Poison-pill effort to cancel proposed billionaire tax hits voters' mailboxes
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California voters are being urged to put a poison-pill effort on the November ballot that would nullify a controversial proposed tax on the state’s billionaires.Neither proposal has yet qualified for the ballot — supporters of each need to gather the verified signatures of hundreds of thousands of voters.But petitions that have been mailed and texted to California voters in recent days demonstrate the stakes in a contest that has drawn tens of millions of dollars in campaign spending.“Government has wasted billions of our tax dollars on homelessness and many other failed programs with little to show for it,” reads the new mailing to voters.
“We can’t afford more wasteful spending!”The proposal is aimed at countering a proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires assets that would fund healthcare for the state’s neediest residents, but opponents say it would lead to lost tax revenues as California’s wealthiest flee the state.California Populist Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has a long history of support from liberal California voters, formally kicked off a billionaires tax proposal on Wednesday at the Wiltern in Los Angeles.Mailers and texts recently sent to voters describe the new proposal as an effort to create a more accountable, transparent and effective state government that would require auditing of new state taxes and ensuring they comply with existing law.The small-font description of the proposed initiative included in the mailing specifies that any new tax enacted after Jan.1 must be deposited into the state’s general fund and conform with current state tax policy, which is an oblique reference to a prior voter-approved ballot measure requiring that a significant portion of the state’s tax revenue be spent on education.
If competing proposals appear on a ballot and are successful, the one that receives the most votes nullifies the other.There are...