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.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    6 days ago

    I don’t want a one time tax on billionaires.

    I want an every year tax on billionaires.

    • nieminen@lemmy.world
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      I hear you, but don’t let the lack of a perfect solution be the enemy of progress. A one-time tax would still (theoretically) do some good, and not harm anybody. So long as those funds are properly allocated.

      • Polisheocket@lemmy.zip
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        6 days ago

        Prop 40 has a loop hole where they can tax everyone on assets if ca needs to. I’m against taxing assets in general. Tax actual income 80% for all I care for billionaires but taxing assets is full of legal issues. Who says what something is worth?

        • frizop@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          security backed loans are not taxed as income, and largely how the class pays for things.

          • Polisheocket@lemmy.zip
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            6 days ago

            Good for them for figuring out how to gain the system. Eventually they have to pay those loans

            • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              6 days ago

              Assets gains outpace interest rate on loan. They take out another securities backed loan to pay off first and pay for more stuff. They do this forever.

  • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

    “What’re you gonna do about it, vote republican?” - The democratic party

    I love how honest we are becoming with each other. Hang up your masks blue maga, you dont need them anymore.

    • 3abas@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      They will run him, braindead liberals will simp for him, he will lose, and they will blame everyone who refused to vote for him.

      Democrats will not run a viable candidate because the mask has come off. They’d rather lose and continue cosplaying as opposition than to win and be criticized, the money is coming to their pockets either way.

        • chilicheeselies@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          Right now? I probably won’t bother voting. If that day comes what would I really do? Couldn’t say. I’m tired though. It’s clear that all our problems come from wealth inequality, so if there are no candidates that take it seriously, then I don’t really have a choice at all. It would probably come down to how federal workers are going to be treated, as there are federal workers in my family, and it’s the thing that directly affects us the most.

          • nieminen@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Ahh yes, a third party with absolutely no support in the house. They’d get so much done, even in the 5% chance they actually get elected because the system is rigged for two parties.

            Don’t get me wrong. Would love a mamdani or even El sayed (sorry if it’s misspelled, going off of memory) to be placed all over every part of our government. More AOC’s and Sanders’. But we need to make the best short term option, not just help guarantee the win of the fascists by withholding votes or put them on a third party with no chance of winning. We’re not ending this shit hole situation in a single election, so better to make progressive change than let the atrocities continue with full support from the entire government.

            • Matty Roses@lemmy.today
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              5 days ago

              But we need to make the best short term option

              This has been the argument for literally 30 years.

              Yes, you’re not fixing this in a single election. So giving up all power by agreeing to vote for a supposed “lesser evil” is giving up the future elections as well as this one - because the centrists don’t even win.

              The reason to vote socialist when you lose the primary is not that third parties will win - the system does give a massive advantage to D or R candidates. It’s to record that the centrist Democrats left votes on the table, and exactly how many they did.

              • nieminen@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                This has been the argument for literally 30 years.

                Yes, I totally get this, but Harris would have been better than Trump. And if the public put the same effort and pressure on her that they’re putting on trump, it might have actually made some difference. Everything is conjecture though, because it didn’t happen that way.

                I hope there’s enough socialist party support in the 2028 primaries to make a difference. If there’s a good candidate, and they get enough of the vote, I’ll probably swing that way. Things are so bad right now, that it may end up swinging public sentiment enough.

                • Matty Roses@lemmy.today
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                  5 days ago

                  And if the public put the same effort and pressure on her

                  How do you propose to put “effort and pressue” on elected officials if you’re not even willing to deny them your vote?

                  Remember how everyone was talking about how they were going to push Biden left after 2020? It’s nonsense - your leverage is greatest BEFORE someone is elected, not after.

  • MBech@feddit.dk
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    6 days ago

    How do you ban future laws? Isn’t that a bit like when a 10 year old tells his girlfriend she isn’t allowed to ever ever break up?

  • kreskin@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Newsom is sure as f*ck not working for the voters. He is just a middle management asskisser.

    • Mantzy81@aussie.zone
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      6 days ago

      Democrats are still a right wing party like the UK Conservatives, or Australian Liberals. They only seem left leaning to GOP because they’re even further right, more like UK Reform or Australian One Nation (basically the party that that all the bigots and racists support - in all those cases).

      They don’t have a centrist party let alone a left-leaning one

      • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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        Yeah, we’re seeing this creep towards the right in a lot of places. Often that means a new party on the actual left will grow in popularity - but it seems like America is stuck with a 2 party system. It’s vote for the right or the hard right. Sad times.

    • bertlewirth@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Democrats are spineless. They have ZERO spine and roll over to the trumpstein class at the earliest possible moment. Fuck the dems. Fuck the repubs

    • BenLeMan@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      He’s a California Democrat. In that state, the Republicans are remarkably liberal and the Democrats remarkably conservative.

    • myyass@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      This is what I keep trying to get across to people outside the US. It’s not how you think it is.

    • nieminen@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      You’d be surprised. I thought the same thing about trump 2024. A lot of people only see newsom as a charismatic anti-trump, And don’t actually see or care about his individual decisions or policies. Which, come to think of it, is very similar to how trump made it in.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      The truly fucked part of government is the people who you’d want in the position absolutely want no part of the position. Almost everyone in government is in there for the money and the power. If you did manage to get someone in who is altruistic, they would simply be fighting against swarm upon swarm of horrible people, while at the same time refusing to take bribes and make personal deals to be able to advance any form of wealth.

      For the most part, we’ve designed our government to only attract self-serving pieces of shit, and the few that aren’t in that camp never make it to the top because of all the other self-serving pieces of shit.

      We’re looking at a sack of turds that occasionally does something anti-trump while licking the balls of some other oligarch, vs someone who walks out there talking centrist and campaigns for the right claiming they’re very nice people.

      It is entirely possible that the DNC puts him out front instead of AOC, then we’re left with whoever trumps successor is (asuming we ever have actual real elections again), or some democrat right sycophant, or trying to convince everyone in the fucking US to write in a name.

      We’re cooked any way the cards fall

      • jaykrown@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Not really cooked any way the cards fall, you as an individual understand that alongside myself. Our knowledge and ability to discuss freely is what will save us. The senate has a good chance soon, we’ll know:

        The Democratic candidates for those potential flips:

        North Carolina: Roy Cooper

        Ohio: Sherrod Brown

        Alaska: Mary Peltola

        Maine: Troy Jackson

        Texas: James Talarico

        Iowa: Josh Turek

        Kansas: Adam Hamilton

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          If they let midterms happen without militarizing it and accept the results without fucking with them, we have a chance.

          I wish those weren’t ifs

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      The primaries showed how much pull cable news pundits still have. They just have to tell voters “don’t vote for the policy that helps you and everyone else, the only way to beat republicans is if you imagine a voter who loves republicans dogshit policy and strategically vote for a dem candidate with those policies”