BERNIE SPEECH ON BILLIONAIRS

 Thank you, San Francisco. This is a great crowd and I thank all of you for coming out tonight. As you know, we had to change uh the venue because of the tragedy that took place at the Warfield Warfield. Um a gentleman there was shot last night uh and died and um the venue was closed and we are where we are right now. Uh and um what happened last night was horrific. We send our deepest condolences to the family of the victim and to the staff of the Warfield who witnessed and survived the incident. And we thank the paramedics and first responders who were there to help. Let me begin by expressing my deep appreciation to those in the trade union movement who have done the enormously difficult work of getting Proposition 40 on the ballot. It is not easy taking on some of the wealthiest people in the world. It is not easy taking on the political establishment. It is not easy running a campaign where you're going to be greatly outspent, but that is what you are doing and the entire country is proud of what you're doing. In my view, Proposition 40, the California Billionaire Tax Act, is the most important ballot initiative in the country because it deals with the most important issue facing this country. AND THAT ISSUE IS can the American people sustain democracy, take on the greed and power of the billionaire class, and create an economy and government that works for all, or are we destined to live in an oligarchic society where our economic and political lives are controlled by a handful of the wealthiest people in the world? That is the real question on the ballot here in California on November 3rd. And that is why the whole country, and frankly people around the world, are paying attention to what is happening here. It's what people are asking, is it possible? And you all going to do it and show the world IT IS POSSIBLE. THAT WITH ALL OF THEIR money and all of their power, the people united are going to beat them. Now, why is Proposition 40 so important for California and in fact for the country? And here is why. Never before in American history have so few people owned so much. Never before have we had the kind of income and wealth inequality that we have today in which the top 1% now owns more wealth than the bottom 93% while 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth. We have never in the history of America seen the kind of inequality that we're seeing right now. All of us studied, you know, when we were at school, you remember studying the Gilded Age? Rockefeller and Jay Gould and J.P. Morgan, all those guys. They were really rich. Nothing compared to what exists right now. And it's not only the income and wealth inequality never before in American history have we had such grotesque concentrations of ownership. Fewer and fewer people owning more and more. Never before in American history have we seen a billionaire class with so much political power. And never before have we seen such an unprecedented level of greed, arrogance, and irresponsibility on the part of the ruling class of this country. In America today, Elon Musk the wealthiest You know, Mr. Musk. The wealthiest man on Earth He now owns, hear this, and this is why what you are doing is so important. Musk himself now owns more wealth than the bottom 53% of American households. One man. Today, CEOs of large profitable corporations are now making 350 times more than the average worker. And over the last year, after after receiving the largest tax break in history fewer than 1,000 billionaires, fewer than 1,000, fewer than the people in this room became over $2.2 trillion richer. Brothers and sisters, let us be clear. The unprecedented income and wealth inequality that we're seeing now has not just happened under Donald Trump. It has been going on year after year, decade after decade. Over the past 37 years, the top 20 20 households in America became nearly $4 trillion richer, while the bottom 50% of households became nearly $5 billion poorer. Over the last 50 years, nearly $80 trillion of wealth has been redistributed. Redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. Today, the average American worker today is making $25 a week less than he or she did 53 years ago after adjusting for inflation. When I was a kid, and I grew up in a working-class family. So did most of the other kids in the neighborhood, working-class neighborhood. Most families at that time needed just one breadwinner to pay the bills. How many working-class families do you know today that can make it with one breadwinner? While the billionaire class and the 1% are doing better than any time in American history, tens and tens millions of our people are struggling to put food on the table, pay for housing, pay for health care, pay for child care education, put gas in the tank, and pay for all the basic necessities of life. That is not the kind of America we accept. But, it's not just income and wealth inequality. We have more concentration of ownership than ever before. While profits on Wall Street and corporate America saw a handful of giant corporations dominate sector after sector, agriculture, transportation, energy, financial services, you name it. And that concentration of ownership brings price fixing and forces us to pay far higher prices than we should. And it's not just the overall economy. Importantly, these guys own the media as well. Elon Musk owns Twitter. Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post and Twitch. Mark Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads. Larry Ellison owns CBS, TikTok, Paramount, Skydance, and MTV, and is on his way to owning CNN and Warner Brothers. And our good friend Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post. But, it's not just income and wealth inequality. It's not just concentration of ownership. In America today, billionaires are hell-bent on own on not only owning our economy, but they want to own our political system as well. As a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, billionaires are legally able to spend as much as they want on campaigns through their so-called super PACs. As we all know, Mr. Musk spent at least 290 million dollars to elect Trump. And right now, at this moment, is spending some 200 million to try to keep Republicans in control of Congress. The 100 richest people in our country spent 2.6 billion on the last election, more than double what they spent 4 years prior. Today, billionaires are spending over 1 and 1/2 billion dollars on midterm elections. So, what we are seeing is Silicon Valley, the AI industry, spending some 300 million. Crypto industry has already spent over 200 million. AIPAC has spent over 100 million. All of which takes us back to why we are here tonight. And to Proposition 40 and the fantastic work that you are doing here in California. For the first time, for the first time in our nation's history, you have put a proposition on the ballot which would establish a tax on billionaires. This initiative would raise about a hundred billion dollars, enough to prevent three million working-class Californians from losing the health care they currently have as a result of Trump's disastrous legislation. And do not forget that the reason that these millions of people in California and people in Vermont are losing their health insurance is so that the 1% could receive a trillion dollars in tax breaks. In terms of Proposition 40, let us be clear. No one with a net worth of less than a billion dollars would pay a penny more in taxes on the Proposition 40. This tax would only apply to some 260 billionaires in California who are now collectively worth over 2.4 trillion dollars. As a result of the very rigged tax code that we have, six Nobel Prize winning economists who support this initiative recently pointed out that while these billionaires more than tripled their wealth over the past decade, they paid a lower effective tax rate than a plumber or a nurse. Let me repeat. Over the past decade, billionaires in California more than tripled their wealth and paid a lower effective tax rate than an average worker. Incredibly, these billionaires became $500 billion richer last year alone. That is five times as much as the California wealth tax would raise. All right. In other words, if Proposition 40 passes, and it will pass, billionaires in California would still be $400 billion richer than they were last year. We'll get to that in a minute. And here is the point. The greed and arrogance of the billionaire class is really extraordinary and is now on display for the whole world to see. Instead of doing the right thing and saying, "You know what? We have making all kinds of money. My God, last year Trump gave us a tax break. Getting all this money and you know, I'm seeing kids without any health care, working people without any health care. Now, let's do the right thing. Let's make sure that these people do not lose their health care. Let's make sure that some of them do not unnecessarily die. That's the right thing to do. But, that is not what the billionaires in California are doing. What they are doing is now spending over 225 million and I'm hearing that it may be a lot higher than that, but at least 225 million dollars to oppose this proposition. The effort against proposition 40 40 is being led by Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, who is spending 100 million dollars of his own money in opposition. So, who is Mr. Brin? Well, Mr. Brin is the fourth wealthiest person in the world. He is worth some 274 billion dollars. And hear this, since Donald Trump was elected, Mr. Brin has become 130 billion dollars richer. And if proposition 40 is passed, Mr. Brin would owe 13.7 billion dollars more in taxes. Larry Page, Google's other co-founder, is the second wealthiest man alive, worth 294 billion. His wealth has increased by over 140 billion since Trump was elected. 140 billion since Trump was elected, he would owe 14.7 billion dollars. You know what, Mr. Page? You can afford to pay that. And on and on it goes. Guys are making huge amounts of money, more money they could spend in a thousand lifetimes. And right now, there are children who are sick and parents are worried that they're not going to be able to get them to a doctor. And let me tell you something that really disgusts me about the campaign that the billionaires here in California are waging against Proposition 40. Now, I can understand that billionaires don't want to pay more in taxes. I got it. I can understand that they're more interested in buying their third yacht or their fifth mansion than they are about the needs of hungry children or struggling workers. I get that. It's pathetic, but I get it. It is greed on steroids. But what is really outrageous is that instead of being honest about their position and simply coming forward and saying to the people of California, you know, basically, we're multi-billionaires, we got it all, and we want it, and we really don't give a damn about your children. We don't give a damn about working people. We don't give a damn if you die because you have an illness you're unable to get to a doctor on time. They don't have the guts to be honest and tell the world what they really feel. So, what they are doing is resorting to extortion. You know what I mean