alt Hacker NewsHell no, California has this and it’s a catastrophe. Prop 13 is one of the worst policies enacted by a democratic polity in the 20th century, and has been wrecking the state for decades.
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Why do you think that similar law could not be passed without direct vote? The problem is not direct democracy but the fact that it is being done in a wrong way.
Voting should be done without anonymity, online. One should be able to either vote for everything manually, or delegate the vote to any other person.
If some change is supported by 100% of the voters it should be implemented immediately. But if smaller percent supports the change, then there needs to be a vesting time (e.g. 10 years for 60%, infinity for 50%+1).
This allows people to either trade support for policies (i'll vote yes for your initiative if you vote for mine, or give me money), or to get high level of support locally and try out various laws on local level.
The same site that manages voting should also show detailed budget of city/state/country, where people can see where their taxes are being spent and should be able to redirect the money they have paid.
Having some random vote is hardly direct democracy, though.
Parts of the US is mature enough to implement a similar system as Switzerland, which has a superior form of democracy.
Prop 13 is a nothingburger. Median homeownership period in california vs nationally is only like 2 years longer. It shouldn't be affecting costs that much in other words since median property is back to market rate every 15 years or so.
And what costs are we talking about anyhow? Tax shortfalls for local government? Decades later that has been rectified through other taxes and funding mechanisms and we still get new roads and schools in california. Housing costs increasing? I would say the fact that cities today are zoned within a few percentage points of present population levels (vs zoned for 10x present population levels pre 1970) is the actual source of that sucking sound from the chest.
Prop 13 isnt bad. Its all the money pumped in to political advertisements that turn this from "1 person, 1 vote" to "1$, 1 vote".
And that goes to the heart of the matter, that corporations aren't people, no matter what some court or law says. And they should be heavily restricted on speech. (I include spending money on political adverts and similar.)
Humans can commit crimes worthy of the death penalty. Wells Fargo shouldn't exist due to their decade long fraud. Nor should United Health Care, for actively denying humans their health coverage until the humans died. Or countless other cases.
When a company gets "killed", and all assets get assigned to the wronged, I'll start to believe they are humans. Haven't seen that yet. Likely won't ever, in the USA.
Courts can just overturn direct vote anyway like they did prop 8.
So do you believe in democracy or not? And I do not mean this as a loaded question because the value of democracy is a legitimately arguable point. If the majority of Californians want caps on property tax, then I do not see a good argument that they should not get it that is also compatible with democracy.