Gov. Gavin Newsom isn't just fighting the billionaire tax. He's backing Prop. 42, which would ban future wealth taxes in California, too.

Not only has Gov. Gavin Newsom vocally opposed the proposed California billionaire tax, but he also wants to prevent the state from ever passing a wealth tax in the future.

On Friday he endorsed Proposition 42, a ballot measure that would cancel out Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax. Prop. 42 would prohibit retroactive taxes like the one-time 5% tax on assets that would apply to any billionaire who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026 if Prop. 40 passes.

But Prop. 42, funded and placed on the ballot by billionaire and Google co-founder Sergey Brin to defeat the billionaire tax, also would go further, by banning any new taxes on personal property.

That includes pensions and 401K accounts before retirees start drawing retirement income from them. It also includes other investments, financial assets, business holdings, art collections and all other forms of personal wealth that would be affected by the billionaire tax or any future wealth tax.

Newsom’s decision to support Prop. 42 runs counter to his own Democratic Party and some labor unions. It also aligns him with some of the wealthy tech donors with whom he’s maintained longstanding relationships dating back to his days as mayor of San Francisco.

  • UnderpantsWeevilEnglish
    11·
    4 days ago

    You should look into serfdom or feudal land tenure if you think mortgages are something new.

    Serfdom was a consequence of Land Barony, which became a formal process of effectively robbing peasant farmers at swordpoint. Land tenure was a consequence of Enclosure, which was a formal fencing off of public grazing lands by these same land barons. Both of these were prerequisites for the eventual advent of mortgages. But they required a lot more direct application of armed goons. And they were designed to expel native peoples to clear the way for settlers.

    Mortgages are a debt vehicle used to move settlers onto seized land, not a military occupation designed to force native people off of it.

    Also, unsurprisingly, mortgages exist pretty much everywhere.

    Post-WW2 US Hegemony cast a long shadow.

    But you see mortgages in places where native people have been expelled, land has been enclosed and financialized, and new settlers have been ushered onto the land under debt peonage. Native people who have held onto their lands don’t pay mortgages. They have no one to pay mortgages to, because nobody else has title to their property.