RUSH: California. They passed this massive tax increase on the rich. So the rich start moving away; California says, “Oh, no, you’re not! You do that, and we are still gonna find you, and we’re gonna get your money.” I’m gonna tell you how they’re gonna do it as a lesson, as a precursor.
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RUSH: “A California plan…” It’s the Wall Street Journal that has the story. This is from four days ago. I’ll bet not many of you have heard about this. “California’s legislature is considering a wealth tax on residents, part-year residents, and any person who spends more than 60 days inside the state’s borders in a single year. Even those who move out of state would continue to be subject to the tax for a decade. …
“The California constitution probably,” it says here, probably, “allows a statewide wealth tax on residents, but any effort to create a tax capable of reaching across state borders is likely to run afoul of the U.S. Constitution.” Well, who’s gonna care about that? We got a Democrat in the White House, got Democrat out in the statehouse of California.
Who’s gonna care about the Constitution? Here’s the point. In California, they created a wealth tax. They’re out of money. They can’t print it. They can’t go into debt like we can, like the federal government can. So they’re constantly in need of money, and the way they do it is the way the Democrats always do it: Go after the rich, go after the wealthy.
So they create this new wealth tax, which is forcing people to leave, like I left New York in 1997. Now, the Democrats have not figured out how to… Well, actually they did it. They pursued me for over 10 years with phantom audits and demands and claims that I was secretly living in New York when I wasn’t. Anyway, they have now said that if you think you’re going to escape this tax by leaving California, you’d better think again, because we’re gonna tax you.
It’s the same wealth tax. We’re gonna tax you wherever you end up for 10 years. “The California Constitution probably allows a statewide wealth tax on residents, but any effort to create a tax capable of reaching across state borders is likely to run afoul of the U.S. Constitution.” Do they not know at the Wall Street Journal that the Democrats don’t give a rip about the U.S. Constitution?
Don’t they know at the Wall Street Journal that nothing the Democrats or the left ever wants “runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution”? Now. “The range of people [that California] proposes to ensnare [with this tax] is staggering: every student attending college in California, anyone having a major medical procedure at a California hospital and needing an extended in-state recovery period, and those who spend two months in California away from New York or London winters.”
This is the 60-day thing that they’re imposing. If you are in California for more than 60 days — not 180, if you’re in California for more than 60 days — we’re gonna tax you as a resident, essentially. You see, under this “tax law, there is no distinction between a nonresident from Minnesota and a nonresident from Dubai.
“The proposed wealth tax would fall on a star high-school or college athlete who grows up in California but becomes a wealthy professional in another state after graduation. It would grab a scientist who develops a drug to cure cancer years after leaving California.” I mean, it will basically allow California to slap a tax on productive people who leave the state to get away from these taxes for 10 years. I mean, it’s just incredible.
So this is how they’re gonna do it. Other states will then pick up on this and institute the same kind of thing, ’cause leftists cannot stop taxing people. I want to see how they’re gonna deal with this. Have you heard about the Rose Bowl moving from Pasadena? Well, they can’t do the game because they’re shut down. So the Rose Bowl is being moved to Jerry Jones’ stadium, AT&T Stadium in Dallas.
“Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and the strict statewide shut down orders from Gavin Newsom, the College Football Playoff game known as the Rose Bowl will not be played in Pasadena. It’s gonna be played in Arlington, Texas, at AT&T Stadium, home of the Cowboys.” The state of California may not want your money, but Texas is gonna be happy to take it.
“This decision, reached Saturday by the Tournament of Roses and the CFP Management Committee, is all about playing the game in a venue that will allow family and friends into the stadium to watch it.” So these people, they’re on their own. They are on a roll. They are being who they are. The American people will have no excuse not to notice it now.
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RUSH: Jonathan, Mission Viejo, California. You’re up next. I’m glad you waited. Hi.
CALLER: Rush, Merry Christmas. We’re praying for you, and we love you. I think — and I thought about this the other day — you’re as important to my generation, the Gen Xers, as George Washington and John Adams —
RUSH: Whoa.
CALLER: — and Thomas Jefferson were to the founding generation.
RUSH: That is —
CALLER: You make that big of a difference, and you’re that important, and we love you. We’re praying for you.
RUSH: Thank you very much. That’s overwhelming. I can’t thank you enough for that.
