California's 'Wealth' Tax Is Coming For Everyone

Well there it is...

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) - fresh off endorsing California's November ballot measure to seize 5% of billionaire wealth - published a Substack essay Wednesday titled, no really, "Why I Support a Billionaire Wealth Tax."

He makes it roughly a dozen paragraphs before explaining that it isn't one.

"The tax should not stop at billionaires, it must reach centimillionaires," Khanna writes, before spelling out exactly what that means: every fortune of $50 million and up, hit with a 2% federal levy on wealth above that line - every year, forever, on top of everything else you already pay. The vehicle is Elizabeth Warren's Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which Khanna notes he has cosponsored every single year it's been introduced.

These people hate you and want everything you own. Time to sharpen them pikes up.

This wealth tax won't change wealth inequality. It is a solution for a symptom, not a cure for the illness and is written by people who know nothing about the monetary system. I'm so sick of this #$%&!

Below is my column in the Wall Street Journal on the bizarre claim of Gov. Gavin Newsom and others that the Framers would have supported wealth taxes, including the proposed Billionaire’s Tax. It is a claim that seeks to mask the economically unwise with the historically unfounded. The Framers sought to protect property from legislative redistributive impulses. James Madison wrote that the bicameral system, and particularly the Senate, “ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” That does not sound like an ally of Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna.

Was James Madison the Zohran Mamdani of his time? Gavin Newsom appears to think so. In joining the growing number of Democratic leaders supporting a wealth tax, the California governor claimed that the U.S. Constitution and our Founders were all about wealth distribution: “The system America’s founders built,” he said, “was designed to prevent the concentration of power in a few hands, but we have allowed that concentration to happen anyway, slowly, in plain sight, over decades.”

The only problem with this argument is that it is utterly and demonstrably false. The Madisonian democracy is designed to avoid the concentration of political power, not the concentration of wealth.

The Founders were great believers in capitalism and the free market. In my recent book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss the economic philosophy of the Founders in exploring the history and future of this unique republic. This isn’t simply the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence but also the anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations,” which the Founders embraced.

Many of the Founders were themselves quite wealthy, including banker Robert Morris Jr., who was known as the “Financier of the Revolution” and would be a billionaire today.

Our revolution was the first true Enlightenment revolution, heavily influenced by writers such as John Locke, who believed in a natural right to property. That right came not from the government, but from God, and “excludes the common right of other Men.”

That Lockean principle was manifest in George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was a basis for the Declaration of Independence. It extolled “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

James Madison drafted protections from government seizure of property, including the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which requires compensation for any property taken by the government.

The Constitution not only protects property, but was later amended to allow for income taxes rather than wealth taxes.

Far from supporting a wealth tax, the constitutional system referenced by Mr. Newsom makes a federal wealth tax unconstitutional.

Mr. Newsom’s recent endorsement of a national wealth tax was likely meant to blunt the outrage over his opposition to the resolution to create a state Billionaires’ Tax on the coming November ballot.

California has reportedly lost trillions of dollars in the exodus of billionaires and other wealthy taxpayers fleeing the high taxes and class politics of the state. Mr. Newsom knows that this draining of wealth spells doom for his state, which is already grappling with a massive, growing deficit. He offered a curious argument for opposing the state wealth tax: “You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do.”

The argument suggested that most citizens are effectively a captive population to be culled by California leaders, dupes who are unable to escape a state with a deadly combination of some of the highest taxes and highest living costs in the nation.

Unions and others pushed the Billionaire Tax to avoid budget cuts and fund the state’s runaway expenditures, from pension funds to projects such as the infamous high-speed train to nowhere.

To deal with California’s reverse Gold Rush, drafters made the proposed Billionaire Tax retroactive to claw back money from those who have escaped.

The national Billionaire Tax pushed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) seeks to cut off any escape for the wealthy short of leaving the country. When she ran for president, Ms. Warren warned the wealthy that she was coming for “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts.”

Of course, this assumes that the wealthy would be little more than passive prey in a hunt by the Internal Revenue Service. That is precisely what socialists thought in France decades ago, before an exodus from the country that, along with other socialist policies, brought it to near economic ruin. It was later rescinded.

Nevertheless, wealth taxes make for great politics. What is concerning is that, in addition to a wealth tax, Democratic leaders like Ms. Warren are pledging to pack the Supreme Court if they retake power. A packed court with an insistent liberal majority would let the Democrats push through measures that would otherwise be declared unconstitutional, including a wealth tax.

Congress could then gradually lower the level of wealth needed to trigger the tax, opening up the homes and estates of citizens as an untapped reservoir of money for the taking.

“You’re next” could then apply not just to office holders but to property owners in a push to redistribute wealth.

That strategy may well unfold in coming years, but it will be the realization of a Mamdanian, not a Madisonian, system.

Mr. Turley is a law professor at George Washington University and author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Here's a good article. This really encompasses how bad of an idea it is.

