Controversial billionaire tax will appear on November ballot

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Set us as preferred Proponents of a tax on California billionaires vowed on Thursday to move forward with their November ballot measure despite mounting opposition from many of the state’s most powerful political forces.A labor union spent $31 million gathering signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot in an effort to offset federal healthcare funding cuts that will affect millions of California’s most vulnerable residents.A representative for the campaign supporting the ballot measure pushed back at opposition to the effort as self-entitled wealthy Californians and entrenched Sacramento interests.“While a few morally bankrupt billionaires and their buddies in Sacramento want to see California’s hospitals close, and tax breaks for billionaires protected — I assure you, the vast majority of voters do not,” said Debru Carthan, a spokesperson for the Billionaire Tax Now Coalition, which is funded by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the sponsor of the proposal.The California secretary of state is expected to officially certify the measure for the Nov.

3 ballot on Thursday evening.Carthan said their effort has support in public opinion polls, and from lawmakers, unions, community organizations and volunteers across the state, “something the billionaires and their buddies will never have.”However, a coalition of healthcare, education, public safety, housing, business and labor leaders opposed to the proposal warned that it would make the state’s notoriously unstable budget even more unpredictable.“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the leaders of the California Medical Assn., the California Prima...