The $2.4 Trillion Fight Over California's Billionaire Tax

Jill sits down with Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, to break down Proposition 40, the California ballot measure his union spearheaded to tax the state's roughly 250 billionaires. The tax applies only to residents worth over $1 billion, charging a one-time 5%, payable either as a lump sum or 1% annually over five years, to help backfill an estimated $25 billion annual hole in California's healthcare budget created by federal cuts. Regan lays out the stakes bluntly: left unaddressed, those cuts could cost 3.5 million Californians their health coverage and 150,000 healthcare workers their jobs.

The two dig into the mechanics that critics raise most often, how wealth gets measured, whether the tax double-counts already-taxed income, and what happens if a billionaire's portfolio loses value. Regan walks through why the measure exempts the first $5 million in personal property like art and jewelry, and why 70% of billionaire wealth sitting in publicly traded stock makes valuation far simpler than critics suggest.

The conversation turns pointed when Jill asks who's funding the opposition. Regan contrasts Nvidia's Jensen Huang, who's said he's fine paying it, with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who has spent over $100 million fighting Prop 40 despite an estimated $275 billion net worth, and with Governor Newsom, whom Regan accuses of protecting future presidential campaign donors rather than the constituents about to lose coverage. They also cover the billionaire-funded counter-measures, Propositions 41 and 42, designed to undercut Prop 40 and, according to Regan, put other funding streams at risk too. The episode closes on a lighter note, with Regan explaining his union's unusually large 250-member elected board and its role in mobilizing the volunteer signature drive that got Prop 40 on the ballot in the first place.