by that? What they are saying and what much of their campaign is about is saying, "If you want justice, if you want kids in the state of California to be able to get health care, if you want to take the stress off the backs of working people so they can afford health care, if you want to do that, and you pass this Proposition 40, we are going to punish you. We're going to move out of the state of California." So, essentially, what they are saying is heads, billionaires win, tails, working families lose. They are putting a gun at people's heads and saying, "If you vote to provide health care for working class kids by raising our taxes, we're going to leave the state and maybe take our companies with us." Who knows? Maybe they'll even pick up and go to Saudi Arabia where they can live comfortably with other oligarchs who don't believe in democracy. That is the essence of what these greedy people are saying. And that is their argument of these wonderful patriots who love America so much. How pathetic and how immoral is that? And the question that we have got to ask and people all over California and the country are asking the same question in general. How many bloody mansions do you need? How many yachts do you need? How many private jets and private islands do you need? So today we say to the billionaire class, stop your greed, get off your private islands, get out of your gated communities, get off of your yachts and your rocket ships, take a break from your cocktail parties, and take a look around you. Take a look. Take a look at the 15 million Americans, not only in California and Vermont and every other state in this country, who are losing their health insurance to pay for Donald Trump's $1 trillion tax break that benefited the billionaire class. 20 million Americans have already seen their premiums double on average. Nursing homes, hospitals, and community centers are being devastated because of Trump's $1 trillion cut to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. In California and in Vermont, and this is not rhetoric, it is based on studies. Tens of thousands of Americans will die if we do not restore those health benefits to working people. So, I say to California billionaires and billionaires all over this country, show a little bit of concern for your fellow Americans. Understand that you and your class have never ever had it so good, but you cannot have it all. I think what the people of California and people all over this country are saying to these billionaires, instead of spending over 225 million on TV ads against this wealth tax, we have a better idea. Start paying your fair share of taxes. And let me be clear, and Ro Ro Khanna just made this point a moment ago. Once California passes Proposition 40, trust me, that will not be the end of this discussion. If I have If Ro and I have anything to say about it, and we do, we will enact a national wealth tax on billionaires. And that is an annual 5% wealth tax on billionaires. Which, and I want you to I want you to hear this. I know I'm throwing out a I know I'm throwing out I know I'm throwing out a lot of numbers here, but I want you to stay with me on this one. Because I want to indicate to you just how absurd the maldistribution of wealth and income in America is. If the bill that Ro and I are working on passes, it would raise 4.4 trillion dollars over a 10-year period. And let me tell you what that bill would do. This is a 5% tax on billionaires' wealth. In the first year, we would provide every man, woman, and child in a household making less than 150,000 a $3,000 direct payment. All right? $12,000 for a family of four. We would end homelessness and the housing CRISIS IN AMERICA BY building 7 million units of low-income and affordable housing and apartments. We would expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing. We would provide universal child care throughout the country. We would strengthen public education by ensuring that no teacher in America makes less than 60,000 a year. We would undo the damage that Trump did and restore health care to 15 million Americans who have lost it. In other words, with one tax, 5% tax, and by the way, it would leave these guys zillions of dollars. This ain't confiscatory. They would hardly know the difference. In 19 In 1933, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, and I quote, "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both." What Brandeis said was accurate 93 years ago. It is even truer today. So, what you here in California are doing is of extraordinary importance. And the reason that the billionaire class is so upset is they know that if you can pull this off here in California, we're going to do this all over the country. And I can tell you as somebody who has traveled from end of this country to the other and given a whole lot of speeches, I can tell you that whether people are conservative, progressive, moderate, socialist, whatever they may be, people are sick and tired of the greed of these billionaires. They're tired of them undermining democracy and trying to take over our political system, which is exactly what you're seeing right here. She wants her in $25 million because she wants children and working people to have health care, really? So, what you are doing, and you're in the forefront of this, is leading the effort to create a movement in America which says, at the end of the day, we are going to have an economy, we are going to have a government which represents all of us and not just the billionaires and wealthy campaign contributors. So, California, congratulations on what you're doing. Let's go forward together.