CALLER: So listen, Rush. I’m the COO of a small business here in Southern California, and we’ve been working remote for the past almost year. And we’ve not had a very good year. And I think a lot of that has been related to COVID. We made a strategic decision to have people come back into the office on January 4th.
And then at the beginning of December, this bureaucratic body called the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, they released their guidelines for coming back to work and what we’re supposed to follow. And, Rush, this is the biggest bunch of BS I’ve ever read. It’s unbelievable what they mandate, and this is for every business in California. You are required to follow this. Let me tell you one of the things that we’re supposed to do.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: We’re supposed to “check the quality of our outside air with our air-conditioning units to make sure that there’s enough outside air coming into the offices.”
RUSH: What?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: How the hell are you supposed to do that?
CALLER: That’s a great question. I would like to know.
RUSH: The quality of your outside air with your air-conditioning units —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — to make sure there’s enough outside air coming in the offices?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Well, how the hell does air-conditioning work if it doesn’t make sure that’s happening?
CALLER: (laughing) I don’t know. I mean, like I guess maybe they want us to put, you know, $100 HEPA air filters on each of our registers?
RUSH: Yeah, it’s gonna be something like that.
CALLER: Unreal. So here’s another good one. So we’re trying to bring people back, right?
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: So they tell us we’re supposed to physically distance, and here’s one of the ways that we’re supposed to physically distance: By “eliminating the need for the workers to be in the workplace.”
RUSH: (Snort!) You want to bring ’em back, you want to relocate them in the office.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Read that to me again. “Eliminating the need for workers to be in the workplace”?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Haven’t you already done that? Haven’t you already demonstrated you know how to do it that?
CALLER: Right. Exactly. Like we’re supposed to be bring people back by eliminating the need for them? We’re supposed to just shut the company down, let ’em go? I mean, this is —
RUSH: If you eliminate the need for them to be in the workplace then of course you’re signing on to not bringing them back.
CALLER: Yeah. I mean, it’s completely asinine, what they’ve written here. This is unelected bureaucrats who have the power to control every business in California.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it full well.
CALLER: I mean, it makes me sick here on the Left Coast, beautiful California, where we have to deal with this kind of stuff.
RUSH: Well, I’m curious. What has changed out there to make you think you could? Even without these OSHA regs that you just shared, what made you think you could bring ’em back anyway? Because aren’t most California businesses not yet ready for that?
CALLER: Well, you know, Rush, we have been told that the kind of business that we’re in, we’re essential, all right? So we’ve been deemed essential by the state. So we have the ability to bring people back. We had decided not to do it for a little while because people were scared and, you know, you do want to keep morale up. So for the first couple months, things were fine.
But as we’ve gotten into the year, we’ve noticed a huge difference in the way that we communicate, in the morale of the company, in the way we interact with each other. We can’t continue to run the business this way. We need people here in the office.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And I think a lot of companies are figuring this out, you know. At the start it was like, “Great, I’m gonna work from home!” Yeah, well, but you have a hundred other things distracting you at home.
RUSH: I don’t know what your business is, but I saw that Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, said within the past couple of weeks that they’re not gonna be bringing people back at the earliest until July 2021.
CALLER: Yeah. I don’t know how that’s feasible, especially for a small business. How are you supposed to get people to adapt to your culture when you don’t have them around you? It’s not possible. You know, we have a way we need to do things. We need to train people. We need to bring them on and show them what we do. You can’t do that remotely. It’s very difficult for a small business to do that. But the state of California seems to think it’s completely possible and fine, and all the businesses are gonna run just fine without people in the office.
RUSH: Well, that’s the thing. These bureaucracies — that have never had had to make a payroll, they’ve never run a business — slap these regulations on you that are just nonsensical, and they illustrate a flat-out, total ignorance the way the business world works, in their own state.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Anyway, I’m —
CALLER: You know, Rush, one thing I’ve thought about a couple times — and I don’t think people have made a good point of dealing with. Even President Trump when he was doing his, you know, campaign for the election. You know, there is no danger for any of these unelected bureaucrats or even our elected senators, representatives in California, federal government. None of them are going without a paycheck. None of them.
RUSH: That’s exactly right too. No matter what, the people making these regulations are never going to face a loss of income. They’re never gonna face it. These government staff pukes and so forth. You’re absolutely, 100% correct. I wish I had more time, Jonathan, but I gotta go. I’m a little long now, but I’m really glad you got through — and I very, very much appreciate your words at the beginning of the call.