This week, “there is no joy in Mudville” – the mighty Padres have struck out.
The California Padres thought that they had secured Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Merrill Kelly with an offer of $40 million for just two years. The Diamondbacks were offering that payout over three years, but Kelly took the Diamondbacks. The reason? California’s ruinous tax burden is fueling an exodus of wealthy taxpayers and businesses from the state. It is the latest example of how Democrats have reversed the Gold Rush with a long line of U-Hauls heading to more responsible states.
Explaining his decision, the pitcher told the media that “I don’t think it’s any secret on how much money you get taken out of your pocket when you go to California.”
With the calls for billionaire taxes and attacks on the wealthy as “not paying their fair share,” Democrats and unions have doubled down on their “eat the rich” rhetoric. The problem is that wealth, like the wealthy, is mobile. Both are leaving, and the current estimate stands at a possible $2 trillion fleeing the state over the last year. California continues to lead the nation in the loss of citizens to other states.
In the meantime, Democrats are continuing their high-spending pattern under Gov. Gavin Newsom from boondoggle projects to reparations to bloated union pension agreements.
With California’s 13% tax rate on income above $1 million, players view California as illusory in terms of elite contracts. What the team giveth, the state taketh away. That does not include the higher collateral taxes and costs, including gasoline costs (which are also the highest in the nation).
It appears that the high-spending, high-taxing policies are not just benefiting red states but also their baseball teams. As a Cubs fan, I would be delighted except for the fact that Chicago and Illinois are also in the hands of Democrats pursuing the same disastrous policies.
The irony is that Texas and Florida could end up not only with more jobs but better baseball players.
Union Pensions sunk Chicago
Is the author aware of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ salary?
It is the San Diego Padres, not California Padres.
San Diego is in California numbnuts.
There are near 195 billionaires in California. There are near 40 million people in California. Does anyone seriously believe a “Billionaire Tax” on 195 people is going to change the lives of 40 million? It isn’t even close.
ROFLMAO@CA Tip of the iceberg here, and Californicya is far more fragile than was the Titanic. Far more like this to come. Good thing that the state is full of Sodomites, because the (remaining) citizens are going to get it good and hard where the sun don’t shine…
Good to be anonymous. CA is the fifth largest WORLD economy, and no, ‘escaping’ to TX or FL isn’t going to save you, they take their taxes in other ways. Make more = pay more, it’s the American way and rightly so. And the author of this post is drunk on faux snooze koolaid: As Governor of California (1967–1975), Ronald Reagan enacted the largest tax increase in the state’s history in 1967 to address a budget deficit. So NO, every responsible person enacts taxes and pays taxes, Republicons included.
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Jonathan, it’s the SAN DIEGO Padres, nit the California Padres.
ANON- what is NIT? ha ha ha ha ha ha
A Padres player will play 101 games in California, including 81 in San Diego. A Diamondbacks player will play about 20 games in California. So California income taxes will apply to 101/162=62% of a Padres player’s salary and 20/162=12% of a Diamondbacks player’s salary (post-season games excluded). The cost of playing for the Padres instead of the Diamondbacks is the difference between the states’ tax rates multiplied by the difference in games played in California: ((13.3%-2.5%) x (101-20)) = 8.748 full equivalent games, or 5.4% of the player’s annual salary.
Not quite. If a pitcher plays for a California based team and/or has his home in California, I’m pretty sure that 100% of his income is taxable by California, with a partial offset for income state-taxable elsewhere too. Also, not every Diamondback, and certainly not every Diamondback pitcher, plays in all of the team’s California games. That suggests possibilities for creative tax planning. I’ll need to munch on that.
The Padres will play 81 home games. I assume they will play some of their “away” games with some of the other four teams based in CA.
When the millionaires and billionaires leave in the thousands, they take with them the competition with the middle class and therefore lower the rate of increase in housing and other costs as the pressure from the top is released.
They could stay and contribute to the operation of the state something in proportion to what they are harvesting via the big-get-bigger pipeline but, since they don’t contribute to the working of the state, their leaving won’t have much direct negative impact on the state.
They want a nice state; they just don’t want to pay for it. Let them go and price people out of housing elsewhere.
^ Proof that denial is not just a river in Egypt ^
“denial” love it! You win the comment section today sir.
This A-non guy must be in Russia.
A friggin’ men. No one wants to pay anything, much less a fair share for what they use. What did Don Felon say? I don’t pay taxes, because I’m smart? And a crook.
The damage to California is not just confined to the wealthy people leaving. When they leave, they are going to find new doctors, dentists, estate planners, possibly wealth managers. Ironically, when changing residence, California’s questionable interpretations of residency status almost dictate former residents to avoid doing business with California practitioners. As Forrest Gump would say “Stupid is as stupid does.” The professionals who serve the wealthy are likely high earners and pay lots of income taxes as well, and they are going to make less money and pay less taxes. I’m not even going to talk about the locals tradespeople that lose their business.
Unions are actionable criminal organizations that must be eliminated and shall fulfill, and not breach, contracts, trespass, cause public nuisances or disturbances of the peace, or threaten and commit acts of property damage and bodily injury, etc.
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment defends the “wealthy” against the “dictatorship of the majority,” which consists of the “less wealthy” and “the poor,” and the “wealthy” shall not be taxed in manners and rates different from less wealthy citizens.
The word “interpretation” does not exist in the Constitution and judges must support the Constitution and declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.
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“The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution mandates that no State shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In its literal and fundamental sense, this text establishes the individual “person” as the unit of protection, requiring that the law be applied with uniformity. Under a strict reading of this principle, any law that imposes a punitive or variable rate of taxation based on a person’s level of wealth—such as specific rates for billionaires that do not apply to all other citizens—constitutes a discriminatory classification that denies that individual the same protection of the law afforded to others. Consequently, when the law ceases to be a single, uniform rule for every person and instead targets individuals based on their economic status, it violates the plain command of equal protection.”
– Gemini
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“…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
“…men…do…what their powers do not authorize, [and] what [their powers] forbid.”
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton