Not bad at all, Tom. I'm going to have to work to come up with a response.

It's a pretty good analogy qualitatively, but the difference is in quantity (degree). Prop 13 wasn't moderate in any way, it was a meataxe, and you know how much damage the blunt instrument of regulation can do. And regulation it was, regulation of the government instead of business (but then government should be run like a business, right?).

How would you view a law that simply put a numeric cap on business profits? I mean, aside from viewing any regulation at all as bad, you'd see it as a particularly crude and counterproductive example of the breed, guaranteed to produce negative consequences. That's exactly the one-size-fits-all draconian approach taken by Prop 13, and indeed we have seen negative consequences from the use of that bludgeon, most notably deteriorating infrastructure, the maintenance of which used to be considered an essential duty of government.

Back to you, Tom.