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Newsom’s national tax push
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday proposed a national “billionaires’ tax” and a federal “public equity” fund in a Substack op-ed titled “It’s time for a national billionaires’ tax and a new social compact.”
“Gavin Newsom proposes national 'billionaires' tax' after opposing state's wealth tax initiative Newsom's proposal comes as he says he's considering a run for president”
Newsom’s federal plan calls for a “true minimum tax on billionaires” aimed at Americans worth more than $100 million, rather than a state-level one-time 5% wealth tax, which he opposed after it qualified for California’s November ballot.
In the same proposal, Newsom said the country should return to pre-2017 corporate tax rates and close offshore loopholes that allow multinationals to shift profits and pay less in taxes.
Newsom also argued that inheritance rules need to be rewritten, warning that “Over the next twenty years, this country will live through the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in human history, with roughly $124 trillion changing hands.”
California ballot fight
Newsom’s national push came a day after California’s own billionaire tax measure advanced to the November ballot despite his objections, with the ABC News report saying the measure is a one-time 5% tax on billionaire wealth introduced by healthcare workers union SEIU-UHW.
Newsom said he would vote no on the California proposal, writing “We can’t let a single advocacy organization, however well-intentioned, write the state's tax code on its own terms,” and he argued the measure dedicates almost all of the revenue to state-funded healthcare services.
ABC News reported that SEIU-UHW Vice President Debru Carthan said, “The billionaire tax will be on the November ballot,” and that the coalition “intend[s] to win.”
Politico reported that Newsom said he understands “the anxiety driving the wealth tax proposal in California,” but argued the measure was flawed for directing roughly 90 percent of the revenue raised to offset the federal government’s coming health care cuts.
AI equity fund and stakes
Alongside the federal tax, Newsom proposed a national public equity fund that would give Americans a stake in economic gains generated by artificial intelligence companies.
In the ABC News account of his Substack proposal, Newsom wrote that “Part of this fund could provide a real transition for the laid-off factory worker in Ohio or the 25-year-old coder in San Francisco who sent out a thousand resumes and got zero callbacks.”
The Hill reported that Newsom’s plan includes a national public equity fund and a “true minimum tax on billionaires and those with a net worth of $100 million,” while his opposition to the California measure centered on its one-time 5 percent tax on residents with a net worth greater than $1 billion.
Newsom framed the stakes as a broader economic reset, writing in the Hill report that “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes,” and that “The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”
