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Never forget. From a May 20, 1978 newspaper clipping. Universities used to be free in California until the homeowners cut and capped their property taxes 40 years ago. That generation of voters chose to indebt you in your tuition and housing costs.
Two weeks after its passage, Ronald Reagan, who hadn't taken a strong position on it earlier in the spring, used Prop. 13's win to argue that the whole federal tax system should be changed in its image. timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1… 
Let's look at the very bottom of this NYTimes story. While Reagan was planning his presidential run, what was @jerrybrowngov (also the governor of California 40 years ago) doing? Oh, bailing out the entire public school system in the wake of Prop. 13's passage.
1 1/2 weeks after that, Rep. Steiger would push an amendment to a revenue bill to cut the capital gains tax rate for the first time in multiple decades. Then President Jimmy Carter would push back and but then accede, implementing it in 1979. nytimes.com/1978/07/06/arc…
So the way that wealth accumulates in mediocre Bay Area tract homes appreciating at $200K/yr or in the private sector among cos and investors, while public schools and infrastructure decay is all connected in deliberate choices that voters and their elected representatives made.
