Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of the Chicks on the Right
podcast where we talk to our friend and sponsor of
the show, Zach Abraham from Bulwark Capital Management, and today, Zach,
it's going to be hitting close to home because your
mayor in Seattle is bad shit. So she just was
quoted last week as saying she thinks, like this whole
idea of millionaires fleeing the city, it's totally overblown or
leaving the state, actually totally overblown.
Speaker 2: But even if they are, like by was what she said.
Speaker 1: And now there's a startup founder of Venice AI actually
who is a sponsor of our show for a while,
who is now saying, with this new millionaire's tax that
they're proposing, he might Skidattle. And he knows like a
whole bunch of other folks in his position that are
thinking about the same thing.
Speaker 2: The question is, are.
Speaker 3: You well real quick? Do you know what his name is?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Yes, Jesse Proudman, I know Jesse.
Speaker 3: I was just DMO with him the other day.
Speaker 5: Yeah, get ye, So i'md I am involved with that group.
Jesse and I are in the same group that the
ex Attorney General of our state is filing. He's doing
our legal for us. I was just in a meeting
with all these guys on Monday. Here's where my family
is on this. We are going to stay and fight
this thing. If this law is enacted. If it stays
in place, I'll be leaving.
Speaker 3: I'm not paying the tax. And the reason I'm.
Speaker 5: Not paying the tax, there's so many different reasons that.
First of all, in the face of it, this is
one of the most ridiculous court cases ever brought because
this whole issue was litigated in nineteen thirty three over
this exact same thing. So trying to make an argument
the only way they can pass a tax in the
state of Washington. In the state of Washington, the constitution
says that you cannot pass any tax that is incrementally applied,
meaning it has to be applied to everybody evenly, and
it's capped.
Speaker 3: At one percent.
Speaker 5: Okay, So with that law on the books, Wait a minute,
I think income.
Speaker 2: Tax was like, oh, this is for income tax only.
Speaker 5: For income taxes, So taxes on property as opposed to transactions, right,
and that's kind of the definition. So they tried this
in nineteen thirty three, trying to argue that income is
not property well, if income is in property, nothing is
right like nothing is so of.
Speaker 3: Course it's property. It stood.
Speaker 5: They're trying to pass this income tax via the exact
same thing. So it's in direct violation of our constitution
and it goes against previous judicial precedent.
Speaker 3: So what it tells you is that we don't have
a supreme court in the state of Washington.
Speaker 5: It's just been co opted by the Democrats, right, the
Democrat Party owned so and it is absolutely one hundred
percent illegal on the face of it. All right, so
you already have an exceptionally high tax. So I did
my own taxes this year. And remember this tax is
only aimed at personal income tax rates, so it doesn't
get paid by c corpse.
Speaker 3: Right, they pay a corporate tax rate of twenty two percent.
Speaker 5: So in the state of Washington, because of our ex
size taxes and our B and O taxes last year
on my income, I paid not including ancillary taxes like
property tax, which is outrageous in the state.
Speaker 3: And then sales tax. So I'm not including any of those.
Speaker 5: No property taxes, no sales tax, none of the ancillary stuff.
So just my federal income, my state B and O,
and my state ex size taxes. I paid forty seven
percent last year.
Speaker 2: God gosh, yeah.
Speaker 5: If this, if this millionaire tax hits, my effective tax
rate this year would have been fifty six and a half.
Speaker 2: That's so, that's insane. It's robbery, is what it is.
It's craziness.
Speaker 5: And then when you see how the state's money has
been budgeted, when you see what these idiots do with
the money, imagine they want to illegally tax me because
I don't pay my fair share at forty seven percent,
not including property tax. If I include property taxes and
everything else, that puts me up at forty nine and
a half.
Speaker 2: And it won't end. It's not going to end. Not no,
they would keep right. They're just going to keep upping it.
Whenever you ask these yahoos college.
Speaker 5: Yep, they and it's and it's a budgetary problem in
the state budget. We had a massive surplus in twenty nineteen.
Over the last ten years, the state budget is doubled
and state populations up like fifteen or twenty percent of
the same pert time.
Speaker 2: And this problem is what it is.
Speaker 3: It is it's a complete comminence problem. Yeah.
Speaker 5: So yeah, so then they want to tax me more
to take that money to pay for sex change operations
for prisoners, and to give and to give the and
and and we've popped pass laws that also simultaneously give
that state the right to take eight year olds away
from their parents and give them sex change operations. So
my whole thing is if it was one or the other.
