California Dreamin'? Voters Reject 'Billionaire' Wealth Taxhttps://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/11/10/california-dreamin-voters-reject-billionaire-wealth-tax-n3820851Late last night, the Associated Press made the call on the SEIU's supposedly one-time wealth tax, which was supposedly limited to 'billionaires.' The measure flopped with voters after running into some surprising pushback from outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom and a massive campaign from the tech industry:
California voters rejected a proposed billionaire tax, ending a heated and expensive fight over what could have been the nation’s first modern tax on wealth.
The Associated Press called the race late Monday as the ballot initiative, Proposition 40, was trailing by about 5.5 points after last week’s election.
The outcome is a significant blow to supporters who had hoped to create a template for taxing wealth that could extend far beyond California. It also leaves the state’s next governor, Democrat Xavier Becerra, with a major budget problem.
Proposed by a healthcare-workers’ union, the initiative sought to impose a one-time, 5% tax on the net assets of California residents worth more than $1 billion at the end of this year. The union had estimated the tax would raise $100 billion over five years to offset looming Medicaid cuts that President Trump signed into law last year.
The SEIU, one of the largest healthcare unions in the country, spent $30 million pushing this tax. However, other unions and left-leaning PACs such as Planned Parenthood, the teachers union, and other public and private sector unions. The SEIU demanded the wealth tax in response to cuts in state medical-services payments, likely prompted by the costs incurred to cover health costs of illegal aliens during Newsom's tenure.
The tech industry, led by Google founder Sergey Brin, spent several times that amount to oppose Prop 40. Brin and his allies put another proposition on the ballot that would prohibit wealth taxes in the future as well, for reasons we'll get to in a moment. That race is still too close to call, but the Wall Street Journal reports that it has a slight lead with more mail-in ballots left to count.
This "one-time tax" had a provision that allowed the legislature to amend it - bypassing voters - meaning it all but certainly would not be one time, and that it would be extended to "millionaires" (probably flexibly defined ... your Silicon Valley, SF, LA County, Orange Country, and San Diego County homes are worth how much?).
An "asterisk" to Noisome's "opposition" to Prop 40 is that he wants the "wealth tax" to be national, so Bogey-Billionaires can't move to less moronic states.
In an illustration of universities ability to attract and create economic ignorami and envy, I'm ashamed that my former home county, home to UC Davis, voted for this "wealth tax". The mush-filled-skull UC students basically outvoted the less moronic farmers and business people in the mostly rural county.
