Introducing a new bill that would increase taxes for California’s wealthiest residents is a gesture that will continue the conversation until the political climate becomes more amenable to the redistribution of wealth, according to an economist.
“Politicians are simply continuing to talk about a millionaire tax so that there may be some progress on it and so that people will think their elected officials believe this is an issue that matters,” said Robert Michaels, a professor of economics at California State University-Fullerton.
Michaels was responding to the filing last week of Assembly Bill 1253, which, if approved, would implement tax increases on residents who earn more than $1 million a year, according to media reports.
“It's really a short-term remedy,” Michaels told Southern California Record. “The trouble is that politics itself is so heavily built on short-term income gains because your average elected official is in business to get through the next election and if you can buy my vote with somebody else's money, the millionaire tax is an opportunity to do so.”
Courthouse News reported that Los Angeles Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, a Democrat, introduced the measure for a second time and, if successful, the bill would increase taxes for residents earning more than $1 million from 13.3% to 14.3% and the tax bill of those who earn $2 million would increase by 3%.
“There is a desperate need to attack the issue of income inequality by making sure those who are rich pay their fair share,” Santiago said at a press conference on March 24.
Earners with income of more than $5 million would see an increase of 3.5%, according to the bill.
"The government in California is very heavily into redistribution than most other states and as long as people sit in one place, that's great but, unfortunately for California, they're not sitting here anymore,” Michaels said. “What we're getting in the way of migration is people who are prosperous or productive are moving out.”
As previously reported, 135,600 more people left the state than moved in.
Last year, the bill was never voted on and while the California Teachers Association supports the tax increase, Gov. Gavin Newsom opposed it.
“Under the California Constitution, if the state budget grows, teachers will automatically get a raise,” Michaels added. “They're interested in seeing anybody get taxed. We call them public or civil servants but really teachers are just workers who use the government to transfer wealth to themselves the same way others do in everyday life. We just don't want to think that because we want to believe that teachers are somehow special people.”