California was once known as the destination for anyone seeking a fortune, from the Gold Rush to Hollywood. The image of a line of wagon trains heading West has now been replaced by a line of U-Hauls heading anywhere but California. Unable to stem the exodus, California is again toying with retroactive taxes — targeting the wealthy regardless of whether they flee the state. Welcome to Hotel California, “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”California democrats have long faced the same dilemma of constantly tapping the wealthy to cover their deficit spending: these individuals and their wealth are mobile. They can simply leave and many are doing so. We recently discussed how California is now losing a taxpayer every minute.Previously, the state moved to tax people who left the state. Now, the state is seeking a billionaire tax and making it retroactive. Thus, even if you were waiting to decide to leave, it is too late. You are being taxed for the prior year.
California Democrats are pushing the retroactive billionaire tax targeting the roughly 220 billionaires residing in California in 2025. It signals not just desperation in the face of crippling debt and overspending but a recognition that California is chasing its highest earners out of the state.
The “2026 Billionaires Tax Act” would impose a one-time 5% tax on individual wealth exceeding $1 billion. While technically using 2026 wealth figures, it would apply to billionaires who resided in California in 2025. So you cannot hope to flee… at least with your wealth intact. It is a penalty for those who stayed too long hoping that rational minds would prevail in California.
The tax is a familiar tactic of many in politics who attack the wealthiest citizens as somehow ripping off the poor. If states can do this for billionaires, it is likely to do it for those in lower tax brackets as they face the choice between financial discipline and tax increases.
As I discuss in my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, there is a common myth that the top five percent of this country do not “pay their fair share.” However, putting that debate aside, the question is whether it will produce more revenue than it costs the state in the long run. As these politicians campaign on clipping the “fat cats” who are not paying their fair share, many are likely to follow the exodus to lower tax states with greater fiscal discipline.
The constitutionality of a retroactive tax has long been controversial. In Landgraf v. USI Film Products (1994), the Supreme Court declared “the presumption against retroactive legislation is deeply rooted in our jurisprudence… [e]lementary considerations of fairness dictate that individuals should have an opportunity to know what the law is and conform their conduct accordingly; settled expectations should not be lightly disrupted.”
Most Americans are obviously not billionaires, but see the obvious unfairness to such retroactive taxes. People are allowed to make decisions on whether they want to stay in a state and how to invest their money in light of tax and other considerations. These retroactive taxes allow a bait-and-switch for taxpayers as politicians tap wealth from prior years.
However, in United States v. Carlton (1994), the Court addressed a new estate tax deduction for selling stock in employee stock ownership plans that was included in the 1986 tax reform law. In January 1987, the IRS announced that the legislation had a flaw: it did not require a taxpayer to own the stock before dying. New legislation was passed in December 1987 with retroactive effect to the 1986 law.
The Supreme Court refused to strike down the 14 months of retroactive application. Calling the change “modest,” the Court noted that the IRS sent out a quick notice that it would seek a legislative fix, and that the law essentially corrected an unintended error. However, even that left some on the Court uneasy, and justices like Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas warned against “bait-and-switch taxation.” The key was the notice and the fact that it only applied to a single year.
Some retroactive taxes have been struck down. For example, in Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U.S. 142 (1927), a 12-year period of retroactivity was struck down as “so arbitrary and capricious as to amount to confiscation.”
The Court has left the area a mess of countervailing rationales and holdings. However, it has clearly held that retroactive taxes are not per se unconstitutional. In Welch v. Henry, 305 U.S. 134, 147 (1938), the Court upheld a retroactive tax and held that the outcome depends upon whether “retroactive application is so harsh and oppressive as to transgress the constitutional limitation.” It stressed that:
“Provided that the retroactive application of a statute is supported by a legitimate legislative purpose furthered by rational means, judgments about the wisdom of such legislation remain within the exclusive province of the legislative and executive branches . . .’
The rational basis test is difficult for a state to fail. However, California could force the Court to reexamine this area and offer more concrete protections for citizens who are retroactively fleeced by a state.
