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**MAY 11, 2021**

Meyerson on TAP

California's Taxes: The Only Ones Suited for the 21st Century

For decades, the right has been complaining that California's taxes
are too high. What they actually mean is too progressive, as the top
rates now hover around 13 percent of personal income. That, the right
has claimed, would surely drive the wealthy from the state-though new
data on population shifts show that it's working-class people who've
been fleeing the high-cost state while professionals and the wealthy
have continued to move there. The right has also claimed that
progressive taxes actually yield less revenue than less progressive and
lower taxes, according to the haven't-quite-penciled-out-yet equations
of supply-side economics.

Undaunted, California has continued to levy the most progressive taxes
of any state, and in the past two days, we've seen the results. This
year, the state boasts an astounding budget surplus of $75.7 billion.
California's high-tech rich have seen their stocks rise so dizzyingly
this year that the state's capital gains and income taxes have yielded
a bonanza, funded very disproportionately by what is still a sliver of
the wealthy's new wealth.

And what will the state do with all that funding? According to Gov.
Gavin Newsom's newly revised budget, it will, should the
Democratic-controlled legislature pass it (which is likely), devote at
least $5 billion to erasing many tenants' unpaid back rent, devote
another $12 billion to constructing affordable housing largely intended
for the homeless, pour an even more generous share of the bounty into
the coffers of public schools, and provide $600 tax rebates to
Californians with incomes of less than $75,000, including those
Californians too poor to have paid taxes at all last year.

That's for starters.

Imagine, now, if the federal government raised capital gains taxes on
the rich as California has done, and moved the highest tax brackets back
to where they were before the Reagan administration and a compliant
Congress reduced them to levels that put even fixing basic
infrastructure out of our fiscal reach. To be sure, California's
concentration of super-rich taxpayers has given the state a fiscal
advantage, but other states with kindred concentrations have resisted
comparable tax policies-in particular, New York, where Andrew Cuomo
has refused to hike taxes on the Wall Street funders of his campaigns.

Given the relentless rise of the rich in America, California appears to
have the only tax system in the nation in which the general public can
benefit from that rise. And, need I add, this makes Gavin Newsom's
recall, improbable to begin with, even more improbable now.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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The Gravel Institute Punches Up

To counter right-wing organizations with deep pockets and powerful ties,
like PragerU, the Gravel Institute builds a progressive grassroots
coalition. BY AMELIA POLLARD

Maloney Yanks DeJoy-Friendly Provision From Postal Bill After Union
Complains

A provision that would have allowed the U.S. Postal Service to set its
own delivery standards is removed, but penalties for noncompliance with
targets are also gone. BY DAVID DAYEN

Capitalism and the Caring Economy

The entire caregiving sector needs to be separated from the commercial
economy. Otherwise, we pay exorbitant costs for inadequate services and
abuse workers and patients alike. BY ROBERT KUTTNER

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