LOS ANGELES (AP) — A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears will lead to an exodus of wealth.
A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other state — a few hundred, by some estimates. Nearly half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly $350 billion budget, comes from the top 1% of earners.
A large health care union is attempting to place a proposal before voters in November that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires — including stocks, art, businesses, collectibles and intellectual property — to backfill federal funding cuts to health services for lower-income people that were signed by President Donald Trump last year.
In a state with a vast gap between rich and poor, the plan has resulted in a tangle of competing interests at a time when both Democrats and Republicans are struggling to respond to economic anxiety driven by rising costs ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
Newsom is campaigning for the presidency, to the donors. Same as Hillary and Biden and Kamala. Maybe we need a candidate that plays to voters this time.
Pathetically the sheep consider Biden’s presidency a great success. What do you even say to that?
I fully expect the Dems to do the wrong thing in every instance where they’re faced with an obvious correct path forward.
I as well, while still knowing the democrats will still do worse than I expect, and yet they still do worse than that, even though I knew they would be worse still.
They are controlled opposition, in effect if not always knowingly. Organized interests make sure they don’t get any popular reformer in there, to protect their license, even as they hand absolute power to the right, that despite giving them what they want now, will turn on them and destroy them in not even that much time. Both the donors will be destroyed by the political monster they created on the right, and the democrats will be destroyed by it, thinking all of that voter fraud talk is performative.
Indictments for false vote rigging allegations fall of 2027 I bet, to dem leaders, unless they are sure they have it sewn up already, but I still think some fed prosecutor with ambition will pursue it. But sorry I digress a lot here.