Nolte: California Billionaire Tax Qualifies for November Ballot

Frederic J. BROWN / AFP via Getty Images

This is great news: A ballot measure that will hit California billionaires with a one-time tax of five percent on all of their assets has just qualified to appear on the November 3 ballot, the New York Times reported.

Yes, voters, most of whom are not billionaires, will decide the issue.

This is glorious, and all decent people should hope this unbelievably destructive measure passes and begets further measures with similar destructive powers.

Just the threat of this legal theft will chase billionaires out of California. Sure, this time, it might not pass. This time, failed Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom might be able to convince the bill’s sponsors, the SEIU-UHW (Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West), to hold off placing it on the ballot by cutting some sort of a deal.

That doesn’t matter.

Even if it doesn’t pass this time, the very idea behind the measure, not to mention the fact it got so close to becoming reality, will hang like a threat over everyone’s head. This threat (which is quite real) ensures more and more billionaires will flee to free states like Florida and Texas.

Governor Gavin Newsom (D) speaks about his state budget proposal Thursday, May 14, 2026, in Sacramento, California. (Jeff Chiu/AP)

And it won’t only be the billionaires who will feel threatened. Everyone knows how the left operates. As quick as the left went from Gays just want to get married  — to — You’re bigots if you don’t let us trans your kids , this billionaire tax will become a millionaire tax and then a tax on anyone dumb enough to hold any kind of asset, like a car or home.

“The initiative would place a one-time, 5 percent tax on the assets of California residents with at least $1.1 billion and would dedicate most of the revenue to health care,” reports the far-left New York Times . “Those with between $1 billion and $1.1 billion would pay a lesser percentage.”

“If the measure does move forward, there almost certainly will be an expensive election fight in California,” adds the report. “It would pit the economic anxieties of working-class Californians against some of the state’s richest residents and business leaders, who say that such a tax would threaten California’s longstanding dominance in tech innovation.”

Some Democrats oppose it but only because — get this — “it would dedicate the overwhelming share of revenue to health care instead of education or social services.”

Sounds to me like we need another round of ballot measures to ensure California billionaires pay their fair share for “education and social services.”

The sooner California implodes, the sooner there can maybe-perhaps-possibly be a return to sanity in the former Golden State. I’m skeptical that anything, even bottoming out into a fentanyl-fueled pooptopia, can save the state, but that’s the only chance it has. Regardless, there will certainly be no reforming, no sanity, and no redemption as it stands now.

Besides, for us Normal People, watching Californians get what they vote for is all kinds of fun. People should get what they vote for. Why shouldn’t we all be happy for them and enjoy the results?