It was absolutely outrageous to read Katie Shepherd’s column in the Daily Bruin on Jan. 22 and see photos of UCLA students screaming demands to “reform” Proposition 13. Before Proposition 13, senior citizens were in danger of being taxed out of their homes after 30 years, more or less, of making mortgage and property tax payments so they could have a roof over their heads in their “golden” years of retirement.
And the gall of these uninformed loudmouths. They arrogantly demanded that our senior citizen homeowners, who are even paying taxes in their retirement when they have reduced income or no income, pay their student fees. Have they no shame?
Assuming these students seek more funding for their education, I bet they could find a lot of other ways that their tuition could be reduced. But it seems as if they did not even consider looking to other sources.
As a side issue, here we have students who are supposed to be the best in academic accomplishment, yet they did not even have the common sense to understand that Proposition 13 has nothing to do with their tuition, as Shepherd pointed out. This is a fact they should have taken into consideration before they took to the streets unashamedly screaming demands for others to pay students’ way. Didn’t these “intelligent” kids realize that their demands would ultimately give that disastrous effect on their very own parents when their parents have paid off their homes and are ready to retire?
Leon Perlsweig
Attorney, Woodland Hills
Mr. Perlsweig, if you had looked into this matter, you would have noticed that the reform proposal only affects commercial properties, not residential properties. As an attorney, I wouldn’t expect you to overlook important details like that.
As a current UCLA student, and a homeowner in the 90026 area, I can say I support equitable reforms to Proposition 13. The provisions in Proposition 13 that protect individual homeowners are fine, and encourage working class home ownership. Those are not at issue here. It’s the windfall of commercial property tax avoidance and stealthy deals by the wealthy that allow them—as always—to avoid paying their fair share. Such feeding at the trough isn’t going to find sympathy from working people and students.
Need we remind reactionaries like Mr. Perlsweig that many Californian senior citizen homeowners he’s shedding crocodile tears for actually benefited from someone, in his less than elegant prose, “pay[ing] their student fees.”
When I was a child the University of California was free. In fact, they didn’t start charging tuition until right around when I was in the Navy in the early eighties. In other words, all current senior citizens were college age during the period of free California higher education. These days, the fees are astronomical. As an undergraduate on the part-time fee reduction program, just one quarter at UCLA costs more than my entire year’s worth of property taxes. There’s something fundamentally wrong with a society that doesn’t want to educate its young people. There’s something fundamentally wrong with a society that prioritizes commercial property and plutocrat estates over the general welfare of the commonwealth. There’s something extremely hypocritical for a generation that had access to free education to criticize young people not wanting to be burdened with student loan payments bigger than many of our mortgages.
Perlsweig can try all he wants to resurrect Howard Jarvis’ vile ghost all he wants, but the soul of those selfish, greedy politics are firmly in the grip of the fourth circle of hell.