"It's very nice for Larry Stone if he's paying only $3,000 a year in property taxes on a $3.8 million home. I'm guessing he has a very nice pension, too. However, property taxes are a significant burden on other seniors like me, who pay more than five times as much on a much cheaper house, and with a limited fixed income. In fact, my Social Security income isn't even sufficient to cover my property taxes."
"Gerrymandering or not, our elections are already rigged. Democrats won big last October, redrawing voting congressional districts with Proposition 50, but all Californians continue to lose with the obscene level of money thrown into our electoral process. The measure racked up over $170 million in spending, becoming one of the most expensive measures in state history. Since the Buckley v. Valeo Supreme Court ruling 50 years ago this month, election spending has only grown."
Many cash-strapped seniors face disproportionate property-tax burdens that can exceed fixed Social Security incomes and outpace taxes paid by wealthier homeowners. Property taxes can consume multiple times the amount paid by some homeowners compared with others, creating hardship for seniors on limited income. A chain of fear among school stakeholders leaves teachers disempowered while students become emboldened, weakening classroom authority and discipline. Elections are heavily influenced by massive campaign spending and outside money, with measures attracting tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Court rulings treating money as speech enable wealthy interests to exert outsized influence, prompting calls for constitutional reform to limit money in politics.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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