Until then, welcome to the Hotel California:
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
“Relax,” said the night man
“We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave”
What happened to the time-honored American idea of “no taxation without representation”? If someone continues to be taxed by California when no longer residing there after establishing legal residency in another state, shouldn’t one continue to have the right to vote in California elections? Since this would violate most, if not all, election laws, on this basis alone exit taxes for everyone, billionaires or not, retroactive or not, should be ruled unconditional.
Many billionaires still have vacation homes in California and the also have businesses. Even if they don’t reside full time in the state their property and business interest are represented by their local state representative.
I can’t help glancing at comments like this one: “This 5% tax is no big deal for billionaires.” This demonstrates complete economic ignorance of where the money ultimately comes from. Investment money is used to create more wealth, which makes everyone richer. Taxation is a necessary evil, as without government, we live in chaos.
That informs intelligent people that too much taxation takes money and services away from individuals. The $50,000,000 taken out of the economy affects jobs and the quality of life for all people, rich and poor. X doesn’t see that because his mind is not up to the task.
S. Meyer,
Well said I quite right.
If I was told I was going to lose 5% of my wealth, be it $1B, $1M, $100,000 of wealth, I would think it was a big deal. And to pay for CA government failed policies and inability to balance their budget? How is that my fault?
S. Meyer stated, “Investment money is used to create more wealth, thereby increasing the overall prosperity of society.”
Do you find yourself wealthier because a billionaire invested in stocks? Often, billionaires prefer to invest in the stock market rather than directly supporting their local communities or smaller businesses to maximize their personal profits. Additionally, many companies frequently choose to execute stock buybacks—repurchasing their own shares from the market—to inflate their stock prices and increase their wealth. How does that make you or me richer?
A company issues X number of stocks. Investors, to include billionaires, buy up stocks, reducing supply, driving up prices of a given stock along with the worth or value of the stock based on a company’s performance. That is how a free market works.
I am up 18% for the year in the stock market.
And tomorrow you could be down 20%, in the blink of an eye. Yet the CEO and board members will ALL retain their investment in full.
If you are looking for perfection, go to a communist nation where you can exist perfectly miserable.
UpStatefarmer.
If you are only up 18% for the year in the market, then you are making some very poor investment decisions.
I am up 19% in the last 90 days.
I am up 52% for the year, 109% last 2 years, and 1,100% since 2016.
The question is not how does it makes you richer, the question is how does it makes you poorer?
It doesn’t, Meyer is carrying water for the political financial economic system that is failing miserably before our very eyes. If the government and the judiciary were serving the people, these oligarch corporatists would not exist. Instead you would have a thriving middle class with very limited immigration and poverty. The corruption in our government and judiciary has enabled the by passing of antitrust laws with legal loopholes whereby the judiciary is now nothing more than a political procedural stunt to rewrite the intent of the word of law in effort to assist big money.
“It doesn’t, Meyer is carrying water for the political financial economic system that is failing miserably before our very eyes. “
I don’t carry water for anyone, but if you think flaws exist in our system, I agree. Many of the flaws we see are due to those who do not consider economic factors. They are predominantly on the left. As an example, look at illegal immigrants who get welfare benefits and create costs, totalling an amount far in excess of what they give back.
I agree we have too much government corruption. Just look at the Bidens for a prime example.
“Do you find yourself wealthier because a billionaire invested in stocks? ”
You and George Svelaz seem to have the same problem. Neither of you want to understand basic economics. Aside from money being used for personal desires, generally, it is invested, given away, or taxed. When a billionaire or even a low-paid individual invests in stocks, he is investing in people because, invariably, that is what the money is eventually used for, along with growing the nation.
You are envious and egotistical, so you don’t care about these things. I am happy when anyone legally invests their money.
I’m happy when people have a real opportunity to invest and make money. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the market is a fair place to invest. The “money changers “ running the show skim your investments and take none of the risk. USF says he’s up 18%, when he captures that 18% by sale he’s taxed on it around 20%, his “financial advisor or broker “ takes 2-3% right off the top, while the risk he’s taking for 18% is probably high. It’s a rigged game and you know it. A small investor is better off long term laddering CDs at 4-5% with zero risk or buying a piece of real estate to sell later in life.
