a revenue problem.”8
Notwithstanding the fact that the state’s revenue projections were far too optimistic to begin with, the reason California finds itself in its current fiscal mess is its profligate spending, not any lack of revenues.

Since former Gov. George Deukmejian’s final budget in FY 1990-91, state spending—including the General Fund, special funds, and bond funds—has increased 180.9 percent, or an average of 5.91 percent a year. Spending increased from $51.4 billion in FY 1990-91 to $96.4 billion 10 years later in FY 2000-01. And spending continued to skyrocket to its current level of $144.5
billion in FY 2008-09. Since FY 1990-91, General Fund spending alone has increased 156.8 percent, or 5.37 percent a year (see Figure 1).

Link to what WUB had to say…
Wind Up Birds last comment sent to me

re: #98 Rightwingconspirator

“The mechanism to fix spending is legislative restraint. Not increasing revenues. Not changing Prop 13, already shown to be unnecessary by history.”

You’re totally avoiding the fact that California’s system is utter shit because of Prop 13, it was fashioned in such a way as to destroy the process

So yeah, your motives are pretty clear, you approve of sabotage

I like a smoothly running legislative system, not a system which has impossible hurdles build into it, that’s full on grover Norquist crazy territory