Billionaires or Democracy: Choose One

The campaign over California’s Proposition 40 is framed as a test of whether voters or billionaires shape public policy. The measure would impose a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires’ net assets to fund health care, food assistance, and education for millions of Californians. Its advocates say wealthy opponents have tried to prevent the measure from reaching or surviving a vote: first by raising signature-gathering costs, then by attempting to buy the signature-collection firm, and later by funding Propositions 41 and 42, which they describe as confusing measures designed to weaken Proposition 40 and protect billionaire fortunes. The argument is that this is not ordinary persuasion, but an effort to use wealth to obstruct the majority’s choice.

The essay cites the $1.7 billion spent by the 170 biggest-spending billionaire families on the 2026 midterms, more than $480 million spent by Elon Musk, and over $429 million spent against the wealth-tax effort. It also says the billionaires objecting to the tax have seen their wealth rise by an average of 65 percent in 20 months while paying state income taxes equal to just 0.26 percent of their wealth over five years. The authors argue that California’s vote could set a national precedent: if vast spending can defeat a popular policy, obstruction and misinformation may become a model for overriding voters. Taxing extreme fortunes, they contend, is necessary to limit concentrated power, especially as artificial intelligence could deepen it.