California is undoubtedly solidifying its status as a deep blue hellhole, pushing a new tax policy that punishes the job-creating and investing class and those who have already left the state for better pastures. The state that can’t get a high-speed rail project completed on time and is under budget is asking for more money because Sacramento has been such a crackerjack operation when it comes to managing the state’s finances. The Golden State is just the west coast version of New Jersey—deep blue, infested with Democrats, and addicted to tax-and-spend policies.
There’s a reason why billionaire entrepreneurs won’t do business in California—its job environment is a job killer. Even ardent liberals like Bill Maher have commented about the state’s penchant for covering every aspect of life in red tape. It took years for the comedian’s solar shack to get approved; it’s no bigger than a portable bathroom. And now we have this new wealth tax that won’t do anything because Democrats have tried this before—the rich don’t opulently spend on things like sailboats and private jets. It’s not, nor has it ever been, a sustainable tax system. Worse, it seeks to inflict vengeance on those who left the state, an exit tax on steroids (via Fox News):
Assemblyman Alex Lee, a progressive Democrat, last week introduced a bill in the California State Legislature that would impose an extra annual 1.5% tax on those with a "worldwide net worth" above $1 billion, starting as early as January 2024.
As early as 2026, the threshold for being taxed would drop: those with a worldwide net worth exceeding $50 million would be hit with a 1% annual tax on wealth, while billionaires would still be taxed 1.5%.
[…]
The legislation is a modified version of a wealth tax approved in the California Assembly in 2020, which the Democrat-led state Senate declined to pass.
The current version just introduced includes measures to allow California to impose wealth taxes on residents even years after they left the state and moved elsewhere.
Exit taxes aren't new in California. But this bill also includes provisions to create contractual claims tied to the assets of a wealthy taxpayer who doesn't have the cash to pay their annual wealth tax bill because most of their assets aren't easily turned into cash. This claim would require the taxpayer to make annual filings with California's Franchise Tax Board and eventually pay the wealth taxes owed, even if they've moved to another state.
California was one of several blue states last week to unveil bills to impose new wealth taxes. The other states were Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and Washington. Each state's proposal contained a different tax approach, but they all centered around the same basic idea: the rich must pay more.
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The so-called rich do pay their fair share; I don’t need to rehash the multiple graphs. Democrats can simply cut spending and gut the waste which is an alien concept to these people. That’s not accurate—they know what to do, it’s just that dependency is at the core of their agenda and government largesse that prevents people from becoming independent of state social programs is a perfect way of keeping a voter base in line and under control.
It's the 'Hotel California' policy–"you can check out any time you like but you can never leave."
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