Dark Horses

There are two ways to look at the late great Tax Revolt of 1978-1980. One is that it is six feet under. The other is that it has died and gone to a Better Place, familiarly called the White House. Probably Alvin Rabushka and Pauline Ryan, the authors of The Tax Revolt (Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, Calif. 94305; $16.95), are not guilty of undue pessimism in subscribing to the former version.

On June 6, 1978, California voters endorsed Howard Jarvis’s Proposition 13, a proposal to slash property taxes drastically, in a 2 to 1 landslide, and the country responded with an enthusiasm commensurate with the breathtaking realization that only one thing in life is absolutely sure. Between 1978 and 1980 most state legislatures cut at least some taxes, and by the spring of 1979 thirty states had passed indignant resolutions calling upon Congress to summon a constitutional convention to draft an amendment requiring the Federal Government to maintain a balanced budget. And then, like any other California brushfire, this one burned itself out as abruptly as it had begun. In 1980 the voters of that state were asked to approve another Jarvis invention; a proposal to cut state income taxes in half, dubbed Proposition 9. California rejected Proposition 9 as overwhelmingly as it had approved Proposition 13, and Howard Jarvis is now as much a forgotten man as John Lindsay. What happened?

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Chilton Williamson Jr.

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There are two ways to look at the late great Tax Revolt of 1978-1980. One is that it is six feet under. The other is that it has died and gone to a Better Place, familiarly called the White House. Probably Alvin Rabushka and Pauline Ryan, the authors of The Tax Revolt (Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, Calif. 94305; $16.95), are not guilty of undue pessimism in subscribing to the former version.

On June 6, 1978, California voters endorsed Howard Jarvis’s Proposition 13, a proposal to slash property taxes drastically, in a 2 to 1 landslide, and the country responded with an enthusiasm commensurate with the breathtaking realization that only one thing in life is absolutely sure. Between 1978 and 1980 most state legislatures cut at least some taxes, and by the spring of 1979 thirty states had passed indignant resolutions calling upon Congress to summon a constitutional convention to draft an amendment requiring the Federal Government to maintain a balanced budget. And then, like any other California brushfire, this one burned itself out as abruptly as it had begun. In 1980 the voters of that state were asked to approve another Jarvis invention; a proposal to cut state income taxes in half, dubbed Proposition 9. California rejected Proposition 9 as overwhelmingly as it had approved Proposition 13, and Howard Jarvis is now as much a forgotten man as John Lindsay. What happened?