California’s political class and union bosses have quietly pushed a radical idea: a one-time, 5 percent “billionaire” wealth tax aimed at anyone with a net worth above roughly $1 billion. The scheme, filed as the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act by SEIU-UHW and allied health-care leaders, would try to shoehorn a massive redistribution program onto the ballot and crack open California’s treasure chest of private wealth. This is not small change or a targeted surtax on income — it’s a blunt raid on accumulated assets that would rewrite expectations for property and capital in the Golden State.
Proponents brag that the measure would hit only a couple hundred people and could raise as much as $100 billion, with the money funneled largely into Medi-Cal and education backstops. That promise sounds tidy until you remember that wealth valuations swing with markets and that the people being targeted built companies, jobs, and communities — often using California’s own infrastructure and rules. Voters should be skeptical of any ballot-box accounting that counts on static billionaire fortunes to bail out budget holes.
The measure also contains troubling technical and legal features: it sets a “tax obligation date” of January 1, 2026, values assets at the end of 2026, and would require payments beginning in 2027, with an option to amortize over five years for an additional fee. Those mechanics read like a trap meant to punish rather than a careful, constitutionally defensible policy — retroactive-feeling tax dates almost guarantee court fights and years of uncertainty. Californians should be alarmed by tax rules designed to strip wealth based on timely political winds.
The early political fallout has been predictable and instructive: tech founders and other wealthy Californians are quietly shifting homes and assets to friendlier states, and even Governor Gavin Newsom has warned about an exodus of capital. When you force a once-in-a-lifetime confiscatory levy on people who control businesses and investment, don’t be surprised when they respond by moving their companies, jobs, and philanthropic dollars elsewhere. Sacramento’s leadership would be well-advised to remember that capital and talent are mobile, and punishing success is how states hollow themselves out.
Take LeBron James as the kind of high-profile example the liberal media loves to parade: Forbes now lists him as a billionaire residing in Los Angeles, which — under the ballot proposal’s rules — would make him subject to the levy. On a Forbes estimate of roughly $1.3 billion in net worth, a five percent tax would amount to about $65 million; celebrity status or philanthropic instincts won’t change the math for anyone caught under the initiative’s sweeping valuation rules. Using famous names to sell punitive policy might win headlines, but it doesn’t change the real-world economic harm such a tax would inflict on jobs and investment over time.
Beyond the dollars and who pays, this ballot fight is a national lesson about governance and fairness: unions and opportunistic politicians want to use temporary fiscal shortfalls to normalize confiscatory taxes that could become precedents for the middle class. Conservatives should make the practical case plainly — this proposal risks legal chaos, drives away innovation, and sets a dangerous precedent that private property can be harvested when politics demands it. Hardworking Americans who actually build and sustain the economy deserve a government that protects prosperity, not one that punishes it for short-term political gain.