I was born here, I was raised here, My wife
was born here, she was raised here. We could not
be more of a Washington family. But when the other
issue I have is that how do I live and
keep my business in a state that just shredded the
Constitution right in front of me? And like I said
in one of these other interviews that I did, I
just said, look, it's legislative infidelity. I can't trust my
biggest asset in a state that is no longer contained
by the law. Right, they violated the social contract that
we all agreed to, which is that they will adhere
the Constitution being the laws that both sides opt in
and we agree to. Right, they just shredded it right
in front of my face and co opted a Supreme Court.
Everybody's like, oh, the Supreme Court won't uphold it. My
whole thing all along was yes, they will. They wouldn't
have brought this bill. And unless the story was on.
Speaker 1: Their whole job is to make sure that they're following
the state constitution. So if they're not, then it seems
like that's impeachable or whatever. The consequences can be there.
Speaker 3: Only if you have a party.
Speaker 5: That's only if you have a political apparatus that's going
to bring those charges or bring those things to the fore,
we've got this problem all over the country, meaning those
judges are doing what they think is morally correct as
opposed to their job right.
Speaker 3: Which is to uphold the constitution. And for a previous precedent.
Speaker 4: I'm still stuck on the forty six I'm sorry, forty seven.
Speaker 3: Forty seven and a half percent.
Speaker 4: That number is obscene, Okay, like criminals. We thought a
revolution over three percent.
Speaker 3: I know, I know. And then and then they look
at you.
Speaker 5: Then in this state, they simultaneously look at you and go,
the only reason you have that money.
Speaker 3: Is because you've taken advantage of people.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you're you're.
Speaker 5: You're a moral totally rich and we're going to take
it from you. Yeah, because you don't pay your fair share.
And I'm sitting there going wait, a second, if I'm
at fifty six and a half percent after this tax passes, right,
if it does, If I'm at fifty six and a
half percent, what is our definition of ownership anyway?
Speaker 3: Right? Because I'm taking all the risk I put up.
Speaker 5: Oh and by the way, here's the other really nice
part about this, running a financial firm.
Speaker 3: What's my biggest risk.
Speaker 5: It's the same government that's stealing money from me simultaneously, right,
the regulatory threat. So wow, oh and remember I'm not
including the one hundred and fifty grand I've had to
pay in legal fees over the last two and a
half years, imagine to defend myself from completely baseless accusations
from regulators. I don't even consider that part of my tax,
but it probably should be, right, Yeah, so I no,
it's it's and then on top of it, the mayor.
But here's what you have to understand. There's a part
of this where you want to fight it. You want
to try to save the state. Flip side is the
city of Seattle hired a mayor that's forty four years
old and has never had a job.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, so what is your fight, like, how are
you going to take all of this on.
Speaker 5: Well, so first of all, we are going to get
to get We're approaching it incrementally. But the first thing
we're going to do is we're going to raise the
biggest pot of money it's ever been raised in the
history of politics in the state. Because what we've found out,
as I've dug into this, the labor unions control the
entire state. Shocker, right, And so when you when you
look at the structure of our state, and I think
many else are like this, but people need to just
be educated. Right now, sixty five percent of our state budget.
Think about this, sixty five percent of our state budget
goes to paying just state employees. Can now stop, Let's
think about that for a second. If you're telling me
that your state doesn't work correctly, and I look at
where you're spending all the money and I see sixty
five percent goes to state employees, what I immediately think is, well,
the reason you don't think your state is working is
your state is not optimized to fix problems.
Speaker 3: It's optimized to employ people.
Speaker 4: Right. Okay, it's a micros of the country too, anyways, right.
Speaker 5: Right, So already I'm looking at a system that's like
this doesn't work. Then you look at then you look
at education workers, right, you look at everything that goes
on for them. Why is our education system not working? Again,
You've optimized the education system specifically in this state to
maximize benefits and income for teachers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they would go, well, that makes education.
