California is right on the verge of passing the country’s first wealth tax aimed at billionaires.
AND WE’RE ABOUT TO MISS OUR CHANCE!
It’s a one-time 5 percent tax on the assets of California billionaires, raising money to go to Medi-Cal, education, and food assistance, the brainchild of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West president David Regan, and it would be used to fund healthcare and offset those big fat funding cuts signed into law by the Trump administration, you know, the ones that are making everybody really hungry and sad?
Here’s what the Washington Post had to say about the potential for raising public funds with this one-time wealth tax.
Researchers estimate roughly 240 billionaires were living in California as of Jan. 1 and had a combined $2.05 trillion in wealth, far more than in any other state and all but a few nations. […]
Wealth tax advocates say it would generate an estimated $100 billion in tax revenue. Researchers at Stanford University’s conservative-leaning Hoover Institution estimate tax revenue at about $30 billion.
A nonpartisan analysis for the California Legislature found that it is hard to predict just how much the state would collect.
Support for the tax was at a healthy 54 percent in May. But then came absolutely epic whining from billionaires, who have spent millions to take out these stupid fucking ads and run them every ad break, every single day, to the point that I would vote to end billionaires for all time if I could, though if I’m going to be honest, I would anyway!
But now support for that tax is slipping. Because why? Because blanketing populations with propaganda works, that’s why. Consider how much billionaire dough went into cutting these ads for these assholes, and then consider how much our strained healthcare or public schooling system might appreciate a one-time donation, for example, of $350 million. They were also paying Instagram influencers, but so were the pro-Prop 40 people, because we live in hell!
The campaign opposing Proposition 40 has plenty of money to spend on political messaging in what’s become one of the most expensive ballot fights in California’s history. Billionaires such as Google co-founder Sergey Brin have donated millions to Building a Better California, a group funding ads against the wealth tax proposal. More than $350 million has been contributed to fight the billionaire tax and support two propositions — 41 and 42 — that could block it.
We have also been living through some of the most deliberately confusing messaging that I can remember, so here is my quick-and-dirty, totally nonpartisan guide to these three propositions:
Prop 40: The billionaire tax. VOTE YES on that so we can feed all the hungry kids at the library branch I volunteer with instead of having to endure their big, sad hungry-kid eyes! I also am a big fan of public health and education, because I don’t want to live surrounded by a bunch of sickly subliterates! Vote yes!
Prop 41: It’s not even a real proposition! It’s just an attempt to invalidate Prop 40 if it’s passed, and it would also subject any new taxes to ongoing audits, to punish them. Absolutely not! Vote no!
Prop 42: Another sneaky attempt to invalidate Prop 40 if it’s passed. It would also prohibit new taxes on the ownership of certain items, effectively making it impossible to try anything like Prop 40 again. Vote no!
Prop 43: All new taxes would need to be approved by a two-thirds majority, rather than a simple majority. This would mean that it would only take a third of voters to block special taxes. It would be like Prop 13, which absolutely shafted my entire generation and those who came after and continues to do so, but somehow much worse. Absolutely the fuck not. Vote no!
Californians are in a historically sour and dour mood this year, per my friends over at the Public Policy Institute of California. Can’t say that I blame us!
Eighty-two percent of adult Californians think things in the United States are generally going in the wrong direction, the highest share holding this pessimistic view since PPIC began asking about the national outlook two decades ago. Nearly eight in ten predict bad economic conditions in both the state and the nation over the next 12 months, a high not matched since the depths of the pandemic and Great Recession.
“If you’re looking for one word to describe Californians’ mood as they are filling out their ballots, it would be gloomy—very gloomy,” said Mark Baldassare, PPIC Statewide Survey director and Miller Chair in Public Policy. “Affordability continues to be a central concern, with majorities across demographic groups saying their incomes are not keeping up with inflation.”
Hey, Californians! Don’t you hate billionaires? Don’t you want to fuck them right off? Wouldn’t it cheer you right up to watch them writhe and whine and moan and make stupid billionaire threats to leave the country and then proceed to stay right where they are?
Then you know what to do!
Vote!
“If you pass this wealth tax, I’ll have to move to Texas like Elon, or move to Florida like Bezos.”
Ok. See ya, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
It is my firm belief that props 41-43 were written for and by people who don't worry about the conditions of our roads, bridges, and schools because they send their kids to private schools via helicopter. They've got theirs, and fuck everyone else.