The wokest governor in America is finally acknowledging just enough reality that he is admitting California’s proposed billionaire tax will be utterly disastrous for the state’s already apocalyptic finances.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) is very proud that California has a very “progressive” (i.e., unjust and punitive) tax system, that he ensured free healthcare for illegal aliens, and that he plans to move forward with a boondoggle railway project despite federal funding withdrawal. But even he is admitting that the proposed billionaire tax will be the death blow for California’s budget, whining he is “burdened by the facts.”
California is facing a budget deficit of up to $18 billion, and even Newsom is reluctantly admitting that he cannot afford to scare away the last few billionaires and big business owners from California. Speaking at a Bloomberg News event, Newsom confessed about the wealth tax, “California has the most progressive tax structure in the United States of America. We do… That said, I fear the way this has been drafted.”
Newsom grudgingly said, “I was burdened by the facts. The fact is, it actually will reduce investments in education. It will reduce investment in teachers and librarians, childcare. It will reduce investments in firefighting and police. The impact of a one-time tax does not solve an ongoing structural challenge that has been exacerbated by the impacts of H.R. 1.” What he means is that billionaires will leave the state of California, and he will not be able to tax them to fund government programs anymore.
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Fox Business explained:
While the initiative has not yet qualified for the November 2026 ballot, the proposal — backed by the Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West — would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of California residents worth more than $1 billion. The tax would be due in 2027, and taxpayers could spread payments over five years, with additional costs, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Founding Father Alexander Hamilton wrote at the dawn of the revolution, “Under the auspices of tyranny the life of the subject is often sported with, and the fruits of his daily toil are consumed in oppressive taxes, that serve to gratify the ambition, avarice, and lusts of his superiors… The page of history is replete with instances that loudly warn us to beware of slavery.”
His comparison of oppressive taxes to slavery is very apt. The way that California’s tax system, and indeed America’s tax system, works is that the more hard-working and successful you are, the more money you have to give up to the government. Furthermore, and even worse, bureaucrats and politicians try to justify it because the government is essentially redistributing wealth, taking money from one citizen to give to another person who did not earn it and often does not appreciate it. This is the welfare state, which would have horrified the Founding Fathers, rewarding laziness and apathy and punishing hard work. Why get a job if you can just live off food stamps and other welfare programs?
The problem is that eventually, the high earners become tired of constantly losing more of their money to strangers. If they can escape taxes by moving to a different area, they will do so, which is how California has lost so much wealth and so many businesses in the last few years. That does not just affect rich people; it affects all the people who no longer have jobs with those businesses. More billionaires are already pulling up stakes in anticipation of the wealth tax.
Newsom is having to face the reality described by the great Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
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