KPBS: Howard Jarvis: Prop 13 History

Source:KPBS- a look at the tax revolt in California, from 1978. Not 2003.

"In 1978 disco was king, Jerry Brown was Governor, and the people ruled. They voted two to one in favor of Proposition 13, rolling back property taxes." 

From KPBS

If you look at what the Tea Party movement is today and what the Howard Jarvis anti-tax movement was back in the late 1970s, its very similar: government taxes and spends too much. There's where that term tax and spend came from: high tax rates were already unpopular by the mid 1970s. 

Both President Gerry Ford and presidential candidate Ron Reagan, made tax relief apart of their 1976 presidential campaigns. And Jimmy Carter becomes President in 1977, the economy tanks in 1978. Not because of President Carter, but by 1978 unemployment, inflation and interest rates were all going up and economic and job growth were going down. 

The opposite was happening in what you need for a strong healthy economy, the good numbers plummeting and bad numbers skyrocketing. And California felt this as bad as anyone similar to the economy there today. 

Howard Jarvis started an anti-tax association, took it to Sacramento as well as Washington, to campaign against high tax rates and campaign for tax cuts, that of course were put into place in 1981 when Ron Reagan became President, but President Reagan went a hell of a lot farther with their tax cuts. 

Prop 13 in 1978 was about limiting the growth of property taxes and cutting property taxes. But like a lot of things that get started in California, they tend to spread across the country. And fiscal Conservatives started organizing and this had an effect on the 1978 general elections in California. But also the mid- term elections in Washington, where Republicans picked up seats in both the House and Senate. 

Ron Reagan being the smart politician he was and someone who was pro-low taxes and anti-big government, saw this movement coming but about fifteen years later in 1964 when he worked for Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, but it didn't become popular until 1978. 

1978 is when the economy dipped and people saw their taxes getting higher while their incomes fell, because state government's raised taxes to be able to finance their operations. With the sluggish economy and this is one of the things that started the Reagan Revolution in 1980. That brought him into the Presidency in a landslide over President Carter.