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We must tax the wealth of billionaires, not just income. California can lead the way | Ro Khanna

The Democratic party has a choice to make. Are we going to be New Deal Democrats or corporate Democrats? Are we standing with the working class or the tech oligarchs?

Proposition 40, California’s billionaire tax, is the most important ballot initiative in America and a fight for the soul of our party.

Senator Bernie Sanders and I stand with the nurses and healthcare workers who put Prop 40 on the ballot. Governor Gavin Newsom stands with Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin and Elon Musk, Trump backers who all oppose it.

Prop 40 is a one-time 5% tax on the roughly 250 billionaires who live in the state. Together they hold wealth equal to half of California’s economy. That wealth is up 20% this year alone.

If they paid this tax, they would be worth the same as they were on Labor Day of this year. That’s the speed at which their wealth is growing. The tax would raise about $100bn, 90% of it for healthcare. It would help keep 3 million Californians from losing coverage. Trump’s cuts could cost Medi-Cal more than $30bn a year, and this tax would help fill that gigantic hole.

Thiel, Brin and Musk have all funded Trump and his party. Thiel gave $1.25m to elect Trump in 2016. Brin gave nearly $500,000 to the Republican National Committee last year. Musk spent roughly $290m to help return Trump to power. On 8 October, Trump awarded Brin and Musk the National Medal of Science.

Brin has spent $102m to kill Prop 40. Thiel gave $3m to block it. Musk attacked it on X, warning that “they will eventually apply the ‘wealth tax’ to everyone”. The day after Trump’s ceremony, Newsom endorsed Prop 42, Brin’s measure to cancel it.

Billionaires have outspent Prop 40’s supporters more than five to one. Musk has given $366n to federal campaigns in this election cycle alone.

Tax billionaires so they can’t buy democracy.

I have made my choice. I endorsed Prop 40, and I will vote no on Prop 42. The California Democratic party took the same positions in August. The governor has made the opposite choice on both.

He fought to keep Prop 40 off the ballot. When the healthcare workers behind it offered to cut the rate to 2% if he would back it, he said no. Now the No on 40 campaign features him in its ads.

Most cynically, Newsom has become the poster child for Prop 42, a billionaire written provision, which would ban California from ever taxing billionaire wealth.

He will sadly be more remembered for trying to tank Prop 40 (taxing billionaires) than helping pass Prop 50 (redistricting).

Bernie and I believe the fight doesn’t stop with Prop 40. In March, we introduced the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act, a 5% annual tax on America’s 938 billionaires, worth $8.2tn.

It would raise more than $4tn over a decade, enough to reverse Trump’s $1.1tn in healthcare cuts, send $12,000 to every family of four making $150,000 or less, and fund free child care and free college.

I am with the working class.

In 1911, Wisconsin pioneered the income tax because a property tax on land was no longer enough once industry was producing most of the wealth. Two years later, the country adopted the 16th amendment.

Today, California is pioneering a billionaire tax for an economy where explosive asset appreciation escapes ordinary taxation. If voters pass Prop 40, California will be the first place to figure out how to tax billionaire wealth, setting a model for the nation and the world.

For too long, our party has answered to corporate donors before workers. The factory towns and rural counties our governing class ignored stopped believing us. Trump promised to fight for them, then cut taxes for billionaires and cut Medicaid. We will not win those voters back by protecting the same billionaires in Sacramento. You cannot oppose the Trump administration while doing the bidding of its donors.

Anyone who wants to lead this party has to say where they stand on Prop 40.

Every society is taxed. The only question is who will pay. In Trump’s America, working people pay more than they should, while billionaires are so unburdened that they are becoming trillionaires. In the America we seek, billionaires and trillionaires will pay their fair share, while working people will be unburdened.

Will California this November stand with the working class or the oligarchs?