A new poll of California voters found that the proposed Billionaire Tax could prove unpopular at the ballot box. Just 48% of 800 respondents polled by Mellman Group said they would vote yes on the measure after reading the ballot title and summary statement. The initiative would need 50% of votes to pass in November.<\/p>\n
The findings may not be surprising. The poll was funded by several \u201chigh-net-worth individuals\u201d residing in California, according to Mike Murphy, a consultant working with the pollsters, though he wouldn\u2019t say if the individuals are billionaires.<\/p>\n
The poll found that support weakened further after voters heard arguments from both sides. When respondents heard competing messages, support for the tax dropped to 46%, while opposition rose from 38% to 44%.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no love for billionaires,\u201d said Murphy. \u201cBut there are severe doubts among voters about whether this measure will deliver what it promises, and what it will cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Billionaire Tax initiative, sponsored by Service Employees International Union\u2013United Healthcare Workers West, would impose a 5% tax on California residents with a net worth of at least $1 billion, including those whose wealth is largely tied up in private companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fearful of the ballot measure passing, some billionaires, including Palantir chairman Peter Thiel and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have reportedly ditched California (opens in new tab)<\/a>. Others in the tech world, including entrepreneurs who are not yet billionaires<\/a>, are considering\u00a0whether to follow.<\/p>\n The initiative is no sure thing. Organizers need to gather nearly 900,000 signatures to place the measure on the November ballot; then it would need to be approved by 50% of California voters to pass into law. If approved, and if the act overcomes inevitable legal challenges, the assessment could raise tens of billions of dollars that would be directed toward healthcare.<\/p>\n The poll found that most respondents agreed (69%) that lawsuits and clever accounting would mean the state would collect much less revenue than projected. Nearly half of respondents (49%) said they expect the measure to be tied up in court for years; 49% agreed with the statement that billionaires \u201cwho already account for much of state tax revenue will leave California for lower tax states and avoid paying this tax.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Just 28% of respondents agreed that the measure will \u201cprevent the collapse of California\u2019s healthcare,\u201d which tax proponents have offered as the intended purpose. The same number agreed that the tax would help \u201cCalifornians who are losing access to healthcare because of Trump\u2019s budget cuts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n To the pollsters, this was surprising, because they expect advocates to use the president\u2019s name as bait to besmirch the billionaires. \u201cEven adding Trump\u2019s name to the other side of this was not enough to get people to believe that this is the way to go to protect California,\u201d said Michael Bloomfield, managing director of the Mellman Group.\u00a0<\/p>\n The tax\u2019s sponsors waved off the survey. \u201cThis poll is deeply flawed,\u201d Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff at SEIU-UHW, said in a statement. \u201cOur internal polling shows that asking ultra-wealthy billionaires to pay a modest, one-time tax to ensure that all Californians have healthcare resonates with the vast majority of voters. It\u2019s interesting, of course, that a poll paid for by the opposition still shows the Yes vote leading even after manipulating the arguments presented to voters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new poll of California voters found that the proposed Billionaire Tax could prove unpopular at the ballot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9329,7,9,8,989,1694],"class_list":{"0":"post-142394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-billionaires","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-taxes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}