The MATH Plan: The Most Equitable Tax Code in California History

Imagine working hard to earn a promotion and getting a $1 per hour raise. Now imagine that one dollar costing your family up to $22,000 in child-care support overnight.

In California, that is not a miscalculation. That is the exact penalty a working mother faces when a tiny bump in pay pushes her over the state child care cliff.

Policy experts call it the cliff effect. For everyday Californians, it is a source of profound humiliation. It is the devastating moment when a modest hourly bump in pay triggers a catastrophic loss of financial support.

It is outrageous. Our state government has engineered a system that actively punishes success. Our safety net and our current tax code function as an anchor rather than a ladder.

We hear endless talk from the political establishment about affordability. That talk usually ends with a new government subsidy.

True affordability does not come from government handouts. It comes from great jobs and great wages. The working class and the men and women of organized labor are the true engines of California.

As a candidate for Governor, I believe we must lift these penalties. It is time to fix the economic mobility trap by Making Advancement Tax-free for Households (MATH).

The Indignity of the Benefit Cliff

Take a single mother with one child relying on state assistance. Nearly 14% of our state participates in CalFresh to ensure food security.

Under current guidelines, a household of two maxes out their gross income eligibility at $42,312 a year. Suppose this mother is earning $41,500 and her boss offers her a $1 per hour raise. She will earn an extra $2,080 a year before taxes.

That raise pushes her gross income to $43,580. She crosses the eligibility cliff. She does not see a gradual reduction in her food assistance. She loses the entire benefit overnight.

For a household of two, the maximum CalFresh benefit is $6,552 a year. By accepting a $2,080 raise, she just lost $6,552 in food for her family.

We force workers to suffer the indignity of begging employers to cut their hours or hold back raises just to keep food on the table. It is humiliating, and it is wrong.

The Child Care Trap

We see the exact same cruelty in subsidized child care. In California, the state median income limits cap eligibility for a family of two at roughly $82,326 annually.

Suppose our single mother has worked her way up and makes $81,000 a year. She gets another promotion and a $1 per hour raise.

That pushes her income over the exit cliff, and she loses her child care subsidy instantly.

The political establishment loves to call flat taxes regressive while defending the most deeply regressive economic penalty in California. Taking away up to $22,000 in child-care support because a single mother earned a $1 raise is just plain cruel. They have built a safety net that functions as an economic prison for marginalized communities.

A Better Safety Net

To fix these assistance cliffs, we must implement smooth phase-outs immediately. We will restructure our state programs so benefits taper off gradually on a sliding scale as income rises. If a worker earns an extra $2,000 annually, their subsidy should decrease by a fraction of that amount. This ensures their net income always goes up and they are never punished for accepting a promotion.

Shielding Working Families

These mathematical traps extend directly into our state income tax to punish the middle class.

Under our current tax code, the brackets climb too fast and take more out of each dollar as you climb the ladder. It penalizes the very wage growth we need to solve the affordability crisis.

Instead of replacing deductions, we will establish a permanent 0% tax bracket for the foundational income of working families.

Progressive politicians constantly preach about equity while defending a tax code that taxes basic survival. True equity is a 0% tax bracket for the first $98,000 an electrician, a nurse or a warehouse worker earns for their family.

Forcing working mothers to do hours of tax homework just to beg for a fraction of their own money back in convoluted subsidies is not equity. It is a rigged system.

For working families, the first $98,000 of taxable income sits in this 0% bracket. Every dollar earned above that bracket faces a single, competitive flat rate of 4.9%.

Think about the sheer administrative waste of the current system. We spend millions of taxpayer dollars paying state agencies to process those funds and send a fraction of it back in the form of complicated subsidies.

Doing the MATH means recognizing how hopelessly inefficient this cycle is. It makes far more economic sense to simply cut out the state middleman and let families keep their own money from the start.

This mathematically protects families who need to itemize heavy medical bills or mortgage interest. They take their deductions first and then apply the 0% bracket to what is left.

Let us run the exact numbers per the 2025 Franchise Tax Board rate schedules. Right now, a married couple with two children making $200,000 who itemize $90,000 in deductions faces a state tax bill of over $2,500.

Under The MATH Plan, their $110,000 in taxable income is shielded by the $98,000 0% bracket. They pay 4.9% only on the remaining $12,000. After personal credits, their state tax bill drops to absolute zero.

