How would ruining the financial plans for millions of homeowners solve the problem? It's so easy to say "just increase taxes" but the reality is our spending is insane.
Even a sane prop 13 could be neutral on property taxes, just not give such a bonus for never moving. There is a lot of value society loses when people have an incentive to never upgrade/downgrade their property because the transaction costs, essentially, would be astronomical.
California does have high overall taxes, but not the highest. Part of the reason income taxes are so high is because property taxes have a very low effective rate.
You're comparing income tax to a sorta wealth tax. CA properties tend to be worth more than in other states, so even if the % property tax is lower, it can be a higher $ or % income amount.
Apparently the stat I gave was the ratio of homeowners to Californians which is something like 18% and the lowest in the nation, but if we use the % of households which own their home we get something like 55% which is still very close to the lowest in the nation.
Agree that spending needs to be cut. But my understanding is that before Prop 13, California's tax revenue was more balanced between property, sales, and income taxes, and thus less subject to the boom and bust cycles that we see now (https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-budget-whiplash...).
California does have high overall taxes, but not the highest. Part of the reason income taxes are so high is because property taxes have a very low effective rate.