Speaker 5: Better, And I go, well, look at the educational results
in our state, and it doesn't.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: If the point of your educational system financially is to
compensate teachers more, you will probably have an education system
that's pretty good at compensating teachers and probably not anything else. Right,
what should it be optimized toward educational outcomes?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: So it's like what you want to do is you
want to explain to people, Hey, guys, I'm not saying
it's not working because they're evil. I'm saying it's it's
not working because we're not even pointed at the target, right, Like,
we're not even pointed at the target. And then, on
top of it, in a place where you get rain
eight months out of the year, you're going to get
rid of your knowing the only reason people came here
for business was no income tax.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: Here's here's the other crazy part about this and it's
what I do, so I kind of know something about this.
What's really going to shock them is not only is
all the money leaving, and and probably more than double
of what they're predicting is leaving. I'm talking to these people.
People are leaving right and left. I mean, it's just
a mass exo this. Okay, here's the other thing they're
going to find really interesting. No one's going to invest
I shouldn't say nobody, but you will see outside investment
into Washington registered corporations go through the floor.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, centivizes people to.
Speaker 5: Do it nothing if you find Yeah, one of my
buddies that serves on a board with me ran one
of the largest VC funds is I think two too
and a half million dollars in Seattle. They already left,
and he and I were having a conversation and we
were agreeing that not only are we not going to
stay here, but if we really, if we find attractive
companies that we'd like to invest in in Washington State,
we'll invest in them.
Speaker 3: But we'll just make.
Speaker 5: Them register their articles of corporation in another state. Why
cause again, I don't know what my legislative risk is here.
You just tore the constitution up in front of me
and said, you don't have to abide by it's just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so how are you going to raise all
the money?
Speaker 2: And what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: Like, I want to know what your fight is going
to look like.
Speaker 5: Well, ironically, money raising got a lot easier because you
look at people and go, hey, you either throw twenty
five grand into the pod, guys and we beat this thing,
or you pay two hundred grand next year in tax right, Okay,
So inadvertently they just gave us the greatest carit to
fundraise in the history of this state. And if we
hit our internal goals, we think that we can fundraise
in the next five to six months an amount that
is more than double what the SCIU has been able
to put into any campaign over the last four years.
So we can swamp these guys out financially. And then
when you look at the composition of the state government,
we only need to win one more seat in the
Senate to be able to prevent all of these bills.
We won't have a majority, but to prevent these bills
from getting passed. Interestingly enough, this same year happens to
be a one in a million for Washington State because
we have five Supreme Court positions up for raps.
Speaker 3: Okay, five out of nine.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot in play here. But here's the
here's the biggest part of this.
Speaker 5: The politics inside of Washington are so nasty. These people
have gone unchecked for so long that they are creating
their own, their own backlash. This Peterson guy, I forget
his first name, but he works underneath Bob Ferguson, and this,
this whole income tax is like his brain child. He
was on a radio station the other day, on a
progressive like far left, and they're so condescending. He turned
the progressive radio people against him and they got off
the thing. And the local radio guy goes, you know,
I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but there's things
about this millionaire's tax i like. But anytime it comes
up now, I'm voting no because I have never been
more insulted by any public servant than.
Speaker 3: I was that guy.
Speaker 5: And you know how these liberals get right, These progressives,
they're so meaning and they're so arrogant. The other thing
is this is such an obvious run roughshod type scenario
over the law that people are waking up in this
state in a bipartisan fashion that I didn't think was possible.
We've got ex governors who are Democrats that have come
to things privately and said, hey, I can't believe we're
saying this, but this government is off the rails and
we need to come together and stop these people where
they're going to destroy our state. So, but what the voters.
The voters are the only ones haven't figured out. They
don't realize how radical the people that we've put in
office are and if they get their way, they're gonna
just I mean, look, nobody comes to Seattle for the weather, right, nobody.
Speaker 3: Nobody comes for the convenience geography. Right.
Speaker 5: If you're here, it's for family or it's for business. Well,
business just got a lot. Here's the other crazy thing,
you guys. We're a high tech area, right, Yeah, you.
Speaker 3: Look at how many of our jobs. It has never
been easier.
Speaker 5: You know how I move Bulwark, I put a laptop
in a briefcase and I get on a plane.
Speaker 3: That's why I move my company.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So, like we've never been more mobile, and they're like
everybody won't leave, and I'm looking at going. So if
I offered you four hundred thousand dollars a year to
move to another state, you wouldn't do it, Are you
kidding me?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I'll do it in a second.
Speaker 2: And then and not only that, but you could go someplace, sonny, right.
Speaker 5: Someplace that actually doesn't see me as the problem and
appreciates the fact that I volunteer, that we give in
the community, that we pay a boatload of taxes already.
