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Billionaire tax: how a union leader’s ‘crazy’ idea became the defining issue of California’s midterms (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/politics@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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[–] 2 points 1 week ago (5 children)

You're half right: it's not a lasting solution in itself (although if used right, a one time cash injection can give struggling social programs, schools, and the like some much needed leeway until the long term is figured out), but it's a decent first step towards showing the world, even the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" that billionaires paying closer to their fair share doesn't lead to the collapsed of civilized society.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago* (4 children)

    Yeah, but why not rather work for a 1% annual wealth tax, permanent. Or make it 2, 3 or 5%, or whatever, we can discuss that. What is the point of some one off thing?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Yeah, but why not rather work for a 1% annual wealth tax, permanent

    Because right now, they don't have any hope getting that past the propaganda defenses.

    While I generally hate the expression, think of this as a trial balloon: once this proves to not cause Armageddon and in fact be a little helpful for 99.999% of people, that sets a precedent that can then be used to argue for permanence as well as higher percentages.

    With apologies for yet another cliché, sometimes you gotta walk before you can do sick stunts while flipping off the enemies of humanity 🤷🏻

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    And a one off 5% tax has better chances? How so?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Because it's only a one off, the billionaires have less to lose and thus will "only" spend a few hundred million dollars fighting it and aren't likely to issue ultimatums to their pet politicians over it.

    A more permanent tax out of the gate (with no preceding successes to pave the way) would meet several times the resistance and since the people in charge of suggesting and passing legislation are aware of that, they'd give up in advance.

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