Gavin Newsom Has Nothing To Offer

In California, a proposed law drafted by organized labor would impose a one-time tax on all the state's billionaires, equal to some portion of their total worth. Those whose net worth exceeds $1.1 billion would pay around five percent; five percent of $1.1 billion is $55 million, which would leave those Californians with a mere $1.045 billion in personal net worth. Those whose net worths fall between $1 billion and $1.1 billion would pay a lesser percentage of their wealth.

The proposal is called the "2026 Billionaire Tax Act," and while it could potentially generate some gigantic sum of money for the state of California, anyone capable of some basic math, and of even vaguely conceiving of how much money a billion dollars is, can see that it would not meaningfully deplete even those paupers whose personal net worth sits at a mere $1 billion. Those affected by the tax would be able to spread their payment over five years, beginning in 2027, in case any of these individuals whose personal wealth exceeds that of some island nations find themselves illiquid at the moment.

Among the proposal's opponents—including, of course, many billionaires, who reportedly have already begun planning their exits from the state in anticipation of a tax that may very well never come to pass—is California governor Gavin Newsom, who has boasted of working against its passage behind the scenes, and has promised to defeat the initiative should it ever reach his desk, where he could bring its passage into law to an end simply by refusing to sign it. (He can be bypassed in theory by putting the proposal to voters as a direct ballot initiative.) The Democrat, widely understood to have his sights set on the party's 2028 presidential nomination, has fought off taxes on extreme wealth at least twice before in his term, despite their strong popularity among residents of the state.