Desperate Times: ‘If We Do Not Do This … There Will Be Tragedy After Tragedy.’

SEIU members protest cuts to Medicaid cuts outside the U.S. Capitol on June 23 in Washington, D.C. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

If the recently proposed 5% tax on California billionaires to raise $100 billion and offset projected federal Medicaid cuts beginning in 2027 sounds desperate, it is. 

As Dave Regan, a union leader and one of the measure’s proponents, put it during an Oct. 23 news conference, the ballot initiative to tap the wealth of the state’s richest residents is the “only solution anyone can see.”