Oh, the Humanity!

Well, well, well...

This has to be absolutely crushing news for some people. Please have a little sympathy and remember to walk a mile in their shoes… or something.

The bogeyman that is Prop. 13 which to hear liberals tell it has been responsible for every ill to befall California since its enactment back in 1978 is actually responsible for a swelling of revenue from property taxes.

Despite the sliding real estate market, Los Angeles County's property tax base grew to $1.1 trillion, a 6.9% increase over last year, Assessor Rick Auerbach said.

Auerbach said that Proposition 13 is the main reason for this year's increase -- even though housing prices have been generally going down across Southern California.

The constitutional amendment, he said, has a stabilizing effect on assessed values.

"In a rising market, because of the 2%-increase cap included in Proposition 13, assessed values do not keep pace with market values," he said. "On the other hand, in a market such as we now have, the cap keeps us from experiencing a dramatic decrease in assessed value."

Please keep this in mind next time you hear about our friends in Sacramento attempting to do away with or skirt around the holy grail of conservative populism in their never-ending quest for revenue dollars.