Not only has Gov. Gavin Newsom vocally opposed the proposed California billionaire tax, but he also wants to prevent the state from ever passing a wealth tax in the future.
On Friday he endorsed Proposition 42, a ballot measure that would cancel out Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax. Prop. 42 would prohibit retroactive taxes like the one-time 5% tax on assets that would apply to any billionaire who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026 if Prop. 40 passes.
But Prop. 42, funded and placed on the ballot by billionaire and Google co-founder Sergey Brin to defeat the billionaire tax, also would go further, by banning any new taxes on personal property.
That includes pensions and 401K accounts before retirees start drawing retirement income from them. It also includes other investments, financial assets, business holdings, art collections and all other forms of personal wealth that would be affected by the billionaire tax or any future wealth tax.
Newsom’s decision to support Prop. 42 runs counter to his own Democratic Party and some labor unions. It also aligns him with some of the wealthy tech donors with whom he’s maintained longstanding relationships dating back to his days as mayor of San Francisco.
God, fuck this guy with a fucking pineapple. Why can’t we get candidates who aren’t pieces of shit?
Because everything is about money.
But it’s not. You can’t eat money, you can’t bring back an uninhabitable planet once you destroy it for pieces of paper. The things that are important, aren’t the things we are focusing on because we are a stupid species that’s going to destroy ourselves. And it will be peak irony.
My comment is from the perspective of politicians, not the average person.
The average person is too focused on getting enough money to survive to care about an uninhabitable planet
Because of the way they our political system is set up, and the laws and regulations that surround political spending, money is everything to a party politician even if it isn’t.
As a politician, your party controls everything. They control what committees you sit on, whether or not the rest of the party will vote for something you work on, whether or not you will receive any financial assistance (or opposition) in your primary or general campaign.
What determines your status in the party? How much money you contribute to them via fundraisers. What’s a great, efficient way to raise funds for your party? Fucking over the population by catering to the rich.
That’s what I’m saying. This is why campaign finance laws and regulations need to change. It’s extremely difficult to do anything, even if you get elected, when you don’t have any power.
The system is working as intended.
There’s plenty of great candidates. Check the green party or labor party or communist party
Well, I don’t live in California. So unless he runs for president, I won’t get to help choose who the nominee is. And I’ll vote for who I want to win in the primary, but I’m not gonna throw away my vote during the general bcz he’s a bad candidate bcz.whoever the Republicans nominate will be a straight up fascist.