People power in California
Governor Newsom has always strongly opposed raising taxes on the wealthy -- like most politicians, he's a slavish toady of the billionaire parasite class. That's why SEIU-UHW is using California's initiative process to sideline him and go directly to the voters. It's a model for other states to follow, at least those states which allow citizen ballot initiatives. The parasite class can always buy off politicians, but they can't buy off millions of voters.
5% isn't much, out of wealth that was mostly plundered from workers over decades -- but it's a start, and an inspiration. If this initiative and others like it win with large enough margins of support, the clear wave of mass demand could force Congress itself to act on a national scale. It's an old saying but true: "Continuing to follow leaders is getting us nowhere." But if the people lead, eventually the leaders will follow.
posted by Infidel753 at 1:32 AM
11 Comments:
Demerits for Newsom. That the union is requesting ALREADY WORKS in Massachusetts! Come on, Gavin, wake up.
I hope they are successful and then inspire other jurisdictions.
Interesting...and of course I saw no mention of this in the mainstream news. I have a feeling that they will succeed. And again, while 5% may not seem like much, it is certainly a very good start and it can still do quite a lot of good.
Rade: I think most of them are hopeless, really. The billionaires bribe them with campaign contributions, and they know the billionaire-owned mainstream media will go after them without mercy if they go against billionaire interests. It hardly matters which party they belong to any more.
Anvil: I hope so too. It's important to get the word out so people know about this fight.
Marc: Most of the old, big news organizations are owned by billionaires now. They do their bidding.
Proponents estimate that this tax would raise a hundred billion dollars. Which means, of course, that the total net worth of California's billionaires must be at least two trillion. It's a disaster and a scandal that a few people were ever allowed to plunder such vast wealth.
This is a great idea! I hope it works.
This is an exciting development—something to follow with great hope. It could make all the difference. I recall when Elizabeth Warren reported a discussion with Republicans in the Senate about what threshold of wealth they might agree was reasonable to tax. She kept raising the level—eventually to a billion dollars. I don’t think there was any acceptable amount.
Ricko: There's a long road ahead, but I think it will get a lot of support.
Annie: I'm certainly going to be following it closely.
Warren is one of the few politicians who has ventured onto the kind of economic-populist platform I want to see adopted, and the party has pushed back hard at her for it. I really think we're now at the point where the political parties are useless. They're both billionaire-captured. The people are going to have to do this themselves.
Tax the rich is going to trigger a rhetorical fire-storm. The media (the public facing communication system), damn-near all of it, is under control of people subject to this sort of tax who, obviously, don't wish to contribute.
Expect, literally, thousands of jabs. Direct ads on TV/radio, naturally. Maximum stimulation of social media influencers and figureheads. Lines inserted into TV shows and broadcasts. The works.
Typically this has shifted the conversation and the proposal withers ans dies. Think, about the healthcare proposal under Hillary. It wasn't a bad idea but the media ans money were against it and the idea was summarily executed after being reduced by ridicule based on lies.
The media storm is going to be epic because that is all they have. Yes, the billionaires will threaten to leave. Sounds real until you ask: Where can they go? China? Russia? Where they liquidate billionaires, both bank accounts and person, regularly. Mars?
Anon: I certainly expect the parasite class to fight this with everything they have, including their control of the media. I'm hoping that by now people have learned to have less trust of the MSM -- many people these days get their news from sources like blogs, podcasts, specialized news websites not connected to the MSM. They have their issues too, but they're harder for the parasite class to influence or control. And the fact that the MSM are mostly billionaire-owned needs to be publicized, although I suspect it's becoming fairly well-known anyway.
Billionaires could threaten to leave California for other states, but if the whole US implemented a wealth tax, they'd have less attractive options. Elon Musk claims to believe he's going to Mars, but of course, he's mental.
What is the union planning to funds will be directed towards?
For me, I don't see the normative justification for a wealth tax. We tax work, and therefore income. If someone buys assets with the income that's already been taxes (as opposed to spending it down on consumption - yachts or whatever), then it is a tax on diligence, thrift and saving. If one accepts this logic for the billionaires, I don't see why it cannot be applied to everyone over, let's say, $100k salary?
Liam: See first paragraph -- 90% for healthcare and 10% for education.
With vanishingly rare exceptions, nobody "earns" a billion dollars by work, diligence, thrift, or any such thing. Parasites like Musk or Bezos do not work millions of times harder than the average employee, nor does their income have any connection with what work they do do. These people have rigged the system so that they can skim off that wealth by under-compensating the workers who actually produced it. A wealth tax on billionaires is a tax on successful parasitism.
I really don't care about abstract Ayn-Rand-ish philosophizing, but if one insists on approaching it that way -- there are things governments need to do, and the money to pay for those things needs to come from somewhere. A 5% wealth tax on billionaires really costs them nothing -- there's no practical difference between the lifestyle one can afford with $1,000,000,000 and what one can afford with $950,000,000. A 5% wealth tax on a person with a more typical net worth, say $100,000, would impact them more significantly.
In practical terms, a situation where a tiny handful of people control trillions of dollars (and the de facto power that goes with that) is incompatible with real democracy -- even if they had acquired that wealth legitimately. Our existing ultra-wealthy acquired it by rigging the system to steal it from those who produced it, usually in ways that result in exploitation and abuse on a huge scale, just as much as the parasitic feudal lords and royalty of the Dark Ages did. In the long run, such vast private fortunes must not continue to exist. Since society is not yet ready for my preferred option for dealing with the parasite class, a modest wealth tax like this is a good start.
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