Here is the deal they keep trying to bury under the word “economy.” California Democrats endorsed a one-time 5% tax on roughly 200 billionaires. The proposal is supposed to raise $100 billion to offset healthcare funding cuts from the Trump administration.
That is the promise: keep people covered, make the richest people pay once, and stop pretending a family’s hospital bill is a law of nature.
Then Gov. Gavin Newsom, Xavier Becerra, the California Teachers Association, California Professional Firefighters, and the No on Prop 40 crowd showed up to warn us about the budget, the economy, and the future. Funny how the future gets very goddamn delicate when somebody with a billion dollars might have to contribute five percent of it.
And while they were preaching fiscal responsibility, the opposition campaign paid about $7,000 for hotel rooms, registration fees, travel expenses, and proxies for board members. Limited travel assistance, they called it. Sure. Put a nice little bow on the fucking invoice.
The billionaire tax is not magic. It is a choice: ask people with fortunes they could not spend in ten lifetimes to help keep healthcare from being gutted, or protect the money and hand ordinary families the bill. The record says the tax would raise money for care. The record also says the opponents organized hard to stop it—and spent money doing so.
They did not discover a sacred budget principle. They discovered that billionaires hate a receipt.
Family budgets get called irresponsible when the money runs out. Billionaire budgets get called “the economy” when anyone asks them to help. That is bullshit. Take the flag pin off the spreadsheet before you rob the clinic. And Newsom, Becerra, and every donor-owned bullshit machine hiding behind “the future”: go to hell.
Source story: California Democrats endorse one-time 5% tax on billionaires.