Californians will decide this November whether to impose a historic one-time wealth tax on billionaires. If they are successful, proponents hope to launch similar efforts across the country to tax the wealth of the ultra-rich. Passage of Proposition 40 would enact the first state-level wealth tax, which the ballot measure’s backers…
Page F3From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 2 October 2026
Billionaires fund ad blitz against tax Nobel economists call democracy's turning point, support falls under 50.
As it ran on the front
On August 25, Building a Better California and Californians Against Wasteful Spending and Higher Taxes opened their advertising campaign against Proposition 40, the one-time 5 percent tax on net worth over $1 billion that would reach roughly 200 Californians. The money behind the two committees traces to Google co-founder Sergey Brin and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, among other mega-billionaires who would write the checks the measure describes.
On September 21, a group of Nobel-winning economists called the measure "a turning point in the battle between democracy and oligarchy" and reported the initiative remained popular, putting support at 52 percent.…
…(cont) Seven points separate the two counts of the same electorate on the same question, taken one day apart. The number that actually passes a California ballot measure is fifty.
On September 29, Senator Bernie Sanders announced he would return to California to campaign for Proposition 40 with Representatives Ro Khanna and Aisha Wahab, as the measure entered what the reporting called its final weeks before the vote.
This week, the Washington Examiner described Proposition 40 as something larger than a California question: the first state-level wealth tax in the country, and a measure whose backers — among them socialists — hope a win here opens the door to similar votes in other states. The ad committees funded by Brin, Thiel, and other mega-billionaires are fighting to keep that door shut at the first state in line.
Here is the reconciliation, hon. One column holds the money: two ad committees, funded by men whose own fortunes the tax was written to reach, running ads through the campaign's final weeks. Another column holds the prestige: Nobel laureates, a sitting U.S. senator, two members of Congress, lending their names to the other side. Neither column decides Proposition 40. The column that decides it is the one the pollsters keep measuring, and the last time anyone measured it, it had not yet cleared fifty.
“Brin and Thiel can write a check big enough to buy ads telling the state that five cents on every dollar over a billion is a crisis, and Nobel economists call this same vote the line between democracy and oligarchy — that's not a close call, that's who owns the microphone. The money already picked its side; the only thing left unsettled is whether enough of us notice before November.”
“This isn't a tax on a couple of guys with yachts, it's about protecting California from wasteful spending and higher taxes — that's literally the name of the committee, so it has to be accurate. And sure, Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel are funding it, but that's just — well, that is who it protects, isn't it. Did I say that? That doesn't sound like me.”
The receipts
· Billionaire-Backed Groups Launch Ad Blitz Against California Wealth Tax from the morgue, 25 Aug 2026
· Fewer than half of California voters back billionaire tax: Poll from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· Bernie Sanders Going Back to California to Rally for Billionaire Tax Ballot Measure from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· Nobel-Winning Economists Say California Billionaire Tax Could Be ‘Turning Point in the Battle Between Democracy and Oligarchy’ from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.