The market is imperfect, but that doesn’t mean it is so fatally flawed that one should not invest in it. You like laddered CDs and real estate.
Take any 20-year period, and compare the returns. CDs lose. It’s best to spread the money around so that one can meet a variety of needs.
“Do you find yourself wealthier because a billionaire invested in stocks?”
Yes. And the answer is Supply & Demand 101:
Those companies now have more wealth — with which to expand (and create more jobs), and with which to create more products that I can buy.
Growth and expansion do not necessarily equate to profitability.
Solyndra is a perfect example as is the entire green energy scam, all supported by YOUR tax dollars. How about EVs, did you buy some TRSLA or GM?
“Solyndra is a perfect example” of a government boondoggle — not of a private citizen investing in a private company.
Dropping the context is a fallacy, not an argument.
As without government we live in chaos? Sorry, I am calling BS on that. A dysfunctional government IS chaos, a tyrannical government is chaos, a government that no longer represents its own citizens is chaos. A one world order is chaos, it’s BS and only serves the masters of the preordained chaos.
I assume from your comment that you don’t want police, red lights, etc. OK, but I don’t think you will find that many who agree with you.
What part of dysfunctional, tyrannical or no longer representative of the American people government did you fail to understand?
There is always a bit of chaos, but you said nothing by claiming chaos exists everywhere. It was a worthless comment.
Yes, I agree your comments were worthless.
That is the way a dope would reply. A better reply would be to explain what you said so you prove yourself to have meaning.
Now Meyer
You know any time you ASSUME it just makes an Ass out of YOU and ME. I am for limited government, we’re so far past that it’s incomprehensible.
Tyranny = Vaccine mandates, Property taxes, COVID restrictions, invasion of privacy, attacks on freedom of speech and the second amendment.
Failure to protect the Citizens = Open borders, 40 million illegals, failure to protect healthcare, failing to protect the people, failing to protect our environment, funding foreign war.
Dysfunctional government = $38T debt with $2T annual deficits. A failed judiciary where corruption continues to go unpunished without accountability for “certain people “.
Perhaps a dope, perhaps just someone expecting most cognitive aware and intelligent people to already be aware of these things.
Love and peas and chicken greaz
Yes, all that is true. Chaos exists in various degrees. Basic property rights and enforcement help reduce it, and for such a reduction, we require some form of government.
I see you are on the correct side of the spectrum, but based on your generic name, one would not know. That lack of knowledge can create the ASS in ASSUME.
One of the seldom appreciated aspects of the United States is the competition of ideas among the states whether it is in the realm of criminal justice, education, or in this case taxation. This competition of ideas among the states acts as the ultimate brake to crazy ideas or incubator of good governance. If California does pass this retroactive billionaire tax, the billionaires (as well as many others) have the ability and motivation to move and bring their wealth and productivity to more congenially minded states. For example, in 2024 Jeff Bezos left Washington state for Florida because in 2021 Washington state enacted a capital gains tax for gains exceeding a certain, currently, large threshold. By moving, Mr. Bezos saved an estimated $1B per year.
(Note that Washington state, unique amongst all state and federal taxing authorities, considers a Capital gains tax an excise tax to avoid a conflict with the state constitution which prohibits a tax on income. This was confirmed by an obviously economically illiterate, but enlightened, majority on the Washington supreme court – one quite willing to endow existing words with new meanings to avoid using a perfectly correct existing word that might cause offense to exacting legal minds.)
Perhaps, in the not too distant future, California and Washington states may begin considering reigning in their spending ambitions to mitigate their insatiable appetite of a steadily shrinking supply of other people’s money to make their states more economically competitive. With these policies, not only will the offending states lose very wealthy citizens but they will lose citizens that hope to become wealthy – the very people that bring prosperity to the many. The mills of God grind late, but they grind fine.
A wealth tax is also a retroactive income tax for all the income leading to the year the wealth is taxed. So, just because the wealth tax only goes back a year, in reality it goes back much further.
