project<\/a>\u00a0\u201cone-time\u201d revenue \u2014 scare quotes very much intended \u2014 of $40 billion. Using Sacramento-style math, that $40 billion is supposed to cover a $156 billion, 10-year federal reduction. <\/p>\nPut another way: The \u201cone-time\u201d billionaire tax is aimed at making sure work requirements for Medi-Cal never apply in California. That\u2019s pretty much it.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, as billionaires leave, the state\u2019s income tax base will erode by roughly $2.9 billion per year. <\/p>\n
When those recurring losses are combined with the federal reductions, the $40 billion will be exhausted by 2029. <\/p>\n
President Donald Trump speaks next to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House. REUTERS<\/p>\n
At that point, every fiscal incentive points toward extending the tax or passing a new one. <\/p>\n
Suddenly, that \u201cone-time\u201d levy will look very much like a foot in the door to\u00a0permanent\u00a0wealth taxation.<\/p>\n
There is an alternative to all of this: Simply accepting the One Big Beautiful Bill\u2019s work requirements. That would actually save the state approximately $15 billion over 10 years.<\/p>\n
From there, the actual math isn\u2019t complicated.<\/p>\n
Ending \u201cfree\u201d Medi-Cal for illegal immigrants would save $4.1 billion annually. <\/p>\n
Returning Medi-Cal\u2019s share of the General Fund to its pre-COVID average of 15.7 percent would save $9.8 billion per year. <\/p>\n
Together, that would generate over $125 billion in savings, nearly double the remaining $67 billion California has to cover after work requirements are included.<\/p>\n
The Billionaire Tax Act is not a solution. It\u2019s a deflection. The state has all the fiscal tools it needs to solve its budget problem. What it lacks is political will to use them.<\/p>\n
Joshua Rauh is the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the\u00a0Hoover\u00a0Institution, Benjamin Jaros is a research fellow and John Doran is a research associate at Stanford University\u2019s\u00a0Hoover\u00a0Institution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Proponents of California\u2019s proposed Billionaire Tax Act have a story to tell: President Donald Trump and the Washington…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[9329,7,16709,18818,975,121,123,122,1694],"class_list":["post-340790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-billionaires","tag-california","tag-medicaid","tag-midterm-elections","tag-opinion","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340790","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=340790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}