-People should lose their minds over the government listening to private phone calls without a warrant.

I agree the illegality should be addressed

-So during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict you had no problem locking up Islamists without due process?

Hell, people lost their minds over listening to phone calls without a warrant.

"If company valued at $6B, the founder would owe 150million.
Of stock he can't even sell, and if the company fails and doesn't go public, he still owes."

Your argument there is that he's simply not liquid enough to pay the tax?

I would like to think that was debated when drafting this bill but then again....not sure how much realism was allowed during those deliberations.

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What?

"the 1940's wasn't technologically capable of sorting people out quickly."

I would think they made it pretty simple.....if you looked like a ---....you were detained.

-Now the narrative has changed to him not having enough power to implement his policies.

I suppose that explains a lot of dolts who predicted such mayhem as a result of that election.

Pretty normal election drama.

Kind of like the celebrities who promise to leave if the republican on the ticket wins.

....And then make the same promise the next election.....LOL

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Admit it...she was hot.

-Not because they would feel the effect of having 5% less wealth.

True. It's not that the 5% would impact them in any real way.

-So now Newsom is panicking that the hand that feeds him is upset.

panicking? how so? He didn't have anything to do with writing this bill and he's not supporting it.

Does he have his fingerprints on bill somewhere?

-Difference being Mamdani isn't owned by billionaires, Newsom is.

There are more differences than that. Top of the list is what power Mamdani has to affect the billionaires in NYC. Next would be Mamdani isn't a candidate for anything else outside of NYC.

The billionaire donor class is the billionaire donor class.

When they commit 7 or 8 or 9 figures to a political cause/candidate....they expect adherence to their wishes in exchange.

Is it possible there is anybody here who's confused about that?

I know there are folks here who pretend to be confused about it....and a couple have raised their hands.

But I'm going to take the high road and assume they're just kidding.

"Both parties are not the same."

Thanks, Capt. Obvious. I already pointed that out and you know that.

But I guess you just can't accept that you're still going to force feed yourself with meaningless distinctions.

The truth is that this issue where Newsom has to come out against this is where folks convince themselves there isn't a difference between the 2 parties when there most certainly are.

But the presence of this massive wealth in our political system diminishes the appearance of such differences.

but let me me clear about this....Gavin Newsom has to distance himself from this kind of bill for the same reason any republican has to. The donors.

-Billionaires own this country and they won't have their authority questioned.

Including those who support democrats? Something tells me you can't square yourself to accept that.

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So you think there is a point to manufacturing a meaningless distinction to make yourself feel better for being a partisan?

There are plenty of good reasons to be a liberal, a democrat, a progressive, etc.......this just isn't one of them.

but I guess you can't make the distinction yourself. Instead, you're obligated to force feed yourself no matter how absurd it is.

-Those are part of the proposal, yes.

That's not a reality for billionaires due to how their wealth is represented so it's a nice deflection but let's return to how you'd react to having a State take 5% of your estate while leaving most of your neighbors alone.

-Most billionaires won't notice the 5%.

They're paying huge attention to it and it's not even likely to happen.

-Newsom doesn't have the minerals to stand up to the people who own him.

LOL......I always love this framing of people in a way you can tolerate rather than just rip the -------- bandaid off and accept it for what it is.

People who support democrats are just as demanding and ruthless as those who support republicans.

You're deciding there is a meaningful difference between being corrupt (a republican who's going to run for president who wouldn't support this) and being spineless (a democrat who's going to run for president who won't support this).

What a waste of energy force feeding such meaningless distinctions.

-They're exempting my IRAs, my pensions, and my properties?!?

Is this bill in California?

-And when Romney got the $20 million payout from Bain? It was right after the '07-'08 Bush Bust & Bailout; he just sold some paper losses, bought them back in 31 days, and pocketed $20 million without paying a penny of taxes.

so I understand that correctly.....if you sell the stock and wait just 31 days to buy it back, then you can write off the loss when you sold against the income you're declaring?

-Well, I think getting a trillionaire before eradicating world hunger should be an alarm bell.

1 of those will happen. the other one has zero chance of happening.

-Now it's praised.

I certainly don't view myself as someone who praises such greed and I'm sure you don't view yourself any differently.

This issue is about the reality of even trying to pass such a tax and what can happen.

I'm shocked anybody has committed to anything. In fact, I don't think anybody is going anywhere or at least not for long.

This isn't going to happen. I know, it's easy for me to say...it's not 5% of my net worth on the line.

but ask yourselves this...if your state told you to fork over 5% of your net worth, how would you respond?

"That speaks to a pretty dang progressive income tax code."

That just tells you no tax code can be progressive enough.

The fairness of it will still be in question. No matter what. Wealth inequality is what it's really about.

-72% of all federal income taxes.

I'll steal Danforth's thunder a little here........does that calculation include FICA taxes?

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but are you "enjoying all the benefits of public expenditures with no responsibility to pay for them" or not?

Or.....tell the whole story. What's Tennessee property tax and sales tax environment?

-Again, I don't defend the shooting. That doesn't change the facts of what happened.

The facts don't support shooting her. Surely you agree with that.

that officer wasn't in the kind of danger (nor was anyone else) that justified shooting her. Despite her being a pain the ass.

-With no state income tax, they enjoy all the benefits of public expenditures with no responsibility to pay for them.

Is that what you're accusing yourself of? You live in TN, correct?

Are you a leech?

Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming

Most red states have an income tax. Just sayin....

-Which is mostly just bait and switch

We see the obvious examples of that such as that boondoggle in Wisconsin a few years ago.

But every state recruits employers with incentives on taxes, etc. to lure jobs to their locale.

State, County, City....at all levels they do this.

Interesting....usually folks point to the massive economic engine that California is when we discuss these matters. Their weather, political climate, business climate.....it's all an explanation for why California is such a massive economic engine and why everyone wants to live there and why everything is so expensive there.

Not seeing that here. Now, it's billionaires can go ---- themselves.

Including California billionaires. Billionaires in California were better than Billionaires in a red state.....just because......

LOL