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Imagine a world where the wealthiest among us are taxed to fund the things we all need--things like independent journalism. To realize such a world, we need... independent journalism.

FEATURING LIZ PERLMAN - The Trump administration and Republican Party’s push to enrich already-wealthy people at the expense of the rest of us is resulting in one of the largest upward wealth transfers in the history of the nation. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill rewards the wealthiest Americans with $2.3 trillion in tax cuts.

Now, activists in states around the country are calling on governors to counter the federal tax cut with state-level taxation of the rich. Already, the state of Massachusetts has been levying taxes on millionaires for a couple of years. But California, home to a disproportionate number of billionaires, is dealing with a governor who is eying the presidency, and resolutely opposing such a tax—this in spite of strong public appetite for taxing the rich. Unions have backed a ballot measure in California to levy a one-time 5% tax on billionaires.

Liz Perlman is Executive Director of AFSCME 3299, representing more than 40,000 service and patient care technical workers at the University of California.  She serves on the University of California Berkeley Labor Center Advisory Board and the Bargaining For Common Good Advisory Board, and spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about what's at stake as the rich continue to get richer.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: So, let's first talk about the severity of the problem. , the Trump administration floated into its second term by claiming that it was going to be a populist presidency. Trump essentially convinced just enough people in just enough states that he cared about the common man. And of course, most of us who had been paying close attention understood it was exactly the opposite. And this transfer of wealth that he has helped to enact, that he has backed, how severely will it impact people around the country if states don't act? What are we looking at? What are the things that we're going to lose? 

Liz Perlman: Well, I think that folks are already feeling it, right? I mean, they've been feeling it and they haven't felt relief on just a day-to-day level cost of living, gas, groceries, whatnot, the cost of housing. And I think with healthcare many people have already seen their premiums skyrocket because of the gap in the tax credits for the ACA. But what the states are facing with the so-called Big Beautiful Bill is that specifically California, and then you can apply it to many other states we're facing a $30 billion cliff in 2027 from some estimates. And, that amounts to 20% of essentially the healthcare infrastructure going away, meaning people will lose coverage and those dollars, right, when you lose people who are on healthcare and those dollars are gone from the healthcare networks and the healthcare system, which are all one system, people don't go to separate hospitals. There's your area hospital, and that's where you're gonna go. And so if 20% of the patients in that area lose their healthcare, there are going to be cuts. That is just the only way these healthcare systems are not, and hospitals, especially rural hospitals can't grow money on trees. And so if they lose those, and we're already seeing those effects everywhere. 

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