Any tax that taxes you on what you own and what is yours is unconstitutional, you should only be taxed on what you buy. All other taxation and associated fees is theft.
It’s hard to feel empathy toward any person, much less any wealthy person, still choosing to live anywhere in CA.
There are lots of reasons that it’s become such a hellhole, as everybody with a brain knows, but the monetary, moral and cultural costs incurred should be reason enough to flee ASAP.
Just remember not to take your Democrat voting tradition with you, since that’s what created the CA cesspool.
“Just remember not to take your Democrat voting tradition with you, since that’s what created the CA cesspool”
Ah, but many or most of them will, that is their MO. Maybe they lie to themselves that their previous place of residence *almost* got it right, and are convinced that they can make a few tweaks as they force their new state down that same road, creating Nirvana, I dunno. But they seem to be almost universally ignorant of the fact that the problems are not in the details, but in the essence of the basic collectivist approach to governance.
The Oxford English Dictionary Word of the year is “rage bait”.
rage bait (noun) : Online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to, or engagement with, a particular web page or social media account.
Perfectly summarizes what Turley has been doing here, and in all recent posts.
Turley is using the very “rage bait” that he so roundly condemns in his stupid books and even more stupid posts.
COMPLETE AND UTTER HYPOCRISY !!!!!!!!
And you MAGA morons respond like Pavlov’s dogs to Turley’s “rage bait” like the non-thinking, slobbering, conditioned fools that you are.
And yet here you are daily. Lapping up your OCD fix while spewing nonsense, lies, half truths and false accusations. Lick it up fool!
“Turley is using the very ‘rage bait’ that he so roundly condemns in his stupid books and even more stupid posts.”
—– ^^^ “COMPLETE AND UTTER HYPOCRISY !!!!!!!!”
Couldn’t agree with you more.
(satirical referral to anonymous comment @12:27, not Turley!)
Wrong.
If you actually read the comments you will find the majority of them are reasoned, calm, and logical.
“The Oxford English Dictionary Word of the year is “rage bait”.”
Is that intended to replace “triggered” in the vocabulary of idiots? Here are a couple of words for you: “rationality”; “self-discipline”. Even though you are obviously incapable of practicing either one, you should at least attempt to understand what they mean. BTW, for your information and that of the morons who are evidently administering the OED these days, “rage bait” is not a f***ng *word*, it is a f***ng *phrase*…
Retroactive taxes are morally unconscionable. You live your life and pay your taxes until, that is, the government decides it needs more money – disguised, of course, as “fairness.” I would argue this is equivalent to lowering the speed limit to 55 on Friday and writing tickets to everyone who drove at 75 the previous Monday. The people in question already paid last year’s taxes as assessed by the State. They shouldn’t have to pay more because their state is run by morons who can’t do math.
They can’t be morons if they came up with that idea.
There are a lot of morons on this blog BTW.
I tend to align with your sentiment, Jeff. It’s a somewhat equivocal/ambiguous approach, as we prohibit ex post facto laws that now make criminal (and punish) heretofore legal conduct, -while we permit ex post facto laws that have, at a minimum, adverse consequence/effect on taxpayers for heretofore earned income. Essentially, one is against “punishment;” but the other allows “adverse effect.”
(heretofore wealth, which includes earned income)
California also is home to the largest population of undocumented/illegal immigrants in the United States (approx. 2.5 MILLION as of 2025). This figure confirms that California has approx. 25%, -or one-fourth- of all undocumented/illegal immigrants in the entire United States. https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/illegal-immigrants-in-california/
“’In years past, the tendency has been that California would lose more relatively lower-income people, people with less education than those coming into the state. That, in recent years, has reversed. We’ve had tens of thousands more that are better educated and have higher incomes LEAVING than those that have come in’ Lee said.”…”Taxes on California’s wealthiest residents help keep the state’s coffers full. Lee discussed the impact of people like Elon Musk taking their high earnings to other states.”
https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/southern-california/la-times-today/2024/01/22/wealthy-residents-leaving-california
Oh oh.
