Howard Jarvis Quotes (1903-1986)

“Tax shelters are a coffin for money.”

“I guess nobody chose me to lead the parade. I guess I chose myself. If I hadn't done it, I don't think anybody else in California would have done it. Nobody.”

“The people who wrote the constitution ... didn't say life, liberty and welfare or life, liberty and food stamps.”

“The most important thing in this country is not the school system, nor the police department nor the fire department. The right to have property in this country, the right to have a home in this country, that’s important.”

“Over the years one of the main ploys by our politicians has been to make government so complicated that people can’t understand it. What the people can’t understand, they’re afraid of and walk away from. That leaves the politicians with a free hand.”

“An oppressive legislature could drive the people to refuse to pay their taxes and to revolt with guns. We didn’t want that, so we were trying to create a revolution with fountain pens, rather than with rifles, clubs, or a confrontation between the people and the government.”

“We did know that the American dream of home ownership for everyone was being sabotaged by exploding property taxes. The entire basis of free government in America was being destroyed by virtually unlimited taxation, which can only lead first to bankruptcy and then to dictatorship.”

“I didn’t think Communists should be allowed to hold office for the same reason that I don’t think you should give Al Capone the key to your safe-deposit box.”

“I think the fact that so many people are forced to live in apartments is bad for the country. The solution is more building, but the politicians have made it impossible to build. People don’t have as much interest in keeping an eye on government and politicians when they rent, instead of owning their own home.”

“The people in the United States—or at least some of the states—have two basic rights, the right to vote and the right to legally petition. I think the right to petition is more important than the right to vote because the right to petition means that the people can group together to stand up to the politicians and the bureaucrats.”

“I didn't comprehend this during the 15 years we worked on 13. I didn't comprehend the size it was going to be. I was running around the track like a horse with blinders on. If I had known it was going to take 15 years, if I had known it was going to take 100,000 bucks out of my pocket, then I might have been too chicken to have gone on.”

“In Los Angeles County alone, 400,000 people did not pay their property tax this year because they didn’t have the money. They run the risk of being forced out of their homes, which I personally believe is un-American, indecent, and criminal. There is nothing more sacred than the place where a man lives.”

“Actually, the politicians had to bend the law to keep us off the ballot that time. I don’t know if they did it on purpose or through sheer incompetence. We filed more than 650,000 signatures before the deadline, but then more than 200,000 of them were arbitrarily discarded by temporary help: boobs who were hired off the streets by county registrars’ offices throughout the state.”

“I think the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor voted for 13 because I think people from every class resented the fact that government was stealing too much of their money. I think the general idea in California and all over the country, with rich and poor alike, is that the government is too invasive; it has too much control; it passes too many laws; it curbs too many freedoms.”

“Elected officials have a responsibility to represent their constituents to the best of their ability. But there is hardly a better example of a conflict of interest than the difference between the best interest of the politician and the best interest of the people he has the duty to represent. The more taxes, the more money government has to spend, the more public employees the politician can put on the public payroll, the more power the politician has.”

“In California thousands of acres are off the tax rolls because they are owned on the face by something like 64,000 tax-exempt corporations and 18,000 charitable trusts. It’s an unfair system. A pays taxes, but B doesn’t pay on the same type of property. Much of this property belongs to organizations that are listed as religions, but they’re not really religious. They’re just a fake to get a tax break. It’s nothing less and nothing more than revenue racketeering.”

“Also, I want to reduce the capital gains tax from its current level of up to 40% to a flat 15%. This would free investment capital and result in increased productivity and a decline in unemployment… Japan and Germany, for instance, have virtually no capital gains tax at all, and they have two of the strongest economies in the Western world.”

“After all, a government is supposed to be run by the people. We’ve developed in this country an apathetic philosophy that says: ‘I’m only one person. I can’t do anything—why should I take my time?’ The lack of interest means the people have lost faith in their elected officials. They have lost faith in their capacity to be part of government. They have lost sight of the fact that if this system continues as it has, it’s going to change American citizens into subjects.”

“I tell off reporters when I think they’re asking me a stupid question or an irrelevant one. I compare their business to everyone else’s. I say they’re not a privileged class. They have no right to ask me what color toilet paper I use any more than I have a right to ask them how many times they had sex last week. And when they suggest that the apartment business should be under rent control, I say, ‘How would you like it if you were under censorship?’ That always stops them.”

“My heart doesn’t bleed any more for public workers who get fired than it does for employees of private business who lose their jobs; much less, in fact. I’m not saying all public workers are bad, but I think there are too many of them who never do anything. A lot of them are cynical and arrogant and give lousy service. They have no investment in their jobs, no responsibility, and for many of them their sole objective is to avoid doing anything until they become eligible for a pension.”

“Many people don’t understand that property taxes have absolutely no relation to a property owner’s ability to pay—unlike the two other major forms of taxation, income tax and sales tax. From that very first meeting back in 1962, those of us in the tax movement decided that our efforts must be directed toward bringing all taxes— but especially property taxes—down to a level where most people could pay them without undue hardship.”

“There’s no question about it: My father was the most important influence on my life. He was a very stern, righteous, but fair guy who had a set of principles by which he lived. Those principles were: you never lied to anybody, you never took anybody’s money unless you had earned it, and education is essential. He would tell us that education was just like the cans on the market shelf: all you have to do is go take it off. But if you don’t take it off, you’re not going to get it. Nobody’s going to hand it to you.”

“I never smoked a cigarette or had a drink or saw a pregnant girl either in grade school, or high school, or college. Never. When I was in high school, the coach would write on a piece of paper. ‘These are the rules,’ and hang it on the wall. And believe me, those were the rules. You had to go to bed at 9:00. You couldn’t eat ice cream or pie. You had to report for practice at 3:35 every afternoon, for all sports. And of course we could not drink coffee or tea or Coca Cola or soda pop. It never occurred to us to disobey the rules.”

“Most of the politicians and the press were wrong about 13, so it’s no surprise that most of the pollsters were, too. The first time a California poll was conducted on 13 by the ‘impartial,’ ‘scientific’ Field organization in February 1978 the result was 20% in favor of 13 and 10% opposed. The opposition had no trouble rationalizing that poll by pointing out that 70% of the voters were undecided, and that it was only natural for the people who had signed the petitions to be strongly in favor of 13, which they said distorted the poll… I do think a lot of polls are fixed.”

“The best way to convince the state legislature to give people the legal right to petition to change the law is by circulating petitions and collecting the name of as many voters as possible. That’s what keeps the politicians honest, or at least more honest than they would otherwise be: the knowledge that the people are interested in their government and that if they don’t do the job, the people will reclaim their rights. That’s why the initiative and referendum are important.”