For the record, property taxes in California, at least in the Bay Area, are cheap only for those who have owned their homes for decades. For most people in my age group (late 30s/early 40s), who have purchased homes in the last 10 years, $7500/year would be considered low. Our family pays $10,000/yr. This is for a small (1300 sq ft) modest 50's tract home in a mid-level suburban neighborhood with average schools. Meanwhile, several older individuals and couples on our block, who live in homes at least equal in value to ours, pay only $500/yr. Same with people our age who bought or inherited their homes from their parents. Unfortunately, we didn't have that option.

I certainly don't want older people to be thrown out of their homes because of an inability to pay rapidly rising property taxes. But the current system, in which young people frequently pay 20x more than older couples for similar homes on the same block, doesn't make sense either. And the schools have really suffered from the low funding resulting from Prop 13...which is doubly frustrating to people like us who pay $10,000/yr in property taxes and yet have severely underfunded schools for our children!