Sound and Fury over Taxes

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about extravagance in government. Lynn Rosner, 45, and her insurance broker husband bought their "dream home" in Los Angeles for $64,000 in 1968. Their tax then was $1,800. By 1976 it was up to $3,500 and, without Proposition 13, it would have gone to $7,000. Last year, she says, "we stopped going out, we did no entertaining and bought no clothes. We can't take a vacation. We can't lead a normal life." Says Mrs. Rosner: "The more money they spend on schools, the worse the schools get."

Sarah Hyman, 43, wife of a high school teacher, agrees. The house the Hymans bought six years ago for $72,000 is now assessed at $220,000, and the tax, which was up to $4,000 last year, was slated to more than double—to $8,300. "We see waste in the school system every day," she contends. "At 15 or more high schools, there's a dean for every grade, plus a head dean for the deans. At one school they had enough money to buy six electric typewriters, so they did—even though there was only one typist. Money is allotted for summer school mainly so more teachers can have jobs. And instead of teaching remedial reading, they teach backpacking or other craftsy things."

Those kinds of complaints, fair or not, gave powerful impetus to Proposition 13. Whether Californians will regret their protest remains to be seen. Curiously, a Los Angeles Times poll after the balloting showed that 70% of those who supported 13 thought they would get by without any reduction in services. Many were interested simply in sending the government a message. The poll also showed that 22% felt the government provided too many unnecessary services. When asked which services they would be most willing to see cut, 69% said welfare.

The hapless California officials who are now moving gingerly to bow to the will of the majority cannot, however, fail to hear the clash of other voices. Indeed, there was a tinge of class conflict in the campaign for Proposition 13, with possible portents of racial trouble in the simmering summer months. By and large, homeowners from the middle and upper classes, justly aggrieved by their rising tax burden, had led the tax revolt. But worried blacks and Hispanics in California feared, with some cause, that as government turned more frugal, they would be hurt the most.

State Democratic Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, a black who represents Los Angeles' Watts district, demanded that layoffs be determined not solely by seniority but on the basis of the employees' personal needs and competence. Otherwise, she feared, minorities and women once again would be "the last hired and first fired." Warned John Mack, president of the Los Angeles urban league: "We intend to make damn sure that if garbage is going to be picked up only once a month in Watts, then it damn sure will be once a month in the San Fernando Valley."

Such conflicting claims and expectations raised broader questions about the Jarvis measure. Indeed, the entire nationwide drive to slash taxes arbitrarily and force public officials to cope with the consequences poses anew some of the most basic of political questions. At what point does the voters' laudable intention to eliminate waste and increase governmental efficiency act instead to destroy the very services a democratic society demands? Is society really expecting too much