{"id":387709,"date":"2026-07-06T08:30:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T08:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/387709\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T08:30:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T08:30:16","slug":"taxing-billionaires-in-calif-goes-to-the-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/387709\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxing billionaires in Calif. goes to the ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

And if the past six months are any indication<\/a>, it\u2019s going to be an epic and expensive election battle, full of the-sky-is-falling warnings, class warfare rhetoric, bombastic ads, and endless mailers. Billionaires have already dropped millions<\/a> trying to keep it off the ballot, including qualifying not one but two competing initiatives on the same ballot<\/a> in a sneaky effort to undermine the tax. <\/p>\n

Although billionaires will barely feel this relatively small levy paid over five years (their annual investment returns should more than cover it), the bigger worry is that it would crack open the door to a tide of tax-the-rich initiatives across the nation that could eat away at their fortunes and influence. Before you know it, the second Gilded Age could be over before it really got going.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a reasonable fear. Taxing wealth has historically been unpopular among Americans, who see the amassing of fantastic fortune as a birthright. But that attitude has shifted in recent years as the nation\u2019s wealth has accumulated in the hands of just a few. <\/p>\n

And this particular tax is popular among Californians, particularly those under 45 who are struggling with historically high housing costs, burdensome student loan debt, and the prospects that artificial intelligence is coming for their jobs. In May, the highly respected nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found 54 percent support<\/a> of the tax among likely voters, a figure that ballooned to 67 percent<\/a> for respondents between 18 and 44. A more recent but smaller poll, by Tulchin Research, showed a more modest 41 percent support<\/a>, though with a 3 percentage point margin of error, it could easily be reflecting a truly deadlocked measure. <\/p>\n

California\u2019s billionaires are clearly not expecting much sympathy from a public feeling financially pinched while their own fortunes grew a whopping 144 percent<\/a> between 2023 and 2025. Long before the initiative qualified for the ballot, billionaires had already begun scheming up ways<\/a> to avoid the proposed tax through complicated measures to artificially lower their net worth or by relocating<\/a> to out-of-state properties (a ploy that may not be as simple<\/a> as spending all of your time elsewhere). <\/p>\n

The billionaire tax is a clear test of the level of antipathy for the ultrarich and the public\u2019s appetite for taxing them, but it may also be a stress test for the Democratic Party. Republicans universally loathe the measure, but it has divided California\u2019s Democrats and their traditional allies in the labor union.<\/p>\n

On one side are progressives like Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley, who along with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont authored legislation for a 5 percent wealth tax called the \u201cMake Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act<\/a>.\u201d During a June 25 press conference organized by proponents of the tax, he made the battle lines clear: \u201cAre you for a one-time tax on 250 people for 5 percent so that millions of Californians can get health care? Or are you on the side of protecting the 250 billionaires?\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking the other side are moderate Democrats such as Governor Gavin Newsom, who tried to broker a deal to keep the tax off the ballot; his presumed successor<\/a>, Xavier Becerra; and some labor unions, such as the powerful California Teachers Association<\/a>. Newsom and others argue that the state\u2019s budget is already overly reliant on high-earning residents and fear this one-time tax might do more harm than good if it chases away the tech and Hollywood titans who have made the state such an economic powerhouse. (Similar unfounded fears dogged the 2022 \u201cmillionaires tax\u201d ballot question in Massachusetts, which became law and is now surpassing revenue expectations<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Newsom is in a particularly tricky spot as he considers a 2028 presidential run. He can\u2019t afford to alienate wealthy donors, but he needs support from the billionaire-loathing progressives to get through the primary. His solution isn\u2019t likely to please either group. In a video and statement posted online<\/a> the day after the state\u2019s billionaire tax proposal was finalized for the ballot, he said he would be voting \u201cno\u201d on the ballot measure and said a national billionaire tax would be a better alternative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system is fundamentally broken. The federal tax code, the corporate tax code, and the inheritance tax code seem to be written for a different set of Americans. It\u2019s time for an economic reset,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s not wrong \u2014 but his words ring hollow given that Congress and presidents are typically beholden to wealthy patrons and that there is no federal initiative process to bypass them. That means that the best hope of kicking off an economic revolution may be right in front of him on Nov. 3. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And if the past six months are any indication, it\u2019s going to be an epic and expensive election…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-387709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387709","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=387709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}