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ALPERN AT LARGE - Who DOESN’T want more health care, education, and food assistance to the needy?
The problem: who pays for it?
And apparently, we’ve gotten so used to having OTHERS pay for things WE want that we don’t even consider that to be inappropriate…or downright immoral and evil, to say nothing of the blowback and domino effect it can cause.
To be sure, President Abraham Lincoln once stated, “I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind”.
However, President Lincoln also stated, “You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves”.
So, if we want to have more education, transportation, health care, and social services, we ALL need to have some skin in the game and pay up…but also ask more to pay up and do their fair share.
We’re all hurting, and we’re all exhausted, and we’re all tapped out…
…but asking “The Rich” to do more, even with all the old faux-arguments, half-truths, and “dog that won’t hunt anymore tropes” that keep shoring up a false narrative about the rich we’ve seen in our state, nation, and world for decades, must come to an end.
If those eeeeeeeeevil rich pay more, we must aaaaaaaaaalll pay more.
Eat The Rich, you say? Or chant? Or scream? After all, we’ve heard that for years.
Well, guess what: sooner or later, the Rich Will Eat You.
If The Rich bail from the state, they can no longer bail out the state.
Because once we ask people to pay 50% or more of what they earn, they get mad and resentful because they have only one vote against so many who feel it’s OK to demand a few pay for the rest of us against that few’s will.
And YES, between federal and state and local and insurance and other required financial obligations, those making six- or seven- or higher-digit figures are only able to keep 25-40% of what they earn.
And while it’s legal for us to vote against their own well-being, and “volunteer” the Rich to pay for something the rest of us want, it’s not like they get more votes proportional to what they pay in taxes.
In other words, if a wealthy Californian pays 100 times more than his/her neighbor in taxes, then they won’t get 100 votes despite his/her having so much more skin in the game…
…but they can vote with a single “nuts to you” and leave the neighbors with hands in his/her face by leaving the Golden State to its own greedy and narcissistic ways.
Enter the SEIU-UHW, a health care workers’ union with a proposed ballot measure to “step up and pay a one-time, emergency 5% tax to prevent the collapse of California healthcare, and help fund California public K-14 education and state food assistance programs”, or that union’s website proclaims.
After all, this “brave” and “caring” measure will only affect roughly 200 people with a combined net worth of $2 trillion. They couldn’t possibly outvote the rest of us…
…but those 200 people could “veto” the state’s voters by moving to less hostile states—because most of The Rich are NOT trust-fund babies. Whether we like it or not, work and risks and investments and boldness got The Rich where they are today.
And when I say “where they are today”, I should add that the “where” is now increasingly outside California. They’re moving, and in effect saying, “Screw ME? No, screw YOU!”
A “one-time” tax? Where have we heard THAT gaslighting, lying expression before?
Hence we have conservative billionaire Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir, in agreement with Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom to oppose this measure.
State income taxes going up for ALL taxpayers, anyone?
Downsize either the number of state employees, or downsize their salaries or benefits, anyone?
Drop spending on the California High-Speed Rail project, wasted spending on homeless-assistance projects, anyone?
Distinguish between environmental policy that’s viable and cost-effective, and policies that are not, and stop requiring us funding the latter, anyone?
Telling individuals and families not here legally that they have to find a sponsor (employer, family, neighbor?) or we just can’t afford them, anyone?
Telling the SEIU healthcare workers union to suck it up like the rest of us, anyone?
Requiring K-14 and higher education systems to live within their means and stop being unsustainably expensive, anyone?
But this billionaire tax, which is as unworkable as it is horrible and self-defeating, may just be the straw that broke the camel’s back in California…or the action that was the final death knell to an unsustainable system of taxing ever more to an ever-smaller group of residents who are (gasp!) NOT evil by being wealthy.
But if we pass this “one-time tax”, then WE are being evil by trying to grab what is NOT our money!
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at[email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
