Billionaire tax measure to appear on California’s November ballot

California residents are scheduled to vote in November on whether to enact a temporary tax hike on the Golden State’s billionaires. The California Billionaire Tax Act proposes a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ assets as an emergency supplement to public programs. Union officials with Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West said at a news conference Thursday that they would push ahead with the ballot measure despite opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The union in April submitted over 1.5 million signatures from state residents supporting the tax proposal appearing on the November ballot.

The state will lose about $100 billion in federal funding over the next five years, according to the union. The emergency 5% tax on billionaires’ assets would stop the state’s health care and other public assistance programs from collapsing, SEIU officials said. The tax would apply to Californians worth more than $1 billion, which would be about 200 people, the union added.

Who’s arguing against the measure? Surprisingly, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom voiced opposition to the measure, describing it as a short-term solution to an ongoing issue that would ultimately push billionaires to leave the state. One advocacy group can’t set the state’s budget priorities, and the fight to make billionaires pay more taxes can’t be a state-by-state issue, according to a Friday statement from Newsom. The average person can’t pick up and move to Texas or Florida, but billionaires can and will, he said.

The governor argued that a tax on billionaires was necessary, but that it should be enacted on a federal level. A national billionaires’ tax would ensure those at the top would at minimum be paying the same taxes as their workers, he said. Newsom’s statement also advocated for changing inheritance laws, reverting to pre-2017 tax rates, and ending trickle-down economics.

Newsom, along with the California Teachers Association, also took issue with the measure’s narrowness. The proposal nearly ignored public schools and included no funding for housing, childcare, safety workers, or public universities, Newsom wrote.