A first-in-the-nation proposal in California to tax billionaires could test voters' appetite for levying a wealth tax on the ultra-rich
Page F119From§Eachthe morning edition — 14 October 2026
Eighteen days after Nobel economists called Proposition 40 democracy's turning point against oligarchy, top Democrats joined the billionaires.
As it ran on the front
Start with the instrument, because it is short. Proposition 40 puts a one-time tax of 5 percent on the net worth of people with $1 billion or more, and the money funds the state's healthcare system. On September 21 it was polling at 52 percent. There is one answer to that division. I ran it twice and got it twice.
The opposition opened before the economists did. On August 25, organizations backed by billionaires — Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel among the backers — launched an advertising blitz asking California voters to turn the measure down. The two most prominent groups in the fight, by the account in front of me, are called Building a Better California and Californians Against Wasteful Spending and Higher Taxes. Prominent is the word the receipt uses. It does not tell me their share of the spending, so I will not tell you one.…
…(cont) Then September 21, and a group of Nobel Prize-winning economists saying the November vote "may mark a turning point in the battle between democracy and oligarchy." That is a sentence about sides, and sides can be footed like any other column.
So I footed them. October 1: John O'Farrell, formerly a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, posted a twelve-post thread on X explaining why he would be happy to pay. The account carrying the thread adds that he is not alone in that; that line belongs to the reporter, not to him, and I am leaving it where it was filed. The same account puts the money moving the other way at tens of millions, poured in by some of California's richest residents together. Fifty million is one filer's bill, once. Tens of millions is a group total. Those are not the same unit and I will not net them. I will note only that they are written with the same number of digits.
October 9: top Democrats join the wealthiest in fighting the tax. The wire's phrase is "top Democrats," and I am keeping the wire's phrase — individuals, eighteen days after the economists drew the line, standing on the far side of it.
October 14: the billionaires say they "have become piñatas for politicians," and instead of taking a hit, they are swinging back. Fifty days from the first ad to the piñata.
Healthcare is the column the fifty million was headed for. That is the entry. Reconciled.
“They've been telling California there's no money for healthcare for thirty years, and here's a measure that charges a billionaire five percent one time and sends it straight to the hospitals — and the ads against it are paid for by the guys who'd pay it. One ex-Andreessen partner says fine, bill me, he knows where he wants to live. Then the state's top Democrats line up on the other side, and that tells you the con: the party isn't short of money, it's short of nerve, and your kid's clinic is what's on the table.”
“Look, a wealth tax is a moving-van tax, they'll all pack up and — did I say they'd leave? That doesn't sound like me, I said mobility, there's a difference. And if Mr. O'Farrell is so eager, nothing stops him writing the check voluntarily; the fact that serious Democrats agree with us on this shows it's not partisan, it's arithmetic, which is also what the economists said, but differently.”
The receipts
Billionaires feel like they “have become piñatas for politicians.” Instead of taking a hit, they’re swinging back.
· Billionaire-Backed Groups Launch Ad Blitz Against California Wealth Tax from the morgue, 25 Aug 2026
· 'I Know Where I Want to Live': Ex-Venture Capitalist Explains Why He'd Be Happy to Pay California Billionaire Tax from the morgue, 1 Oct 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.