Start United States USA — Financial Raising taxes won’t cure what ails California

Raising taxes won’t cure what ails California

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Enough already. This “Tax the Rich!” bill promises an easy answer, but it will only make all of us poorer
A coalition of Democratic state lawmakers and liberal activists is touting new bill that attempts to deal with the state’s falling revenues caused by the coronavirus-related shutdowns. Assembly Bill 1253 is not really a new approach, of course, but the oldest one in the progressive playbook: boosting tax rates on the highest earners. This “Tax the Rich!” plan, as its backers themselves call it, would raise the state’s highest-in-the-nation income-tax rate to a mind-boggling 16.8 percent. It would impose up to 3.5 percent in new income taxes, applied in steps to those who earn more than $1 million a year. Given Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature, it has a real chance of passage. Californians “are demanding legislators commit to invest in our communities rather than continuing to give billionaires and corporations a free pass,” notes the Commit to Equity Coalition. “Californians are jobless and struggling to put food on the table, while the rich contemplate which vacation house to stay in,” says its author, Assembly member Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles. Those class-warfare sentiments need an immediate rebuttal. For starters, California millionaires hardly get a free pass.

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