The Framers Would Have Hated The Printing of $15 Trillion out of thin air ...to bailout the Holding Banks (Jamie Diamind, GS, C, MS, BAC, etc..) 

The Fed Res printing $ 15 Trillion for Banks (now Jamie is a multi Billionaire) has created the socio-economic chaos that has supported the funded insanity. They just Handed Banks free Trillions...

On Jul 6, 2026, rockfleece said:

The Framers Would Have Hated The Printing of $15 Trillion out of thin air ...to bailout the Holding Banks (Jamie Diamind, GS, C, MS, BAC, etc..) 

The Fed Res printing $ 15 Trillion for Banks (now Jamie is a multi Billionaire) has created the socio-economic chaos that has supported the funded insanity. They just Handed Banks free Trillions...

Jefferson was keenly aware of the dangers of banks.

This is what they never tell you.

Range          Group    Median Income Population (Households) Total Annual Income

100% – 99% Top 1%  $850,000           1.37 Million                      $1.16 Trillion

99% – 90%   Top 9%  $375,000           12.3 Million                      $4.61 Trillion

90% – 66%   Middle  $165,000            32.8 Million                     $5.41 Trillion

66% – 33%   Middle   $72,000             45.4 Million                      $3.27 Trillion

THEY NEED THE FIRE HOSE THAT IS THE MIDDLE CLASS.

Income taxes always start at the top and move to where the real money is.

On Jul 6, 2026, Prospector49 said:

Jefferson was keenly aware of the dangers of banks.

This is what they never tell you.

Range          Group    Median Income Population (Households) Total Annual Income

100% – 99% Top 1%  $850,000           1.37 Million                      $1.16 Trillion

99% – 90%   Top 9%  $375,000           12.3 Million                      $4.61 Trillion

90% – 66%   Middle  $165,000            32.8 Million                     $5.41 Trillion

66% – 33%   Middle   $72,000             45.4 Million                      $3.27 Trillion

THEY NEED THE FIRE HOSE THAT IS THE MIDDLE CLASS.

Income taxes always start at the top and move to where the real money is.

Yes but everyone knows that.

First it was billions, now $50m (and how do you pay that tax if your $50m is a closely held business?) Next up will be every poor sap that managed to accumulate $500,000 in 401k.

No matter what we let them steal, it always end up being wasted on forever wars and Somali day care schemes.

On Jul 6, 2026, Prospector49 said:

Jefferson was keenly aware of the dangers of banks.

This is what they never tell you.

Range          Group    Median Income Population (Households) Total Annual Income

100% – 99% Top 1%  $850,000           1.37 Million                      $1.16 Trillion

99% – 90%   Top 9%  $375,000           12.3 Million                      $4.61 Trillion

90% – 66%   Middle  $165,000            32.8 Million                     $5.41 Trillion

66% – 33%   Middle   $72,000             45.4 Million                      $3.27 Trillion

THEY NEED THE FIRE HOSE THAT IS THE MIDDLE CLASS.

Income taxes always start at the top and move to where the real money is.

Big Money is mobile while the middle class is not. The tax will always fall on the middle class because that’s where the money is.

This is absolutely nuts! Taxing people on wealth they haven't even realized is bad enough, but the possibility of expanding this beyond billionaires is downright frightening. Where does it end? At what point does owning something mean the government can just keep taking a piece of it? I can't believe we're even having this conversation in America.

Mark Moss has a pretty good segment on this!

- YouTube YouTube

California is about to vote on a plan to tax billionaires, hoping to raise about a hundred billion dollars. But something pretty incredible has already happened. Something that their analysts, they never even expected. And the crazy part is that the tax, it hasn't even passed yet. Now, this is the same pattern. We're seeing it all over the world. And this matters to you because, you know, whether you even have enough tax to be wealth taxed like the wealthy do, the wealth that they're proposing or not,

it's going to affect you either way. Now, I think we're going to see more of these types of taxes. So, in this video, I want to show you what's actually going on in California, what's happening. I want to show you the one assumption I think they're getting dangerously wrong. And I want to show you what we're seeing in California. We're seeing across the world. We're seeing it in in UK and even here in Portugal where I'm at could change the way you think about

protecting your wealth. You ready? Let's go. All right. So, let's get into this video. And uh it's a fitting video for me while I'm here. I'm in Portugal right now. I'm out here on the coastline uh doing some surfing, a little bit of vacation. And uh it's interesting because Portugal has a golden visa program which is to attract people with money, tax refugees if we'll call them. Let's talk about taxes for a minute. October 2025 um in California, the California Healthcare Union proposed a

one-time tax, just one time, don't worry, onetime tax of 5% of billionaires wealth, their entire wealth, whether it's been realized or not. A lot of these billionaires in California, they own businesses like Jeff Bezos owns Amazon or Elon Musk owns Tesla. Like it's not like it's money in his account they want to take. They want to take his company that he owns. Okay, so um they said they want to do that. They said that uh it was going to be retroactive if if it passes anybody that was there

as of January 1st and it has a very low chance of going through. But check this out. Here's the assumption. California assumed that if they did this 5% tax on the billionaire's wealth, they would be able to raise about $100 billion. And of course, that billion dollars is going to go to again Medicare, healthcare, things like that. Now, this is on the spreadsheet. This is the bean counters. This is people that don't understand that there's an actual real world out there, and they were caught off guard.

