I don’t know if I am prescient or just lucky. But I left California in the first days of February 2020, seeking a new home in Nevada. I had the feeling that big money grabs were coming—and here they are! In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, from Thursday, October 15, 2020, the implications of ballot initiative (Prop. 15) are discussed.
I like the comic side of matters, and the writer of the op-ed had a satirical opening. I quote, “Sooner or later California’s public unions had to hit up the hoi polloi (with that, I assume he means mainly Hollywood and the tech- class,) to pay for their pensions after soaking what’s left of the the states millionaire class, and here they came.”
He then explained that votes on Prop.15 seek to enact the biggest tax hike in the state’s history. It would also abolish Prop.13—the voter enshrined protections for businesses. Homes, would still have limitations on taxation—at least for now. Unions are well aware that were they to remove the least protection on homes, they would face open revolt.
Here is the hook though, if commercial properties with a market value of more than three million were to be reassessed every year, that means their value will rapidly increase—their taxes will, too. Guess how the increases in taxation will influence commerce? Of course, the taxes will be added on to consumer prices.
Here are the small businesses to get walloped by Prop.15.: Fast food franchises, small dairies, wineries, orchards, and small manufacturers. One wonders, nay is astounded, why Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire, is the second biggest donor and proponent of Prop.15. Does he owe allegiance to the unions? Or is he just supporting part of the Democrat agenda?
Minority business groups and even the NAACP sent him a letter, explaining that unlike his own business, floating in the ether, restaurants, dry cleaners, nail and hair salon owners, dependent on fixed locations. They do not need a billionaire to push higher taxes on them “under the false flag of social Justice.”
Furthermore, the opinion writer mentions that since 2013 the pension costs for teachers grew by 13% and double for other local public employees. Therefore, Prop.15 is the answer from public unions to float their boat. United teachers of Los Angeles announced that “passing Prop. 15 is key to winning the aggressive, comprehensive demands we will bring forward in 2022.”
Well, hearing that, I am happy to have departed the state of never ending tax hell.