CORRECTION-RETRACTION

What Buffett actually said and what he didn't say. He did not say what was quoted: namely that Prop 13 should be rolled back and everyone should pay higher property taxes. What he did say was that the wealthy people in places like Malibu were not paying their fair share because their homes were deliberately under appraised; property tax in California is based on a percentage of appraised value. This is a fact. It has been spoken about in California before and the suspicion has been that somebody was paid off to appraise certain properties at an artificially low rate. This is taken from a local throwaway paper in Santa Monica called The Ocean Park Gazette

The sinfully rich of Malibu along with the Malibu City Council have persisted by placing Measure S (a re-worked version of the defeated Measure EE) on next week's special election ballot. The Santa Monica homeowners, Santa Monica renters and those individuals living on fixed incomes will once again be burdened with this additional property tax, if it is passed, for years to come. The sinfully rich celebrities and well-heeled corporate executives of Malibu, living in their gigantic ocean view citadels of 25,000-plus square feet will pay the same amount of additional inequitable school parcel property taxes as the owner of a 1,500-square foot Santa Monica house.
Santa Monica homeowners, fixed income and renters are paying the major portion of the current parcel taxes and contributions to the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District. The City of Santa Monica gave a donation (gift) of over $3,000,000 to the school district last year while the Malibu City Council was voting down a donation to the district.

The article goes on in purely local terms to explain how the scumbag movie stars with their 25,000 square foot homes are ripping a new asshole for the lower cost housing in Santa Monica. This is what Buffett was talking about and I erred greatly when I accepted media quotes regarding what he actually said.