And you know, and that's the idiocy of these people.
The funny thing is all of us pushing back. None
of us were campaigning for tax cuts anyway.
Speaker 4: Right, Like you just you could have kept it as
it was, but they had they had to go.
Speaker 2: We want more and more and more because we're not
getting in. Are you kidding?
Speaker 4: We want more than the forty something percent that we're
already taken from you.
Speaker 1: It's well, yeah, and all the lower income and like
middle income people even who are progressive, who are probably like, yeah,
tax the Ridge tax. The millionaires don't realize that this
is just the beginning.
Speaker 2: And then well they're going to get taxed to They're
gonna get taxed to You're right.
Speaker 5: I don't want to say I don't want to sound
like like a rude, errgant guy, okay, because it's really
not the way that I think. But I did say
this on a show, and one of the reasons I
said is because I wanted people to get this.
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey, guys, all.
Speaker 5: Those rich people that you think, oh yeah, tax im Okay,
so you're gonna you're doing this because you say that
they're so greedy and they don't pake their they don't
pay their fair share. And yet that greed isn't going
to get them to leave, right that is.
Speaker 4: And it they'll eventually come for you too, Right, rich
people the level of income who they want to go to.
Speaker 3: Right, That's what That's what I said. I go, look,
I'll tell you how this ends.
Speaker 5: This ends with you paying the income tax and me
sitting my new five million dollar place in Phoenix.
Speaker 2: That's how this ends.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: No, No, I'm just like, so you want to eat
the rich, We're not going to stay around to get eaten.
Speaker 3: So you guys are gonna end up putting the bill.
Speaker 5: So yeah, you can play it however you want it.
Speaker 3: But that's how it's going to play out.
Speaker 1: You're s it's too bad that we picked a topic
that you didn't care about it all, and that you
have no passing for it.
Speaker 5: Well, I've gotten well and I so I don't know
if you guys know this, but so uh. I got
interviewed for an op ed that somebody wrote for The
New York Post, and then I got interviewed for another
op ed that somebody wrote for Fox News. Two and
a half weeks after both of those articles got dropped,
I got hit with an audit from the State of Washington.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sneaky efforts.
Speaker 5: So yeah, and I but I wasn't quiet about it,
and I just said, bring it, like I've paid my taxes.
If you think I'm going away or if you think
I'm afraid of you, I'm not. I know, I know,
and in your own home too. Write Like I said,
I was born and raised here. My wife was Miss
Washington in two thousand. I mean, we were Washington kids
through and through. We've given hundreds of thousands of dollars
to Seattle homeless shelters. Like it's just it's it's sad
because this hit the rich thing. Yeah, and ironically, ironically,
like all of the people that I'm on boards with,
people that give ridiculous amounts of money, those who that's
who they're chasing out. They don't realize their narrative the evil,
big rich guy. And there are there some, yes, but
all of your giving comes from these people most of them.
Most of them got successful by being really awesome people
and jobs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we can vouch. We can vouch for your awesomeness.
And it's why we're constantly telling people that they should
be listening to your podcast and checking you out from
a retirement standpoint.
Speaker 2: Tell people how they can do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So we've actually got another one of our webinars coming
up on Thursday, May twenty first, So just go to
Bullwarkapitalmanagement dot com. Little dialogue box will pop up. You
can register it for that doesn't cost you anything. We're
going to explain what we do, but also in the
context of the impact of energy because regardless of how
this plays out in Iran, we have not We're we've
probably seen about twenty to twenty five percent of the
total price increases that we'll see over the next six
to twelve months. So just getting people ready for that,
preparing is your portfolio prepared. The average retail portfolio has
lower exposure to energy and energy like things than at
any time in history. So explaining to people the risks
that we're fit, but also the opportunities. So yeah, go
to Bordcapitalmanagement dot com. Know Your Risk podcast not too
or defined?
Speaker 1: Awesome, Thank you Zach, Sorry, thank you, ha, blood pressure raised.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Investment advisory services offered through Trek financialc and SEC
Registered Investment advisor.
Speaker 5: The opinions expressed in this programer for general informational purposes
only and are not intended to provide specific advice or
recommendations for any individual or on any specific security. Any
references to performance of security so it thought to be
materially accurate and actual performance may different.
Speaker 2: Investments involved risk and are not guaranteed.
Speaker 3: Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Track twenty four three
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