ISTM that the perps are most often social conservatives, such as leaders of regressive religions.

If that's the case, I shudder to think what it was like in the Middle Ages. Or in certain countries today.

> And what happens is that in the next budget cycle, they say, "Hey, there's all this money over here. We don't need to fund that anymore. And now there's a shortfall again.

I do not know how to parse this sentence.

This isn't intended or designed for ongoing funding. This doesn't factor into the state budget. It's a completely separate fund specifically to shore up health care and education systems that have been neglected due to recent/chronic underfunding. None of this impacts their normal operating budgets year over year,

The best analogy I can think of is a bond. When the government wants to raise money for a project or investment in the future, they will often issue and sell bonds to raise that money. Bonds mature and pay back with some interest, and are not recurring or factored into the normal budgeting. This is functionally the same thing, except instead of borrowing via bonds and paying back with interest it's just a straight up tax on billionaires.

> Absent actual, careful reduction of wasteful spending

I'm willing to bet that there's far less "wasteful spending" than you think there is, and it's just a matter of you not understanding what is being paid for and why. See also: DOGE "savings" and how we're suffering the consequences of cutting "wasteful" spending on programs that were actually really important but not in obvious ways.
=Smidge=

"No money exchanged hands in the making of this contract."

> You both can't be correct.

We can be, because shortfalls and deficit spending are not the same thing.

The new CA budget for this year is, reportedly, balanced. $0 deficit.

But $0 deficit this year does not magically erase the past several years of falling behind due to insufficient funding, e.g. shortfalls. This is why it's a one-time tax, and why I described is as a catch-up. I say "over the next few years" because the tax is expected to raise about $100B but only $25B/year can be withdrawn.

The full text of the bill is linked in the article summary, by the way.
=Smidge=

> First off: In CA we have prop 13, which prevents CA assessor from taxing your home

Aw gosh too bad there's no way to change a law with another law huh? Oh wait... this Act modifies Article XIII of the state constitution - the same Article that you refer to as "prop 13" - to allow the assessment and tax. Turns out it's rather easy to change a law with another law, 'cause the thing you cited has been amended at least nine times so far.

"The taxes levied by this Act are not "ad valorem taxes on real property" for purposes of Section 1 of Article XIIIA. To the extent any provision of Article XIIIA would otherwise be construed to limit, restrict, or apply to the rate, base, valuation, or imposition of the tax authorized by this Section, that provision shall not apply to, and is superseded by, this Section."

Womp womp, Mr. Moneybags.

> Second, If you've been through IPO you would know this:

And how is that anyone's problem but the billionaire's? Okay, so you can't liquidate stocks for a few months... that does not change your net personal wealth assessment, and it's your net wealth that's being taxed not each specific asset, nor is each specific asset required to be used to pay its own apportionment of the tax.

> Those nice fat numbers will drop considerably

"For all publicly traded assets, the fair market value of the asset shall be presumed to be the asset's market trading value on the valuation date..." ""Valuation date" means December 31, 2026"

So as far as stocks go, whatever the market value is on December 31st of this year is what your tax assessment will be based on, along with the value of everything else you own on that specific date. Market volatility doesn't factor into anything when the valuation is based on a one-time snapshot on a specific date.

Nothing of what you said is applicable because you do not understand what is being proposed nor, apparently, the existing law.
=Smidge=

> The big problem is that it's a one-time windfall that might trigger recurring spending proposals.

No? This is purposely a one-time tax to fund with very clear and specific uses, and the law creates that fund entirely separate from the general government funding. The money raised is specifically to cover shortfalls in health, education, and food security programs due to lack of federal funding over the next few years (expected to last 4-5 years).

There are no recurring spending proposals. There are no spending proposals at all. This effectively creates a catch-up fund to replace all the money they were already promised but never received because you-know-who is petty dipshit.

That said, yeah I'd love to see some sort of tax on loans with stocks as collateral. That's a much harder framework to create though since there are lots of reasons where it would be beneficial to encourage people to borrow against their assets especially for the purpose of enhancing those assets, such as home equity loans or business loans. It's not easy to draw a line with what should or should not be taxed without creating loopholes tat would make the whole thing pointless. A flat tax on net worth is a lot harder to skirt around.
=Smidge=

Fleeing with hoarded money isn't likely to hurt the state.

IIRC, moderately high wages are taxed at a higher rate than capital gains.

Actually, we need to roll back decades of tax cuts so we can afford our civilization.

Can you support that claim?

Also, more productive for whom?

If they can borrow money against those "unrealized gains" - a major source of wealthy people's cashflow - then they can tax those "unrealized gains."

The tax is structured precisely because billionaires play shell games with their assets to avoid paying taxes.

> we need to change the rules to stop them from accruing the wealth to begin with.

And how do you do that, if not through taxes? Oh your stock/property holdings have a market value of $10B? Nope California law says they can only be worth $1B? That's just not possible to implement. The only realistic way is to tax those assets as they accrue and force them to exchange that "unrealized gains" for cash.
=Smidge=

And if they did, the Party of Personal Responsibility would just blame it on Biden.

Define crypto as share trading, and tax it accordingly.

They'd run it again today anyway.

you miss out on the true meaning of Christmas.