California’s ‘Wealth’ Tax Is Coming for Everyone

In this American Greatness article, Edward Ring argues that California’s proposed “One-Time Wealth Tax” is being sold as a billionaire tax but could become a much broader attack on property owners and anyone with accumulated assets.

• The article says the initiative has already qualified for the November ballot and would impose a 5 percent tax on “covered assets” above $1 billion.
• Ring warns that the measure’s retroactive application to residents after January 1, 2026, could trigger constitutional challenges, but he argues other provisions may survive.
• The piece claims several billionaires have already left California or are preparing to leave, reducing the expected revenue the tax could generate.
• A central concern is that the measure would allow the legislature, with a two-thirds vote, to amend the tax by lowering the threshold, making it annual, or removing exemptions for real estate and retirement accounts.
• Ring argues this could eventually threaten homeowners, especially long-time California residents whose homes have appreciated into “millionaire” territory on paper.
• The article frames the tax as part of a broader California pattern: heavy regulation, rising costs, growing dependence on government aid, and expanding public-sector power.
• It cites increases in food aid participation, Medi-Cal enrollment, and state General Fund spending as evidence that California government has dramatically expanded while population growth has been minimal.
• Ring contends that California’s inequality problem is not caused by billionaires but by political decisions that have made the state unaffordable for the middle class.
• The broader warning is that California’s progressive fiscal model is unsustainable and could be exported nationally if voters and policymakers do not resist it.

Read the full story: https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/03/californias-wealth-tax-is-coming-for-everyone/