Billionares are a more productive allocation of resources than the state, so I am fine with not taxing them any more than anyone else. If a billionaire takes out a loan, It should be just like you took out a HELOC; non taxable. I know this isnt the current of this crowd, but c'est la vie. If money in the hands of government would fix problems, we'd be living in a utopia. We don't, because government is the WORST allocator or capital imaginable. By far, and it's so bad I'm not even going to argue with anyone who thinks otherwise, because you might as well argue that stars are fireflies stuck in the sky. Among the states, California takes the cake. Unions and voters in California are under a disillusion that a bunch of billionaires are going to write taxes, and suddenly, food will be free or healthcare will cost less, or anything that will benefit them in any way will happen. It wont. I am sorry, it just wont. It never has, and never will. Instead, we are going to just give the money to other contractors of the state and they will just use it on non-profits with executives making millions, ad revenue back to Google and Paramount (or whomever buys them next), and other endeavors of the state like commissioning studies for $40m with nothing ever shown for it.
This very article lists billionaires, like Sergey Brin. He created Google, a search engine which has made just about all of our lives better. Same thing with Nest, etc... We use their services voluntarily, it's why they are billionaires. We don't have a revenue problem. Our government expenditures would reduce EVERY billionaire to $0 and it would not provide for ONE YEAR of government spending. I am sorry, but thats the truth. All US billionaires are worth $8.2 Trillion. The federal government spent $13.64 Trillion in FY2025.
All this is to say nothing of the fact that these "billionaires" dont have the money to actually pay. They will have to sell off their stocks, which will collapse the price. So while they might sell 5% of their holdings, it will dwindle the market down 20%. That will affect 401Ks, Pensions, etc...
This is just a bad bad law all the way around, and we will be worse off for passing it. My signature is more relevant than ever too.