(Los Angeles) Bernie Sanders received a hero’s welcome Wednesday in Los Angeles, at a rally where America’s most famous socialist came to support a proposed tax on billionaires in California that seems to frighten Silicon Valley.
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This idea pushes the United States to “finally confront the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that we know,” praised the senator from Vermont, former candidate for the Democratic nomination for the White House in 2016 and 2020.
Acclaimed by more than 2,000 people in a sold-out theater, the octogenarian denounced “the scandalous costs of health care and prescription drugs”, supporting this referendum project taking “pocket money” from the ultra-rich.
PHOTO JAE C. HONG, ASSOCIATED PRESS
More than 2000 people attended the event.
Supported by the health workers union (SEIU-UHW), the measure proposes to tax Californian billionaires up to 5% of their assets.
Most (90%) of the tens of billions of dollars in revenue generated would be used to finance the health system, to compensate for the enormous federal cuts imposed by Donald Trump’s vast budget law.
On Wednesday, the union assured AFP that it had collected several hundred thousand signatures. He needs 874,000 to put this project to a vote during the next elections in November.
For its members, present in large numbers in the crowd, measure is essential.
“We are trying to prevent the healthcare system in California from collapsing,” insists Debru Carthan.
Threats of exile
At 54, this radiology technician fears seeing rural hospitals close. At her medical center in Modesto, in California’s agricultural heartland, she is already seeing the effects of federal cuts.
“We see patients who come in and find out that their coverage has been reduced,” she tells AFP.
Medicare, the health insurance for the poorest, “no longer covers their weight loss pills, for example,” regrets the American, worried about the massive obesity rate.
This proposed tax may be one-off, but it has caused shock waves in California.
PHOTO YUI MOK, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
California Governor Gavin Newsom
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who has presidential ambitions for 2028, has vowed to oppose it because he fears a tax exodus that would weaken the cradle of Silicon Valley.
“I will do what I have to do to protect the state,” he promised the New York Times in January.
With more than 250 billionaires, California is the American state with the most ultra-rich people.
Many seem cooled by this measure: the cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence (AI) circles are starting to finance advertising campaigns against it.
According to the American press, certain famous entrepreneurs like Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, Larry Ellison, that of Oracle, or Peter Thiel, that of Palantir, have taken measures to reduce their ties with California.
“Sissy Game”
“It’s a game of chicken. (…) These are just threats,” says Nicole Cutright indignantly.
“Of course, we will lose a few billionaires, but most will stay,” believes this marketing professional, convinced that California, which alone represents one of the world’s leading economies, will remain attractive.
The forty-year-old is more worried about federal cuts. Because of them, her mother pays $100 more per month for her health coverage and her psychotherapy sessions are no longer reimbursed, even though she is recovering from cancer.
Enabling people to have affordable health coverage is really the most important thing.
Nicole Cutright
An opinion widely shared in the room, where no one fears an economic exodus.
Gavin Newsom “is preparing for a presidential campaign, and he is going to need these billionaires to finance his campaign,” denounces Miles Daniels, former employee of a food bank, recently fired because of cuts in federal subsidies.
At 35, he believes that the Democrats lost the last presidential election because of their “turn to the center”.
For him, the debate around this tax sums up the party’s procrastination, historically reluctant in the face of socialists like Bernie Sanders, or the new mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani.
“Trump calls them communists,” he smiles. “But the issue of health and the cost of living are actually excellent ways to win back the working class. »