((((And what if the San Andreas fault line manifest and the West Coast as we know it will create a new island? An Undocumented catastrophe. It might show up on any maps or GPS as “Undocumented land mass.” Or will it become Newer New Mexico?
Remote employment/working from home and “remote learning” will take on new meaning. What if the severed/separated/non-contiguous California Island crashes into Alcatraz Island and they merge/pro-create? Would we then have undocumented newborn prisoners? Natural born citizens of Newer New Mexico? ..And all those “Bi” people out there (bisexual; bipolar)–where will their allegiance lie? It could drive their divided/split minds crazy.))
Oh oh.
Who will Newsom rely on to get out of the corner he has painted himself into? Major employers like Tesla, Oracle, Chevron, and McKesson all have left California because of his policies. If you thought the photo of Hakeem Jeffries in his sombrero was in bad taste, consider Newsom in _____________________?
Oh oh.
Lin,
Great comment and thank you for the laugh!
What is Newsom going to run on? His failed policies in CA? Highlighting the fact so many people and companies have LEFT CA is not a good campaign point.
Hey there Upstate, glad you/yours are up and at ’em.
Re: your comment, by the time he runs for Prez, he may better be known as Gavin Lonesom. If he gives in and admits his failures, he might become Gave-in Lose-som.
Hey, this is fun, but I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just effete from a very busy weekend (which included neutering my 1 yr.old springer spaniel, who immediately -while in his crate– chewed off and swallowed the clasp on his E-collar and began licking his wound,* causing me to try to find an open vet clinic on the holiday weekend! Hope yours was better.)
(*while we were enjoying our holiday meal.)
Newsom is serving a 2nd term. In 2022 he garnered 59% of the vote. With redistricting he’ll win a 3rd term. And political lowbrows like you call him a moron?
Have you ever served in a municipal, state or federal office? Ran a campaign?
And you think you’re intelligent.
Calif
Huge debt with the retirement fund.
Can’t put out fires.
Won’t let new homes to be built after the fire.
Can’t keep the power on.
Failed train to NO-where.
Failing roads.
So Newsom run on that…
Dustoff is right.
In a state with an overwhelming Democrat trifecta controlling government, as well as nearly a 50 to 25% party voter majority, if Bozo the Clown were a Democrat, he would likely win. Newsom is not particularly known for his winning policies.
AND there were no strong Republican candidates who ran agaInst him. for that matter, no other strong democrat candidates. you might say he wins by default , it’s called name familiarity
I never called him a “moron.” I reserve that title for you.
I can at least balance a budget, keep out of debt, I dont spend what I dont have and it looks like I will finish out the year up 18% in the stock market.
“Have you ever served in a municipal, state or federal office? Ran a campaign?
And you think you’re intelligent.”
Those occupations put much more of a premium on being a vicious, unscrupulous thug than on having any real intelligence.
And you think you are intelligent?
Newsom cannot run for a third term which is why he will be running for President.
Even if he could run the redistricting has nothing to do with state wide elections.
Political Ignorant people like you should not be commenting on politics but that’s typical of the voters that elected the moron in the first place.
PHYSICIAN TO THE GOVERNOR
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
MEMORANDUM
December 1, 2025
TO: The Media
FROM: Dr. Dolittle, M.D., Ph.D., Governor’s Physician / Chief of Peak Human Performance
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
As part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s annual physical, we conducted advanced imaging of his cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and neurological health. I’m pleased to report that nothing about the Governor’s health is merely “normal.” Governor Newsom remains the healthiest human currently alive or recorded in medical history.
His cardiovascular scans are the best we’ve ever recorded his arteries were described as “shimmering,” and his resting heart rate was so steady the EKG machine asked if he was “meditating or just naturally enlightened.”
His bone density is exceptional (a radiologist briefly wondered if we’d scanned a redwood), and his brain imaging showed no issues other than an unusually active region associated with intelligence, multitasking, and being wildly productive before sunrise.
While we do not typically comment on the health of other elected officials, we are aware of a letter released today from the White House claiming that President Trump is in “excellent health.” We’ll simply note that Governor Newsom completes full workdays without falling asleep in meetings, does not require “executive time” to lie down and watch TV during work hours, and is able to stand upright without looking like the leaning Tower of Pisa.
