California Federation of Teachers

With the U.S. economy in lockdown, there was grave concern about the fiscal impact at the state level.

Anticipating a budget crunch and fearing job losses and pay cuts, the California Federation of Teachers reached out to Saez and Zuckman in the spring of 2020 to see if they could help devise a tax that might make up for any shortfall.

The two economists had been working with the Warren campaign.

they had also recently published a book the triumph of injustice how the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay which made the case for global wealth tax Saez, who is 53, earned his doctorate at MIT and joined the Berkeley faculty in 2002.

During those three years, neither of them took a salary from Google, nor did they sell any Google shares or receive any dividend payments.

Their net worth soared because of their Google stock, but because they didn't draw any income from the company, they paid no income tax on the added wealth that they derived from Google.

After Saez and Zuckman agreed to help the California Federation of Teachers in 2020, they recruited two law professors who specialize in tax policy, David Gamage and Darian Shansky, to assist them in drafting a wealth tax.

Another law professor, Brian Galley, who teaches at Berkeley, later joined the effort.

They endorsed it.

So did the California Federation of Teachers and SEIU, the union that supports school service workers.

But like, Hanat, this is where it got really weird.

educators are not completely aligned on this.

So the proponents, the argument for is by Annie Chung, president of Self-Help for the Elderly.

Jeffrey Freitas, president, California Federation of Teachers.

John Ng, chief financial officer for U.S. Vets.

But this is

We should just say that the Garland memo, just to be really clear here, um, state governors and the federal government are closing down school districts all over the place.

This is primarily left up to the states, and Gavin Newsom just, you know, capitulated completely to the California Teachers Association, the California Federation of Teachers, just shut down all the schools for the longest of any state governor, and the result was, of course, chaos.

Uh, you had parents who weren't sure what to do, parents who started logging on to computers and watching [laughs] what was going on in their schools.

It was this unprecedented, uh, unintended result of the school lockdown, was that a lot of parents suddenly became aware of what was going on inside their schools.

I don't know who they are, but, well, we kinda do know who they are 'cause it's really, um, bankrolled by the California Teachers Association.

So it's California Federation of Teachers, the California Teachers Association, the California School Employees Association that are the main folks behind this, which makes sense because we're talking about cuts.

We're talking about, um, prob- you know, creating problems for the way we fund schools if we do not pass Proposition 3.

Uh, it's endorsed by the California Democratic Party, SEIU, the, the firefighters, the nur- California Nurses, California School Nurses, Planned Parenthood.

So supporters of this one, California Taxpayers Association, Family Business Association, California Hispanic Chambers.

Opponents include California Professional Firefighters, California Federation of Teachers, Nurse Alliance of SEAU California.

A yes vote, obviously, basically, in its basic form, would say certain local government taxes, like those special taxes you just mentioned, would require a two-thirds voter approval once again, which is how it used to be before the Upland decision, correct? Correct.

Correct.