Most politicians don’t tell voters five days before an election that they are planning to raise taxes, but when you are a Democrat in one-party California, you don’t worry as much about the outcome.
Page F130From§Eachthe morning edition — 30 October 2026
Billionaires spend $333 million fighting a wealth tax the Times just called "easier said than done."
As it ran on the front
On October 23rd, the Guardian's rundown of this fall's 145 statewide ballot measures listed one line without a name or a number: "a novel wealth tax on California's billionaires," filed alongside Alabama's question about the national anthem in schools.
Four days later, on October 27th, the name and the number arrived. Common Dreams reported that Proposition 40, a 5 percent tax on billionaire wealth, had drawn $333 million in spending from the billionaires fighting to defeat it. One Golden State tech billionaire suggested he would not leave California even if voters passed it. Senator Bernie Sanders asked the obvious question back at them: "Against what? Homelessness? No. Cancer? No. Child poverty? No."…
…(cont) By October 30th, the same week carried a second entry. The New York Times ran a piece headlined "Tax the Rich? Easier Said Than Done," reporting that the economist Natasha Sarin believes there are better ways to make billionaires pay than a direct wealth tax. The Times did not say what those ways are.
That same day, the New York Post ran two separate pieces on Xavier Becerra, California's candidate for governor, for proposing a new tax to address the state's affordability crisis, and, again, for proposing it five days before the election instead of waiting, as the Post noted most politicians do, until after.
Line the three up and the gap closes itself. One newspaper tells its readers that collecting from billionaires directly is a hard problem academics are still working on. The opposition to the one proposal that reached an actual ballot is not waiting on the academics; it has already spent $333 million to defeat it. And a candidate who said the word "tax" out loud, five days before anyone could vote on it, got two separate stories written about his nerve.
The economist says there is a better way to get the money. The billionaires say there is no good way at all, and they have put a price on saying so: $333 million against a single ballot question. Becerra found out what the much smaller version of that question costs a candidate who asks it five days early.
“Here's the con: the economist says taxing billionaires directly is some complicated puzzle, like it's rocket science. Then the people it would actually cost go and prove it's not complicated at all — they just wrote a $333 million check to kill it. And the guy running for governor finds out the real tax is on saying the word "tax" out loud five days before an election.”
“Look, nobody's against billionaires paying their fair share, done properly, the careful way the experts are still studying — did I say experts, I mean, the point is timing matters, you don't spring a new tax on voters five days before they go to the polls, that's reckless process, not policy. And that $333 million? That's speech. That's just a lot of people speaking at once, very loudly, with money.”
The receipts
As one Golden State tech billionaire suggested he wouldn't move away even if voters passed the California Billionaire Tax Act that he opposes, progressive US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday took aim at the wealthy taxpayers working to defeat Proposition 40. "Billionaires in California are spending $333 million to wage a war," Sanders…
Forget California’s billionaire wealth tax. The economist Natasha Sarin believes there are better ways to make billionaires pay up.
Imagine running for office on a promise to raise taxes, in an election when the top issue for voters is "affordability."
· Billionaire tax and trans rights: what are key state ballot initiatives in midterms? from the morgue, 23 Oct 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.