If a side-by-side health chart were released, we recommend redacting it for the President’s emotional well-being.
Governor Newsom remains the healthiest person alive and ever to live. Please direct follow-up questions to my office.
Respectfully,
Dr. Dolittle
Physician to the Governor
California Department of Peak Excellence
The biggest problem in California are the public unions who have bought and paid for the Democratic party, starting around the early 1990s. Before that the Democrats did not raise regressive taxes on the poor and middle class to fund the biggest special interest in California, public unions. Once the Public Employees started buying off the politicians for gigantic salaries, fringe benefits and pensions larger than their salries indexed for life with COLAs, and of course insane overtime that would bankrupt the most profitable Fortune 50 American companies, everything went out the window. You have public employees with only GEDs, or high school diplomas, in California MAKING HALF A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR! The police and fire pensions are the biggest scam I’ve ever seen, and they raised them retroactively🤬🤬🤬, without FUBDING THEM. The California public EMPLOYEES retirement system (Calpers) went from over 100% funded before retroactively raising ALL PUBLIC PENSIONS, to under 70% funded the second those pensions were signed into law. That’s why California is FU so bad, public unions. A deficit of 30% as soon as they raised the pensions retroactively for Public Safety, and then everyone else.
America appears to be falling one state at a time . . . similar to the fall of the Roman Empire. So, whose history will be written, presented and accepted as ‘the truth’ ?
America and Rome? Want to expand on that?
Rome, in some form, lasted more than 1,000 years, 753 BC to May 29 1453 AD.
Using the fullest of numbers, Rome can be said to have survived 1,000 – 2,000 years. The people of the book, Torah, ~3,300 years.
That’s a very expansive view of “in some form.”
Classical Rome fell c. 479 AD.
A forensic analysis is necessary to determine how California – once the most attractive state in which to reside and perhaps to do business – has been turned into a madhouse. Is the cause mass immigration from failed countries? Is it the influence of leftists in the universities and media? Is it the effects of global warming? From Ronald Reagan to Gov. Nuisance. What a journey downhill.
It’s directly correlated to the Public Employees and their fraudulent unions.
It is obviously unconstitutional, but Newsom and the Democrats are completely on board with the Biden playbook. When Biden’s college bailout was ruled unconstitutional, he stated it plain: We’ll just change a few words and implement it again. The courts are slow and it will take a while to strike it down again, then we’ll just change a few more words and implement it again.
The point of this plan is that the state will collect the money first, and good luck getting it back once it is in the government’s hands. Moreover, this is about shoring up California’s finances for Newsom’s presidential run. He’ll be out of office by the time the bill comes due, but in the meantime he’ll be able to run saying that California’s finances are perfectly fine.
I have a great idea. If a poorly educated person moves from California to another state and goes on welfare the state where this person moved to should be able to collect the cost of supporting this person from the state of California. If a person who has committed multiple felonies and has been released by the California legal system moves to another state and commits another felony the state of California should rightfully have to pay for the cost of his incarceration. If California can tax people who have left the state why shouldn’t California have to pay for the kid it screwed up who has moved to another state and goes on welfare? Seems fair to me.
A fight is coming to America. It’s already being fought but without armed conflict. We’re seeing the attacks on our freedoms and liberties everyday. Taxation, fees, restrictions being imposed by a select elitist group of oligarchs pushing for a return to the totalitarian monarchy styles of Europe. You will own nothing and be happy…
The lines are being drawn.
Something happened to a huge thread of comments???
Never mind, they just reappeared.
Steve,
Sometimes, Word Press or Jet Pack fails to load all the comments. Reload the page and usually the comments will load properly. Although once in a while, the server will have a hic-up and a comment will not post. It has happened to me a few times.
You have a WP blog?
You don’t have to have a WP blog to use WP for reading and commenting.
I have a WP blog.
Society’s Building Blocks
It looks like Anonymous stopped posting.