For every raise you get, you know exactly how much you keep. There is no hidden penalty for success, getting promoted or making your family proud.

A Small Premium to Live in California

This reform is also about keeping the people who shaped this state right here. Look at our neighbor, Arizona. They recently moved to a flat 2.5% income tax.

Thousands of our pension retirees and working professionals packed up and moved across the border. Under our current tax code, an upper-middle-class family in California easily faces a punishing 9.3% marginal rate.

Critics will claim this reform defunds state programs or disinvests in our communities. You cannot invest in a community with money that has already fled to Texas and Nevada. When companies pack up and leave, they take the jobs with them. A punishing top rate generates zero revenue if the taxpayer leaves our borders.

The MATH Plan drops that to a flat 4.9%. That puts us completely back within striking distance of the Arizona rate. It transforms a crushing tax bill into a small premium to live in California. It ensures corporations stop fleeing and start breaking ground on new facilities right here in our state. That means hiring our local tradesmen, union hands and blue-collar labor to get the job done.

The Main Street Dividend

The status quo will claim a 4.9% flat tax blows a hole in the budget. Those who refuse to do the MATH rely on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy actually grows.

This flat tax does not destroy our revenue. It triggers what I call the Main Street Dividend.

The Main Street Dividend is not a separate government program. It is the massive economic stimulus that naturally occurs when the State of California returns to sane, pre-pandemic spending levels so you can keep your own money.

We can spend smarter, not more.

When the state takes one dollar from a taxpayer, it gets swallowed by administrative overhead. When you leave that dollar in the pockets of local residents, it immediately goes to work.

This is exactly how we move California back to a budget surplus. We know the math works because the money is already there.

The California State Auditor recently revealed state agencies lost track of $24 billion in homelessness spending because nobody tracked the outcomes. The establishment constantly demands that citizens pay their fair share but refuses to track where that money actually goes. We did our part and state insiders laundered the funds through a massive web of unaccountable contractors.

I want taxpayers to keep their hard-earned paychecks instead of paying for administrative failure. We balance the ledger simply by demanding accountability, tracking outcomes and defunding broken programs.

Our state prison system has operated under a costly federal receivership for over 20 years. The state writes blank checks for administrative bloat, pushing our cost to a staggering $132,000 per inmate. That is nearly three times what large, union-heavy states like Michigan and Ohio spend to run safe, constitutional facilities.

We also have absolute, factual proof that this flat tax model works. Exactly 10 years ago, North Carolina was struggling. They reformed a tax system very similar to what California currently uses, dropped their 7.75% top rate and moved to a competitive flat tax.

The result was a historic economic boom. By creating a pro-growth environment, their state GDP skyrocketed, average household earnings jumped and state revenue actually grew. They generated multi-billion dollar surpluses because the economy expanded so rapidly.

Giving Back to Our Communities

We will bring that exact same prosperity to every corner of California. The MATH Plan is a statewide rescue operation designed to give back to our communities across the entire economy.

For residents in the Inland Empire, keeping an extra $4,000 a year means finally covering skyrocketing utility bills. That money goes straight back into their pockets and stays right here in California. We are permanently ending the humiliating trade-off where parents have to choose between keeping the lights on and feeding their kids.

For young students and couples in the Central Valley, it means actually saving for a down payment on their first home instead of getting crushed by rent. Parents can fully fund a 529 college savings plan so their children do not graduate with crippling debt.

For our retirees, it means keeping their hard-earned pensions. They will not be forced to flee. They can stay right here in the communities they helped create and spend money locally.

And for our small businesses from the Oregon border to San Diego, this plan is a massive injection of local customers.

When blue-collar workers keep more of their paychecks, they spend it on Main Street. They buy appliances, replace tires and eat at local restaurants. The moment they spend that money in their community, the state recaptures a massive portion of it in sales tax.

Reclaiming the Envy of the Nation

When I moved here in 1998, friends and family back in Connecticut were in absolute awe. Living in California was the ultimate prize.

Today, our punishing taxes and the mass exodus of our middle class have turned that dream into an international punchline. It breaks my heart.

It is the exact reason I am running for Governor.

We will make California the undisputed envy of this country once again. We will build a state that actually rewards ambition.

Great wages are how we get affordability. It is past due to stop penalizing ambition. It is time for a California that rewards hard work and success.

We can let New York claim the title for highest taxes and worst affordability.

We are going to end the affordability crisis. We just need to do the MATH.