OPINION:
California’s Democrat Party delegates voted to put a one-time 5 percent special tax on billionaires on a ballot for voters’ consideration this November — an idea so far leftist even Gov. Gavin Newsom and governor hopeful Xavier Becerra, practically card-carrying socialists themselves, oppose it.
This is a fine classic textbook example of the government tapping into citizens’ pockets to pay for a problem the bureaucratic class itself created.
“California faces an acute fiscal crisis,” a 2026 economic analysis on the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said.
Yes. The state’s been facing acute fiscal crises for years.
That’s what long-running Democrat leadership buys: economic depression.
“Failures Of Governance Is The Reason Why The ‘State of California’ Is Bad And Getting Worse,” The Hoover Institution wrote in February of 2020.
Six years ago, Hoover found California’s job growth was a measly .1 percent compared to there national average of 1.5 percent. Why? Everyone was leaving the state. Why? Because the state was becoming too expensive for the average citizen. Why?
In 2019, “Newsom made housing and homelessness his major policy priorities,” Hoover wrote. “He proposed to create a ‘Marshall Plan’ for housing by building 3.5 million new housing units by 2025.”
He didn’t.
He didn’t — because government doesn’t actually build anything; rather, it relies on private sector citizens to either pay for government to construct, or to do the construction themselves.
And high-taxing, high-regulating, high-brow elite California leftists in government were busily driving out working class citizens at the same time they were laying out the red carpet for homeless — and addicts — and illegals, all of whom take from the system much, much, much more than they give.
Look at healthcare.
In March of 2025, the headline from the House Budget Committee was this: “California to Spend $8.4 Billion This Year on Health Care for Illegal Aliens.” That’s more than the $5 billion the state’s Department of Finance originally estimated. And it’s all due the decision of state Democrats.
“California [in 2024] became the first state to offer free, taxpayer-funded health care through Medicaid to all illegal aliens in the state,” the Budget Committee wrote.
Well lookie here: the California Democrat Party’s plans for the revenues raised by this billionaire tax, if it’s passed by voters this November, is to help offset health care costs in the state. Surprise, surprise.
The push for the tax comes by way of Dave Regan and the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West union he leads.
All this tax will do is drive away the estimated 200 or so billionaires who live in the state — the ones who create the job opportunities; the ones who pay massive amounts of taxes already; the ones who keep the drowning California markets afloat. And when they leave, the remaining lower-income earners in the state will have to make up the difference in the tax rolls.
Then Democrats in California’s government will turn to other states to demand bailouts. That’s what they do; that’s what they’ve done; that’s what their record shows — that, and blowing off debt repayments.
“California’s $7 Billion Bailout?” Council for Citizens Against Government Waste wrote in June of 2009.
“California Seeking Federal Bailout,” NPR wrote in January of 2010.
“California Defaults On $18.5 Billion Debt,” The Hoover Institution wrote in April of 2023.
“Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed lawmakers to approve a $20 million bailout,” The San Francisco Chronicle wrote in February.
California’s problems are due to California Democrats. Hitting up billionaires for a bailout won’t solve the state’s fiscal problems. It will only enable Democrats in the state to continue their tax-and-spend frivolous policies, and avoid the consequences of their failures. It will only add to the hypocrisy of a party filled with leftists who love to condemn the wealthy, even as they rely on the wealthy to pay for their reckless politics.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
