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Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

For those who are wondering, given the publisher, no, the essay is not simply a rant against rent-control:

> True revolution would involve curbing the authority of the San Francisco Planning Commission. If Democrats in the city or in Sacramento actually cared about the poor or the environment (density is green), they would enact a land-value tax and establish a redistributive policy to align the interests of the city, current residents, and future citizens. Strong government housing policy could spur growth and redistribute the city’s wealth fairly. But most of all, the freedom to build and experiment is the engine of Silicon Valley dynamism. Allow the experiments of the few to become the prosperity and fulfillment of the many, and the city could thrive once again.

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> they would enact a land-value tax and establish a redistributive policy

They can't bring themselves to mention Proposition 13, somehow.

Repeal of Prop 13 would be implicit in any land value tax, so not mentioning it is a severe deficiency of understanding the power of San Francisco to properly govern itself.

Prop 13, despite benefitting landlords and commercial property owners more than homeowners, has an unfair reputation of keeping "grannies" in their homes in face of unfair taxation. Mention repeal of Prop 13 for commercial property, and even otherwise sensible people will start saying how heartless it is to ignore the plight of grannies, since this inappropriate connection is so strong in the collective psyche.

Yeah, it's an unfair criticism to ask them why they aren't levying a tax they're constitutionally prohibited from.

With that said, it's reasonable to expect them to propose reforms to prop 13 that preserve its core intent but cut back on the death spiral it encourages.

Sorry, not familiar with CA politics ... is the subtext here that a land-value tax would be impossible without a constitutional amendment? Or that California already enacted a 1% ad valorem tax in the 70s?

From what I can tell, Prop 13 seems generally popular[0], but could see an argument that it exacerbates the housing shortage in the Bay Area, so not sure which way you're pointing.

[0] https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-statewide-surve...

That is my point, yes. And doing so is essentially impossible. It is popular among property owners, who have a huge interest in defeating any attack on it. (It was also slightly amusing to see a history-free call for more taxation in that particular rag, given tribal affiliations.)

It does drive up housing costs. It also distorts commercial transactions weakens, local control, and generally casts a large shadow over, well, any conversation about taxation and anything taxation touches (like real estate) in California.

gotcha. Thanks for the reply.

Prop 13 isn't really in the control of SF city residents.

But damn, California ... time to put that wealth-transfer tax for the old, rich, landed elite to bed already.

They've made millions from the appreciation of their houses, but they are still active in preventing new housing to try to juice their returns even more. It's a problem of how many Americans see their house as their biggest investment (and if you were a granny who bought in California 50 years ago it likely is). So naturally these wealthy landowners who bought property decades ago are going to fight to preserve their investment, but like the article points out, they're actually slowly killing their investment.

yeah this was odd, it goes into a typical "meh DEMOCRATS ruin everything" but then he calls for new taxes, a redistributive policy and however vague "strong government housing policy". Doesn't sound very free markety ?

Most of the article was simply stating the obvious about SF, but the end was very weird. When the National Review starts calling for a land-value tax and a “redistributive policy”, I’m sorry, but I’m going to call this disingenuous trolling by the author, because these are not policies the National Review honestly advocates for.

"There's a sense in which all taxes are antagonistic to free enterprise – and yet we need taxes. ...So the question is, which are the least bad taxes? In my opinion the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago." —Milton Friedman

Now do how wealth redistribution from rich to the poor is good.

Is there anything in the world quite as dumb as this form of argument?

If Democrats in the city or in Sacramento actually cared about the poor or the environment

The argument that Democrats are all the best people who always have a genuine interest for others and the environment has it beat.

I'm sure that matters to you, but I was talking about the form of the argument. It'd be equally stupid if it were something starting with If Republicans cared about free markets or low taxes...

It's a completely useless way to preface any statement, signalling useless text to follow.

See what I mean?

Yes, but no. "X is not acting in accordance with X's stated values" is a perfectly valid statement, for all values of X. "It would help problem Y if X did act in accordance with their stated values" is also a valid statement. What's not valid is to act all surprised that X does not in fact act in accordance with their stated values - especially where politics is involved. (It's still valid to point out that it's happening.)

Politicians dissemble, lie, act hypocritically, mislead voters, and... did I leave anything out? If you want to change their actual behavior, you have to change their incentives. One way to do that is to get the voters to hold their feet to the fire, to get them to act consistently with the values that the voters elected them to embody. (Which gets us back to "X is acting inconsistently..." being a perfectly valid thing to say.)

But the problem can run deeper than that. The voters themselves may mouth certain values, but actually desire things inconsistent with those values. At that point, the politicians are embodying the desires of the voters; the problem is the voters' hypocrisy. Once again, though, pointing out the hypocrisy is about the only way to try to attack the problem. (Changing the voters' incentives would almost always require the voters' acquiescence...)

Yes, it's generally bad form. But the important context here is that Democrats have a mega-majority in the state legislature (up from being a normal super-majority) [0], plus the governor's mansion, likely much of the judicial bench, and much of the electorate (who can weigh-in directly via ballot propositions). If something is or isn't being done in terms of statewide policy and regulations, the buck stops with the Democratic Party more than it would in almost every other jurisdiction.

[0] https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-democrat...

They could have put a repeal of Proposition 13 protections for commercial property on the ballot anytime in the last two decades, had they wanted.

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