San Francisco, United States – University of California at Berkeley economics professor Brian Galle recently found a flyer in his mailbox about the proposed billionaire tax he helped write. But as he read it, Galle found things he hadn’t written, including that the tax can be on anyone and even on their retirement savings. Californians have been getting such flyers and watching similar ads as they prepare to vote in the November 3 election on whether to impose the one-time tax of 5 percent on the assets of the state’s billionaires.
Spending by the billionaires to oppose the tax has made this the most expensive ballot measure ever and among the most expensive campaigns of this midterm, says David McCuan, professor of political science at Sonoma State University, who tracks state and local elections. California’s celebrated tech billionaires, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Doordash founder Tony Xu, Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison, Ripple co-executive chairman Chris Larsen and venture capitalists John Doerr, Michael Moritz and Vinod Khosla, are among those who have donated more than $300m to block the additional tax on their assets. While Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has not donated money to oppose the tax, Meta’s SEC filings revealed that he told the company’s board, which includes Xu and Collison, that he would buy a home outside California to avoid paying the tax.
This could have affected Meta stock prices and the board created a new class of shares that Zuckerberg could use to pay the tax. The billionaire fundraising has far outstripped that of the supporters, who only raised $32m. This has led to the ubiquitous ad campaign as well as outreach to voters.
Craig has spent months door knocking and making calls to voters to campaign for the tax and often hears misinformation about it. Any change in the tax would require a two-thirds majority in the assembly and would need to stay true to the spirit of the tax. But the prevalence of the ads has meant that voters often tell Craig the tax would soon include her – and them.
The US Supreme Court’s judgement in the Citizens United v FEC case gave companies and special groups the freedom to spend freely in elections, he said. This leads people to lose trust in the system ” . Apart from the ad buys, Craig says she has also felt alone in the campaign arena.
While the state Democratic party has endorsed the tax proposal, Craig says she hasn’t had ground support from the party. If this works, progressive candidates could try such ideas in the 2028 presidential elections,” McCuan says, which the billionaires and moderates want to avert. So while the party has endorsed the measure, California Governor Gavin Newsom has opposed it, as has Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for governor in the election and Katie Porter, a former congresswoman who also ran for governor.
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