California Field Poll Reports on What Californians Want from State and Local Government and What They Want to Pay

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

Yesterday, on the 30th anniversary of the passage of Proposition 13, which limited property taxes and increases, in particular for those who have owned their property for a long time, the California Field Poll has released findings of a recent survey. We analyzed those numbers as to Proposition 13 in an article on these pages as showing broad support for Prop 13, but an opening for a split roll tax treating commercial property differently from residential property. All of Field’s findings are summarized in a four page document prepared for a conference held yesterday on Prop 13 at the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

You can read this Field report which has a number of charts, diagrams, and data. I’ve also dived into the 62 pages of crosstabs,
which have a lot more of the data and have been published by the Sacramento Bee in their Capitol Alert.

Field also asked voters about other taxes in California and the amount of services voters want from their government. This is part of continuing polling that Field has conducted on many of these questions going back more than 30 years.

The findings in a nutshell before we get into the details:

• Californians, as they have for at least the last three decades, respond when asked if the level of taxes that “average citizens like themselves pay” in state and local taxes are too high or somewhat high or about right, that they are too high or somewhat high. However, when asked to identify specific taxes that are too high—despite having been read a list of the 8 main tax categories at the beginning of questioning—no specific tax has a majority of voters saying it is too high.
• By a two to one margin, California voters want more services from state and local government when asked that question in the abstract.
• But when asked if they want more services if it means raising “your taxes and fees” or fewer services if it means these taxes and fees will be kept at or current levels, there is a slight preference for more services even with higher taxes.

Now for the details and an analysis of what this might mean.