You Won't Believe Who Just Went After the California Billionaire Tax

That’s right. Former California representative and gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter is taking aim at the state’s proposed one-time, five percent billionaire tax, otherwise known as Proposition 40. 

In an op-ed published late last month, Porter tried to square an increasingly awkward circle: defending her progressive credentials while rejecting a policy that follows her ideology’s own logic. Her objections amounted to a familiar indictment of progressive policymaking, policy that barely touches the actual problem, but succeeds in demonizing the right group. 

By Porter’s own account, the measure would do nothing to address rising healthcare costs, provide only temporary funding, potentially weaken the Golden State’s long-term finances, and entrench the very problems it purports to solve. 

Katie Porter is right. Nothing in Prop 40 requires funding to go towards lowering healthcare costs, reducing insurance premiums, or expanding patient care. That’s why Democrats across the state are sounding the alarm that Prop 40 is bad for California. Vote No on Prop 40 🔗: https://t.co/vYMH4XwYBz

— No on 40: Protect CA Funding (@VoteNoOn40) October 4, 2026

"Despite what its supporters say, Prop 40 is not a solution to our healthcare crisis," Porter wrote.

"Prop. 40 delivers only a limited, one-time transfer, not the sustainable, predictable funding required to keep hospitals, community clinics and reproductive health providers afloat...[It] does nothing to address skyrocketing healthcare costs...[and fails, for lack of even trying, to make any reforms to the broken parts of our healthcare system."

Porter went on to warn that insurance companies could swallow up much of the money earmarked for California’s healthcare system, leaving less to offset cuts to hospitals, clinics, and other providers that actually treat patients. She also described the state’s budget as “volatile,” particularly given its reliance on high-income earners, and argued that the one-time windfall could ultimately shrink general fund revenues, leaving less money for public safety, schools, and healthcare over the long term. 

This, of course, skips over the fact that progressive policy helped drive California’s, and, more broadly, America’s, healthcare crisis in the first place. With providers so dependent on government funding, the incentive is to chase government dollars rather than put patients first. That is hardly what they were built to do. Get government out of the way, and healthcare could begin fixing itself. But then there wouldn’t be much need for progressives. 

Another seldom-discussed problem with the proposed wealth tax is the precedent it would establish: taxing people based on their net worth, what they own, not simply what they earn. Like any other form of taxation, that opens the door to a world of hurt for ordinary taxpayers once government discovers another way to squeeze money out of them. Today, the target is billionaires. Don’t mistake that for a promise that it ends there.

The one bright side of Prop 40 is that it reveals where even progressives will draw a line in the sand. Numerous Democrats have come out against the measure, helping fuel broader opposition across the state. 

But the outcome remains close: according to a Berkeley IGS poll, 52 percent support the billionaire tax, while 48 percent oppose it. What could become the final nail in California’s fiscal coffin remains a toss-up.

New poll shows Californians are split on the Prop 40 "Billionaire's tax" (52%-48% of those who have decided). But there are massive partisan & age differences. Notably, D's are ~6x more likely to support than R's & young people are ~2x more likely to support than seniors. https://t.co/qgNGd19awX

— The Missing Data Depot (@data_depot) September 28, 2026

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