Ahem …
What happened to the time-honored American idea of “no taxation without representation”? If someone continues to be taxed by California when no longer residing there after establishing legal residency in another state, shouldn’t one continue to have the right to vote in California elections? Since this would violate most, if not all, election laws, on this basis alone exit taxes for everyone, billionaires or not, retroactive or not, should be ruled unconstitutional.
Steve
Have you unraveled the string or have you just sewn the fabric of a material mystery. I hate to needle you but just stitching it all together. Hey, do you know Reese?
I think you already know what I think of conversing with someone that uses the pseudonym “Anonymous” especially when there’s a multitude of users using the exact same pseudonym. I’ll make an exception this time.
Anonymous wrote, “Have you unraveled the string or have you just sewn the fabric of a material mystery. I hate to needle you but just stitching it all together.”
That is so abstract that it comes across as frontier gibberish. Care to try again?
Anonymous wrote, “Hey, do you know Reese?”
That knowledge is none of your business.
At 8:47 Anonymous says Give it up. Maga people do not understand the concept of “society”. You know, helping educate the poor kid who grows up to be a doctor. Good. So lets address the quality of K-12 education in California one of the highest taxed states in the union.
California’s education ranking varies by source, but many place it in the middle to lower half for Pre-K-12 education is 30th to 32nd in the nation. Gee only eighteen states out of fifty are lower than California. The leftist leaders in California can’t keep water running to fire hydrants to fight fires because they are so concerned with “society”. You know, helping people.
Anonymous is living it up in the hotel socialism and though she is not chained up in the building she just won’t ever leave. Living it up in hotel Marx and she won’t ever leave. The vanity signal is strong in this one Obi Wan Kenobi.
TiT,
Great comment.
There is helping people in society and then there is taking of others people’s wealth and giving it to other’s who are not deserving of that wealth. Why? They did not earn it. They did not work for it. They did not take a chance or risk for it. And the solution is, never, to use the government be it state or federal to take a person’s wealth and apply that to society.
Personally, I want to see this tax legislation pass in the failed state of CA. Then watch as the mass exodus we are seeing now, accelerate as more and more people wise up, and say, “If they can do that to those people, they can do it to me.”
“Anonymous is living it up in the hotel socialism and though she is not chained up in the building she just won’t ever leave.”
I hope that she remains in her room when the roof caves in.
Turley– “The Court has left the area a mess of countervailing rationales and holdings. However, it has clearly held that retroactive taxes are not per se unconstitutional.”
Trying to play Solomon the Court has become Solomon’s confused fool on this issue.
Meanwhile, California is trying to become North Korea with nicer weather.
“California is trying to become North Korea with nicer weather.”
Mission accomplished!
Even 30 years ago California was looking at the possibility of taxing retirement money earned in CA after the retirees had moved out of the state.
They didn’t just “look” at doing so. They did tax “source income” for many years. The practice was ended in December 1995.
The Pension Income Tax Limitation Act (PITLA), enacted as part of P.L. 104-95, prohibited states from taxing retirement plan distributions to nonresidents, even if the retiree previously lived and worked in the state.
How long will it be BEFORE this “Billionaire Tax” works its way down to the Middle Class? Please remember that the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, approved in 1913, was to aim an INCOME TAX on Millionaires who “are not paying their fair share”. It started with a 1 % tax on the very wealthy. Last I checked, the creep of the INCOME TAX has gone from Millionaires down to the Lower Income bracket. (Quite truthfully, if the INCOME TAX took a Constitutional Amendment to enact, I do not understand why a Wealth Tax would not also require a Constitution Amendment.)
You refer to the 16th Amendment, not the 13th. That gave Congress the power to levy an income tax. Clearly, if Congress wanted to levy a wealth tax it would also need a new Constitutional Amendment.
The States are different. They are limited by the last clause of the 5th Amendment (no taking of property for public use without just compensation) but by nothing else. Since many (all) states have in the past already taxed property it is clear that those taxes do not violate the 5th Amendment. Whether the taxation (simple confiscation) of “wealth” violates the 5th Amendment has yet to be decided.