A rare backroom deal in Sacramento that helps taxpayers

The billionaire tax is on the ballot. There will be no backroom deal to close it.

The fact that SEIU’s Dave Regan even tried to use the tax bill as a bargaining chip to force other reforms shows just how ridiculous union bosses have become.

They treat all of us like pawns.

Gavin Newsom has done nothing to stop the billionaire tax, or oppose it. Of course, he said he was against it. What all the millionaires fleeing to other states must oppose.

On Friday, he proposed a statewide multibillion tax, so that California’s rich will have nowhere to go.

Do you think billionaires haven’t found a way to move their wealth abroad?

The only backroom deal that did happen, in fact, was an agreement to require a two-thirds majority for all real estate transfer taxes at the local level, not just a simple majority.

That’s the result of an agreement between the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) and Democrats in Sacramento.

The HJTA, which exists to protect the property tax that was passed as Proposition 13 in 1978, has been fighting a wave of property taxes, such as LA’s Measure ULA, the “big house tax.”

It put an initiative on the November ballot to collect local transfer taxes at a pitifully low rate.

There was a real chance that it would have passed. That is why social activists like Nithya Raman have started talking about amending Measure ULA – lest they lose it completely.

Democrats opposed the HJTA on their own ballot measure – making the programs harder to pass.

At the last second, there was a compromise. The HJTA agreed to remove its ballot measure, and as a result Democrats agreed to raise the threshold to pass new real estate transfer taxes.

That means fewer tax increases in the future. So taxpayers got a rare win in Sacramento.

Californians will vote on the new proposal, which has yet to be numbered, in November.

The agreement, however, does not change Measure ULA – the original motivation for the HJTA effort.

Oh well. LA will have to fix itself.

It is very troubling that most of our government’s tax policy is done through backroom deals.

The legislative process, and voting systems, are all a show. The real action is behind the scenes.

At least, this time, taxpayers seem to have come out on top. It’s really rare.

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