A one-time 5% wealth tax would bring Silicon Valley’s billionaires’ wealth back to where it was just 31 days ago, on September 7.
When it was “just” 178% higher than on January 1, 2023.
They’d rather let 3 million people lose their health insurance than let that happen.
Graph here: https://cabillionairetracker.org/
Rather than paying their fair share of taxes, Sergey Brin, Pether Thiel, and Patrick Collison prefer to spend tens of millions to manipulate the vote.
Stupefying levels of greed and lack of civil-mindedness.
$45 million in a week: California’s wealthy aren’t holding back to try to stop ‘billionaire tax’
All credits to Gabriel Zucman
I posted this comment on another topic but it’s relevant here too:
The sick part is that what is being asked is actually so inconsequential to the billionaires that not only will their line still go up, if we change nothing else but this, even wealth inequality itself will still keep going up, it will just go up at a slightly less supersonic speed. They don’t even care about the amount of money we’re asking for, they care about the precedent that if we can take this from them, what’s stopping us from taking everything from them.
That’s what they’re actually scared of. That’s why they resist this so hard. That’s why they don’t bend. They think that once the people slip out of their stranglehold they will get a taste of billionaire blood and they will like it.
And they might be right.
It’s not the money, it’s control of their companies. To pay the tax they have to sell stock which reduces control. They, rightly I think, also believe it’s a one time tax until the next time the tax gets passed. Maybe this a good thing but it should also be addressed by those pushing the wealth tax…
Would much rather make their worst nightmares come true. Anything less feels like leaving money on the table, ya know?
I noticed that in 2024, when Bernie was pushing the wealth tax, billionaires funneled a lot of money toward Trump. “Worst nightmares” is a double edged sword…
They’re gonna destroy our world, and we’re just going to tut-tut each other while they do it.
The tax rate on billionaires might be so important that it requires everyone’s attention every year until the problem is solved.