cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/45483
The coalition behind a plan to tax California billionaires on Monday announced it’s reached a major milestone in its efforts to get its proposed wealth tax on ballots this fall.
The California Billionaire Tax coalition revealed it has now filed more than 1.5 million signatures, or nearly twice the 875,000 signatures required to make the California Billionaire Tax Act an official state ballot initiative.
The proposed tax, which has drawn opposition from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), will hit the state’s billionaires with a one-time 5% wealth tax that proponents say will be used to fund local hospitals, food aid, and public education.
Mayra Castañeda, an ultrasound technologist and a member of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), which proposed the ballot initiative, said that the tax was essential to preserve quality of healthcare in California.
“When funding is cut, it brings a world of pain,” said Castañeda**.** “It means longer ER waits, fewer healthcare workers, rural hospitals shutting down, delayed care, and lives lost that could have been saved. It’s clear that most Californians and most billionaires recognize how reasonable and necessary this proposal is—both to keep emergency rooms open and to save California businesses from closing.”
Jared Hamil, a member of Teamsters Local 396, said gathering more than 1.5 million signatures in favor of the tax means “we are one step closer to the California we deserve.”
“We deserve to be able to afford to see a doctor when we’re sick,” Hamil emphasized. “We deserve to know our local hospital will be open and ready to treat you in an emergency. In a nation as rich as ours, that’s the least we deserve.”
A poll of California voters conducted last month by the University of California, Berkeley found that the proposed billionaire tax is broadly popular, with support outweighing opposition by a roughly two-to-one ratio.
An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that the tax will raise $100 billion in revenue over the next five years, which would be enough to fill the hole in California’s state budget caused by the Republican-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act that takes an ax to spending on Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
Bruh the billionaire tax isn’t even that bad. They get taxed one fucking time
The proposed tax, which has drawn opposition from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom
Yeah, he fucking sucks.
I gotta wonder how many current gubernatorial candidates support this thing. Presumably not Steve Hilton or Chad Bianco. Billionaire Self-Proclaimed Democrat Tom Steyer does not seem to be a fan, although he’s playing the mealy-mouthed “I don’t support it because it doesn’t go far enough” gambit. Idk about the rest. It’s California, so apparently everyone and their pet dog is currently running.
His policy on this sucks, but if he’s the nominee, the effort is better spent trying to move his positions than poisoning him so we dive straight into a losing strategy in a 2-party system. I hate the game, but that doesn’t mean backing a third party and convincing apathetic voters to stay home if he is the nominee would benefit vulnerable people. Rallying against Harris because she wasn’t strong enough on Gaza explicitly harmed the people of Gaza. We need to learn from the lesson soaked in their blood.
Harris wouldn’t have done anything for Gaza, but we probably wouldn’t be at war with Iran.
And children wouldn’t be locked in cages, and random people wouldn’t be sent to random countries, and probably the transfer of wealth to billionaires would have been slowed to the point it would have been possible to stop it. Epstein would have probably been investigated, and the child victims would have had an opportunity for justice. The people of Cuba’s life would probably be improved and we would probably be making strides on international climate pacts. We wouldn’t have accepted a foreign airbase in the Midwest, and the people of Ukraine would have had enough support to actually be doing more pushback against Russia.
Less bad is better than perfect and it is a position of privilege to be able to minimize how much better Harris would have been.
Obama locked children in cages, deported more people than Trump’s first term, and bailed out the perpetrators of the '08 financial crisis. Biden had full access to the Epstein files and sat on them. Biden also did not roll back the extra sanctions that Trump placed on Cuba in his first term. Not sure why having a foreign airbase in the Midwest is bad, since we have hundreds of military bases around the world. Also not sure how funneling money into a proxy war against Russia is good for the citizens of the US.
The Democrats are not “less bad.” They are the other side of the coin of capitalist politics. They are the ratchet in the Overton Window shift.
His policy on most things sucks. He’s a corporatist. It’s going to make things worse, just not as quickly as Republicans will.
You remind me of the guy who was trying to argue with Charlie Kirk a few months back.
Don’t you dare say Newsom fucking sucks. Gavin Newsom will be the next presidential nominee for the DNC, so you better get in line and support him because hey he’s not Trump!
You seem to misunderstand. It’s for the primaries, get out there and do everything you can to get a decent candidate on the ballot. Go door to door, print flyers, vote, convince your friends and families to vote, make ‘donations’ to people who vote for good candidates since apparently that’s legal now. Anything you can to make sure a real progressive is the choice.
But yeah, if somehow it ends up being a choice between Newsom and Trump’s third term, you probably should choose Newsom over Trump because that’s an obviously less destructive choice and you’d be an absolute moron to sit that out at the end if those end up being the only two choices you have
lol I’m being sarcastic. The DNC will install Newsom as the nominee despite the voters’ wishes because he’s a corporatist and won’t actually bring real economic change to hurt their donors, but he says the right things for the culture war distraction.
Ah, forgive me. It’s hard to tell sarcasm about politics these days. This is also what I expect to happen but short of everybody deciding to work together to [Removed by Reddit], there’s not a whole lot to do about that
Progressives are done holding their nose to vote
I’m being sarcastic. Fuck Newsom and the corporate Dem oligarchy
Oh no. I’m so sorry. I’m the reason Trump Won Again, aren’t I?
This would be a SAD day if it passes! There’s SO many More Single Mothers on WELFARE that we can Tax INSTEAD of Billionaires!
-Fiscally Responsible Politicians!
Reminds me of the Silicon Valley scene where Russ Hanneman is now justtttt under $1b and thinks the sky is falling
“I had to sell my Bugatti!”
“Isn’t there a Maserati in the driveway…?”
But the doors go like this <waves hands like a normal horizontal car door> instead of like this <waves hands vertically>!
This is an odd, feel good measure that they’ll just fight off if passed. Why are we wasting time on this when the actual solution is taxing them at the Federal level first, then by willing states.
They’re
morenot mutually exclusive. People can advocate for both at the same time, and the politicians who would work in favor of one have no jurisdiction to work in favor of the other. And there’s no reason to expect there wouldn’t be exactly the same legal challenges made by the same people if it were done first nationally.Congressional law is a bit more final than a voter initiative.
This is pretty dumb tax. Might as well give them a free trip to move to Texas or Nevada. It’s needs to be Federal with a significant penalty for trying to move money offshore -that will never happen.
