Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, support us with a donation of any size.

Campaigners behind the one-time 5% billionaires wealth tax in California are calling out what they describe as trickery and deception by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who on Friday released a proposal for a national billionaire’s income tax even as he actively opposes the effort to tax the wealth of billionaires in the state that he and his party currently control.

“Newsom does not want to tax billionaires,” said the Billionaire Tax Now campaign in a statement, “but he wants you to think he does.”

As Common Dreams reported Friday, critics of Newsom warn that the governor thinks “he can fool everyone” with his proposal for a national tax on the income of billionaires while simultaneously opposing a wealth tax headed for a referendum vote in November designed to fill a massive healthcare funding gap in the state created by the budget bill passed by Republicans and signed by President Donald Trump last year.

While the so-called “One, Big Beautiful Bill” offered another windfall tax giveaway to super-wealthy individuals and corporations, it eviscerated funding for healthcare and other key social programs nationwide.

The Friday statement from the coalition behind the campaign, headed by SEIU—United Health Wealth, details “5 tricks” that Newsom has already deployed in order to fool voters about the wealth tax in California while concealing what they say are “his real motivations: to continue giving billionaires tax breaks at the expense of working people.”

Universal Health Care Once Seemed on the Horizon in California. What Happened?

According to the group:

TRICK 1: Pretend to take on billionaires while really giving them a pass.Over his many months of plainly attempting to sink the California billionaire tax, Governor Newsom has made it clear that he is more interested in protecting billionaires than working people. A federal billionaire tax has already been proposed by US Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna—and while you don’t need to be a political insider to know it would require a profound reshaping of Congress to pass that bill, Newsom has nonetheless failed to endorse it. TRICK 2: Conveniently say that a federal, not state-based solution is the best way forward on this issue—despite having supported state-based policy solutions in the past.Pretending to propose his own national solution is clearly a cynical smoke screen to let California billionaires off the hook. It’s just a PR tactic to give himself more cover to oppose the California Billionaire Tax. The Governor has supported state-based solutions to federally-created policy problems in the........

© Truthout