Gov. Newsom is on the wrong side of this one!
So says Robert Reich on substack today. Newsom is leading the fight against Proposition 40 which would place a one-time 5 percent tax on CA billionaires if passed next Tuesday. He also supports the poison pill (Prop 42) that would prevent the state from ever doing it again.
Newsom claims he’s concerned about billionaires exiting California. But Reich suggests another reason. The Governor is gearing up for a 2028 presidential run, and wants to keep California’s billionaires on his side.
(Another CA presidential hopeful, Rep Ro Khanna, supports Prop 40 and has sworn off super PAC funding.)
Reich writes, “Newsom is no more corrupt than the billionaires who are pouring money into opposing Proposition 40, but that’s exactly the point. America’s billionaire class is becoming far richer by the day — they could have paid the entire Prop 40 tax with the additions to their wealth since Labor Day — and although wealth isn’t a zero-sum game, power definitely is a zero-sum game.”
If passed, Prop 40 could lead the way to other states passing similar propositions and begin the process of getting big money out of politics. Reich concludes, “The more political power the billionaire class has, the less political power the rest of us have.”
Photograph: Raphael Lafargue/Abaca/Shutterstock
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