Millionaires are getting taxed and workers get a win
Good news this week!
Welcome to a Sunday edition of Progress Report.
We’ve got a run down of good news for you tonight, because why not start off the week with some positive vibes for once?
More interviews to come later this week — now on to the news worth celebrating.
Note: I don’t like talking about business or being vulnerable, but I’ll make a rare exception here. Paid subscribers have dropped off a cliff since late November, when I went in for my sixth open-heart surgery, and it’s making life difficult.
I took a few weeks off to heal from surgery but resumed the work way earlier than recommended, diving right in with live-streamed interviews and special election-related projects. I know times are tough, but if you’re reading this and want to pitch in to help keep this independent media project afloat, now would be a great time.
99% of Washington State residents: It took nearly a century, but the Evergreen State finally has an income tax — at least for a relative handful of residents, anyway. After a bitter, 24-hour fight in the House and more sedate debate in the state Senate, a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million is headed to the desk of Gov. Bob Ferguson, who has promised to sign the historic legislation.
The tax, which is due to begin in 2029, would impact around 20,000 residents, or about 0.5% of Washington’s population.
As in California, where there’s a billionaire tax on the ballot in November, the state’s ultra-wealthy are throwing a fit about actually having to pay even a modicum of their fair share (again, Washington has never had an income tax until now, so these people have never had to contribute in any progressive way!).
Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, who I tormented for several years while covering the union drive at his company (and ultimately helped force out), announced last week that he’s moving his family’s office to Miami, where he just bought a $44 billion penthouse at the Four Seasons. Nobody wants to hear a billionaire’s moans about being persecuted or financially strapped, but if you’re going to attempt to play that card, buying a $44 million penthouse is not the way to do it.
The blowback has already led to the likely partial rollback of the new estate tax passed last year, and it’s only a matter of time until a new Super PAC run by wealth-hoarding heathens starts up a ballot initiative to undo the millionaire tax. Then again, there are often conservative ballot initiatives backed by ultra-wealthy cranks in Washington, and they rarely wind up passing.
Workers and consumers in Colorado: A House committee voted to move forward on a bill that would ban both surveillance pricing and wage-setting, setting up what could be a landmark law in an economy increasingly driven by algorithms and spyware.
House Bill 1210 outlaws using a person’s internet browsing history — including search, location, and previous purchases — to set personalized prices on items purchased online. Both regulations would be historic; while banning surveillance pricing has been proposed in several states, only New York has managed to pass any legislation, and that simply requires a disclosure of algorithmic pricing. Lawmakers in the Empire State are also pushing for an outright ban on the practice.
What we haven’t seen anywhere is Colorado’s proposed prohibition on employers using applicants’ personal data to lowball them on salary. Some companies have been found to create “desperation scores” based on a scrape of an applicant’s personal history, including having applied for unemployment benefits or payday loans.
The bill is facing frenzied opposition from retailers and tech companies, which have argued that it could ban things like discounts for loyal customers and people who have items left in their online shopping cars. The sponsors addressed some of those objections with amendments that would exempt these specific scenarios, allowing HB 1210 to squeak through committee on a 7-6 vote.
There’s still a ways to go; big tech will be spending heavily to kill the bill in the legislature, and Gov. Jared Polis may not need much convincing if it gets to his desk.
Taxpayers and workers in New Jersey: As the federal government cuts back on funding for social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP, states will either have to provide less for their most vulnerable constituents or find creative ways of finding the money. For New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, the solution is obvious: end the free rides… for big corporations.
There are no bigger welfare cheats than major corporations like Walmart and Target, which pay their employees so little that they’re forced to rely on social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP. In Sherrill’s new budget proposal, she includes a fine on large employers (those with 50 or more employees) for every one of their workers on Medicaid. The charges would reach $725 per employee on Medicaid and raise around $145 million annually.
With upwards of $3.3 billion in potential cuts from the federal government, this proposal wouldn’t come close to plugging the gap, but it’s at the very least a deft plan to put pressure on these corporations and educate people as to why so many people rely on government benefits — it’s certainly not out of laziness.
Amazon has the most employees on Medicaid in New Jersey, with more than 5,600 workers enrolled in state benefits that cover about 10,000 family members as well. Walmart, Wawa, temp employer Century II Staffing, and Target rounding out the top five most shameful big employers in the Garden State.
Transparency in Montana: Consider this points for determination. Not long after the state Supreme Court tossed a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban dark money and stop corporations from spending in elections, the activists behind the proposal returned with a ballot initiative that would do largely the same thing.
To be clear, this is the backup plan, as initiatives can be much more easily changed or thwarted by a hostile legislature, but any opportunity to even slow down the tyranny of dark money — and to give voters the opportunity to weigh in on doing so — is worth pursuing. In this case, the proposed initiative would threaten corporate charters if they violate business conduct regulations, which would include spending on political speech.
Submitting the proposal as an initiative instead of an amendment cuts in half the number of petition signatures required to get on the ballot, a key consideration with a June 17 deadline approaching.
Civil rights in Western Pennsylvania: Allegheny County became the latest large municipality to ban most local cooperation with ICE and other federal immigration enforcement officials. Unless otherwise required by pre-existing law, county officials are now prohibited from:
Inquiring as to a resident’s immigration status
Retaining citizenship information provided on county documents for more than 60 days
Entering into a contract with federal authorities to access county data to support immigration enforcement
Detaining a person for no legal reason other than a federal immigration detainer request
Assisting ICE or border patrol “in any capacity” with enforcement operations.
A law like this can be superseded by federal and state law, so it can only do so much, but simply requiring extra steps and explicit authorization goes a long way in a system built on slimy idiots who bend the rules.
Public school families in Arizona: Forget preschools in Minnesota, the real education subsidy fraud scandal is happening in states with private school vouchers. It’s been especially rampant in Arizona, where taxpayers are now paying a billion dollars a year for wealthy families to bring their kids to Broadway shows (in New York!) while public schools shut down.
Not that anybody’s surprised: teachers, union officials, public education advocates, and activists all predicted this would happen as soon as conservative lawmakers passed school privatization back in 2022. I even made a video about it, now nearly three years ago, and I’m no Nostradamus:
There was a major effort back in 2023-24 to end the voucher program while it was still in its early stages, but its failure to qualify for the ballot ended any hopes of avoiding what was obviously destined to be a catastrophe. Now, fresh off several investigations revealing the sheer magnitude of waste, fraud, and abuse draining the public coffers and robbing students across the state, the teachers’ union and the nonprofit Save Our Schools are pursuing another initiative, this one to place significant limitations and guardrails on the voucher program.
The measure, called the “Protect Education Act,” would require unused funds to be returned to public schools, mandate fingerprint clearance for voucher-funded school employees, ban the use of funds for luxury items, and prohibit families earning $150,000 or more annually from participating in the program, among other restrictions.
This will be a hard-fought battle; there are 100,000 families that now receive vouchers, which is a relatively small number, but the school privatization has essentially unlimited funds from the Betsy DeVoses of the world to muddy the water during a campaign. Then again, they tried that in Nebraska, only to get blown out of the water even while Donald Trump was rampaging in the state.
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Jordan, I wish you full recovery. Take care of yourself.