A proposed measure in California seeks to tax billionaires’ wealth. But the effort may cause the state to lose billions in future tax revenue before it even reaches the ballot. The proposed ballot measure, called the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ assets. The measure is still in the process of gathering the 90,000 signatures necessary to put it before voters in November. But it is already receiving fierce backlash from several of the state’s wealthiest residents—and from its Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “This will be defeated. There’s no question in my mind,” Newsom told The New York Times on Monday, following a speech in which he called the proposal “really damaging” and “bad economics.” “I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state,” he added. Newsom said that a wealth tax that takes from billionaires’ assets instead of their incomes is “something very, very different” than the state’s progressive income tax, which already taxes high earners at the highest tax rate in the country. He added that he would be more open to a similar proposal carried out on the federal level. “It’s one thing to have a prism of the nation, and you can talk about 50 states. It’s another when you’re competing against 49 other states,” he said. The push for the ballot measure is being led by a health care workers’ union, SEIU-UHW, that is calling for the hike to compensate for federal cuts to healthcare,…
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