In CA at least there is prop 13 so unless you also have many new home buyers you have a percentage of the population still paying at 1970's tax rates... Slightly f'ed if you are correct about the spending increase - more detail here - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(19...
There were a lot of new buyers. Those older owners had more incentive than ever to cash out during the housing bubble. There was enormous turnover in ownership.
And for all of the old owners, their taxes can be increased by 2% every year. So they do eventually go up, even as values are dropping, until they reach a ceiling of 1%.
Here's what the data looks like for the last 17 years:
