The problem is that some people have too much.
That’s the view of those in Sacramento who think they know best how to redistribute everybody’s property. They also think they know best how to assign burdens to be carried by people who bear no responsibility for them, but unluckily are located in a place that has been chosen to host the “solution.”
The principle is the same. Whether you’re a wealthy investor or you’re the owner of a property in an area designated by the government to become the next Skid Row, the plan is to take away some of your wealth because you have too much and somebody else is in need.
For example, the California Federation of Teachers is sponsoring a “Tax on Extreme Wealth.” This newly introduced legislative package would add a 1% tax on wealth in excess of $50 million per household in California, with an additional 0.5% on wealth in excess of a billion dollars. The teachers union thinks this will raise approximately $22 billion a year to “fund our recovery.”
Never mind that hundreds of billions of your federal tax dollars are about to fly into California to “fund our recovery.” That money doesn’t do anything to hurt billionaires, who apparently are to blame for all the state’s problems.
For the record, billionaires don’t compel anyone to do business with them, unlike public employee unions.
The problem with the plan to take money from billionaires is that the wealthiest Californians already pay a top marginal state income tax rate of 13.3%, the highest in the nation. The top 0.5% of income earners in California pay 40% of the state’s tax revenues, according to the Franchise Tax Board.
If those taxpayers decide that they can tolerate the humidity in Florida or the music in Texas, the California state treasury will cave in like a meteor crater.
Maybe we could sell tickets to see it and make up some of the lost revenue with tourism.
As if the income tax wasn’t high enough, the teachers union now wants a new tax on wealth. This would require complex reporting on the value of assets of all types.
But worse than the complexity is the premise. This is the belief that it’s the government’s job to go around and decide who has more than they need and who needs more than they have, and then to use the force of law to take it and give it away.
“Billionaires in our state alone have increased their wealth by over half a trillion dollars,” complained the California Federation of Teachers in a news release.
Yet even their own proposal begins the process of defining billionaires down. The tax increase starts at assets of $50 million. It would only go down from there.
The premise that people who “have” must give it up to people who “have not” is also on display in the controversy over the locations of new facilities for homeless individuals.
The state government slipped a provision into a budget trailer bill to prevent local governments from requiring the usual approval process for a change of land use when COVID-19 relief grants are used to convert a property to homeless housing. Minimal if any notice is given, and the usual process for local approval of a change of land use is not required.
So people who bought townhouses in Reseda across the street from a municipal building’s parking lot will soon be living across the street from a “cabin community” where the current residents of tent encampments will be relocated. Homeowners in West Hills may soon find a homeless shelter going up in the residential area next to West Hills Hospital. Residents of Arleta just found out that a site at 9120 N. Woodman Avenue has been chosen to become a homeless shelter.
The owners of neighboring properties are certain to see a decline in the equity they have built up in their property, but the government considers these property owners “the haves.”
That’s what happens when the government decides that wealth belongs to everybody. Pretty soon, the government declares that everybody’s wealthy.
Susan Shelley is an editorial writer and columnist for the Southern California News Group. [email protected]. Twitter: @Susan_Shelley
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The objectives of the Socialist Democrat Party:
1. Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people.
2. Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).
3. Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children and young people learn in schools and colleges.
4. Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
5. Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take from the wealthy and give to poor.
Until there are only the poor.
6. Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level.
7. Gun Control — Remove the ability for the people to defend themselves from the Government. (“Socialist Democrat Party State”)
8. Poverty — Increase the poverty level as high as possible. Poor people are easier to control and will keep socialists in power if they are providing everything for them to live. Encourage, protect and support multi-millions of illegal immigrants who are poor, uneducated and disease ridden.
9. Allow illegal immigrants vote and hold government positions.
We the People either stop and destroy this Socialist Democrat Party or
We the People become wards, servants and subjects to the Socialist Democrat Party.
I have no idea what type of Sacraments they take in Sacramento but I assure you it is not the body and blood of Christ in the form of Bread and water. If they did, they would understand that it ALL belongs to God who distributes it according to individual worth, not collective Socialist beehives on a mission of social conquest. They can defy the meritocracy of the divine will all they want, but it all goes back to him in the end, as a drop pf rain returns to the great ocean from which it sprang, whereas their societal redistribution rainstorms just end up filling the swamp.
The sacrement of Moloch!!
“he teachers union thinks this will raise approximately $22 billion a year to “fund our recovery.” What they should do with the teachers unions and the communist teachers is “fund their recovery” to communist China and North Korea, permanently. The teachers unions have plenty of sheep, the teachers. Secondly, I think they should put homeless housing in Beverly Hills. That will be appropriate for the communist actors and actresses.
Why not start with the super rich politicians and redistribute THEIR wealth. They sure seem eager to redistribute wealth.
Many of them will fall within the guidelines of “wealthy,” but rest assured they will find a way to exclude themselves.
Politicians ALWAYS do.
Along with all in pervywood and the NLF/MLB/NBA..
Its not the governments duty or Constitutional authority to decide who makes what or who makes too much money. Nor should it be allowed to redistribute anything.
It is government duty provide the opportunity to participate in the free market by providing a level and fair playing field.
Crony Capitalism and Monopolies that use predatory tactics to eliminate or control the market place and prevent competition must be stopped.
Monopoly control and single source availability has the same affect on the market place as a dictatorship does in democracy. A functional society must have a balanced mix of capitalism and social protections to prevent to prevent gaming the system for unfair advantage or the cradle to grave entitlement state that only exists at the pleasure of successful capitalism
In other words its the best of both worlds, or pie in the sky impractical dreamsl.
These days, the govt doesn’t CARE what the constitution says NOR does the scotus.