This post was originally published on this site.
California State Capitol photograph via Wikimedia Commons.
California has always been a case study in what happens when big government ideology runs unchecked, and the latest chapter may be its most telling yet. A citizen-initiated ballot measure called the Billionaire Tax Act is shaking the foundations of the Golden State. The measure would impose a one-time five percent tax on the wealth of billionaires, retroactive to January 1st of this year. Early polling shows fifty percent support, with another fourteen percent leaning yes. Unions are behind it and Bernie Sanders has endorsed it, but the billionaires are already leaving.
Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly decided to move to Florida, where there is no income or estate tax. Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, and venture capitalist David Sacks have also reportedly relocated out of state. Elon Musk and Oracle’s Larry Ellison left California years ago. Luxury real estate agents in Wyoming are reporting a sudden surge of interest from California billionaires looking for the exits.
And who can blame them? Someone worth ten billion dollars would be staring down a five-hundred-million-dollar tax bill just for staying put while the election plays out. The retroactive design of the measure is deliberate — meant to make escape impossible. That alone should tell you something about the mindset behind it.
California has more than two hundred billionaires with combined wealth exceeding two trillion dollars. It also has the largest homeless population in the nation (nearly two hundred thousand people) and a projected budget deficit of eighteen billion dollars this year, projected to soon grow to between to between twenty and thirty-five billion. California can’t file for bankruptcy and they can’t print money like the feds. This red ink cannot flow forever.
Backers estimate the tax will raise one hundred billion dollars, with ninety percent earmarked for public health services. That includes taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries and treatments through the Medi-Cal program, revealing another agenda behind the agenda.
Here’s the broader warning: History tells us that taxes sold as targeting only the wealthy never stay that way. The federal income tax was introduced in 1913 as a tax on the richest Americans, yet the public was just reminded on April 15 how that story ended. What starts in California rarely stays in California.
We’ll be watching this one closely. Stay informed and stay engaged at PhyllisSchlafly.com, and join us again for the Phyllis Schlafly Report.
