In Reply to: Re: Moderate Dems are saying “NO” on prop 40. But … posted by russsmith on October 03, 2026 at 07:29:24
I’m a firm no.
As a public-sector employee, I don’t think large infusions of one-time cash are necessarily a good thing. Government agencies often have an incentive to spend every dollar of a grant or risk having their budget reduced the following year.
When our school receives a grant, for example, we may use the money to create a new program or service. But once the grant runs out, the program often disappears. A significant amount of the funding also gets spent on the initial setup, staffing, and infrastructure. In my experience, the public sector is generally better served by consistent, predictable funding—although construction is a different situation.
More broadly, once you establish the precedent that the government can impose a one-time tax on whatever group happens to be politically acceptable at the moment, it becomes much easier to do it again. Today it may be one group; tomorrow it could be another.
IMO, you want to keep that genie in the bottle. Even wealthy people need to be able to make long-term financial plans without worrying that the rules will suddenly change because they have become politically convenient targets.
I also don’t think pushing wealthy residents and taxpayers out of California is good for the state’s economy. For those reasons, I think this is a terrible proposition.