Latest / Winning With Winans! / One Million Taxpayers Gone: What's Driving the California Exodus?
Transcript
- speaker-0: a lot of talk in the paper about this California wealth tax. ⁓ I mean, they're actually having a battle right now. I was shocked to find out from what I read, you know who's pushing this crazy thing? The unions. ⁓ Now I don't know why the unions care about why the techs of Silicon Valley. Who probably have a fair number of employees that work for them personally and professionally. But according to what I'm hearing, Gavin Newsom, the governor, is fighting a almost like a ⁓ union civil war right now, trying to deal with these people on all sides. I guess they're trying to negotiate the tax down to instead of a 5% tax to a 2% tax. Let me tell you something. There should be zero tax for this reason alone. Folks, Let's be smart here. Look, I'm a business owner. I get reports every year about what my net worth is. You know what? It doesn't matter. My stock is my stock and my company. I don't plan to sell it. Same with a lot of those folks in Silicon Valley. What are they supposed to do? Borrow the money to go pay this tax? Does that make any sense at all? But California hasn't thought this one through. We're gonna get more wealthy people leaving California. They've already left the state of Washington for the same thing. But I do think it's pretty funny that the and most people haven't even thought about this. Would you like to know how many pe taxpayers have left California since COVID? One million taxpayers have left California. Think about that. And they don't seem to care. It doesn't matter to them. Now there was a little pe a little bit of good news of all places, San Francisco, which, as you all know, I came from the Bay Area before I wised up and moved to the Great city of Las Vegas. The city actually rejected a tax that was endorsed by Nancy Pelosi called the Overpaid CEO Act, which by the way, Nancy Pelosi, I guess, wanted to put a tax on her husband's income because he's one of those overpaid CEOs. But anyway, ⁓ the mayor, who they're finally getting some smart people in their city hall, said, We're gonna have businesses leave here if we continue to push this stuff. But you know what I love the most? Right after those articles came out, big article in the Wall Street Journal talking about Las Vegas and how it's becoming a new hub to the successful and the affluent. Folks, we're gonna get hearing more and more of this. Now, look, what we do not want to have happen is have a society that is rich and poor. We want to encourage the middle class. The middle class is what drives healthy economic growth. But it's gonna continue to have a lot of very wealthy people come here. As you all know, I want to see financial services move here. Go back and read my Forbes article I wrote late last year about Las Vegas, the new Western Wall Street. What I saw in Chicago when I talked to people in Chicago, big money management firms, they all said the same thing. Vegas is the perfect place to move a business to in the Western United States. Think of all the advantages we have: great infrastructure, great f airports, ⁓ conveniences. We have the people coming from out of town. I see my clients more now than I did when I lived in the wine country in Northern California. But anyway, the other big thing, just real go back. I want to go back to California real quick because we have to be aware of these issues. ⁓ the fraud stories, the corruption stories continue to come out of that state. It looks like the Medicaid fraud news is getting even bigger. it's gonna probably pass up a lot of the other states in fraud. Again, where is the accountability? I don't know why the taxpayers in California Are not completely upset about it. Folks, this goes beyond party loyalty. These are your tax money. It's our tax money too. These are federal dollars going to California. You need to police your own community. You need to hold your politicians accountable. This is crazy.