I'm going to break it down for you. But what they assumed is that some taxpayers would leave. They assumed that less than 10% would leave the state of California. Why? Well, cuz I live in California. It's the most beautiful place in the world. So, why would they want to leave that? Well, if you push them hard enough, maybe they will. They assumed for 10% of the people to leave. Now, they thought they were being clever also with this retroactive piece because it was going through so quickly and it

hasn't even got through yet. They thought that there was no way that billionaires could leave in such a short period of time. So, they thought that they thought they can catch him off guard. Hey, we're going to pass it, make it retroactive. We've only given them a couple months. There's no way a billionaire can move in a couple months. And so they're going to get caught in this, right? Well, as it turns out, no. The billionaires made very quick decisions. As a matter of fact,

California lost a lot of billionaires. Now, again, like this is very real for me. Uh, as I live in California, we've gone to Puerto Rico. We went to Puerto Rico. They have a very special tax program over there. We've moved there for taxes. Again, here I'm in Portugal. Um, I worked with a company that was uh helping people set up these golden visas in Portugal. And so recruiting taxpayers is a really big deal. When taxes change, people make real life decisions. Now, let me tell you what happened. Now, with

the billionaires leaving faster than they expected, California has now lost over $577 billion. Now, check this out. They thought they were going to gain a hundred billion. That's not the case. some of the billionaires that have already left California, the Google founders, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, uh Peter Teal, um Steven Spielberg, who's a, you know, huge left liberal advocate, uh David Sachs, turns out none of them want to have their wealth confiscated from them. And so they showed only 10%,

well, the analyst told them that only 10% would leave. And so far, what we know about over 28% of the billionaires have already left. Now, this is what we already know about. This is people who have made big announcements of this. I'm sure a lot of people have probably left quietly. So, it's probably well over 30%. So, $577 billion has already left. Now, where does this leave the forecast? They're hoping to raise a h 100red billion. Well, now they're expecting to only bring in about 28 to 36 billion of

the hundred billion they hope for. That's what they hope. And some of you might listen, well, at least they have the 26 or the 36 billion. Well, not really because that was a one-time tax. These people that left, the billionaires that left were residents of the state and they paid this tax every single year. The authors of this bill estimate that California billionaires were paying 3.3 to 5.8 billion per year in annual taxes. That's gone. So, while they get a one-time windfall of 28 billion, they're

losing 3 to 6 billion every single year. They assume that there's maybe another 2 billion that's going to be lost on top of that. And so the net present value of this bill is a lost income stream of 68.9 billion. So they've lost almost 70 billion from this on a bill that has only in the betting markets about a 23% chance of even going through. So when you add it up that yes they get the 30 if this even goes through. They have a 30 billion onetime tax windfall but they're losing 69 billion in present

value of lost future income taxes. Again, the betting markets look like this is not going to go through about a 23% chance. So, what happens if it doesn't pass? Do these billionaires come back? No, they don't come back. Do the businesses that have left come back? No, of course not. California is still going to end up losing over 577 billion dollars of wealth that's already gone. They've permanently poisoned the well for entrepreneurs who who now have to worry about what the potential of future

wealth taxes could be. So, what entrepreneur wants to build an estate that has already told them that they intend to steal part of their wealth? What what person would want to move to the state and set up businesses and build wealth in a state that's already told them that they want to steal their wealth? And of course, the answer is very few. They've poisoned the well. And so, not only have they lost that amount of wealth today on a bill that's probably not even go through, but they

poison the well. Now, the bigger question is, is your home next? Because this is happening in New York, it's happening in California, but it's happening all around the world. And so, for example, in the UK, the UK continues to increase wealth taxes. The UK has lost 16,500 millionaires in 2025. 16,500 millionaires left because unlike how unlike America and other countries, you could leave and get out of taxes altogether. And so, a lot of these these are going to Dubai where Dubai has no income tax, for example. And you have

beautiful services. You have safe streets you can walk around. The streets uh you know are nice and things like that. So, 16,500 have left. But here's the problem. You have the billionaires leaving California, have 16,500 millionaires leaving the UK, but the bills stay, the welfare state continues to grow, the revenue disappears, the bills go up. And so the question, while I'm here in Portugal having fun on vacation, and as I said, thinking about the golden visas that are available, there's places that are attracting you

and there's places that are trying to drive you away. The choice is yours where you want to stay. Let me know what you think in the comments down below. Uh, is this something that you're thinking about or is something on your radar or are you just going to suck it up and stay there? Let me know in the comments down below. As I always say, to your success, I'm out.