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.
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
Oh no. I’m so sorry. I’m the reason Trump Won Again, aren’t I?
Progressives are done holding their nose to vote
I’m being sarcastic. Fuck Newsom and the corporate Dem oligarchy