Gov. Newsom is in a bit of a hot spot. His opposition to the billionaire’s tax is well known, and contrasts sharply with the position many Democratic party stalwarts, labor unions and voters have taken. But Newsom has not fully articulated just why he’s against it. He says it’s because he doesn’t want these billionaires to leave California. That’s okay as far as it goes, but Newsom—a famous policy wonk—has more explaining to do if he truly wants to impact the election.
I, personally, am undecided. Calling for higher taxes on billionaires makes emotional sense to me. How many 400-foot yachts and megamansions does one person need? When I read about Jeff Bezos’s $50 million wedding to Lauren Sanchez, I have to wonder if we’re back in the Gilded Age. There’s something un-American about such vast personal wealth and the flagrantly conspicuous way it’s rubbed in our faces.
And yet, what could be more American? We live in a capitalist society. It’s the American Dream for a poor boy to start with nothing, create something everybody needs, and then amass wealth greater than Croesus and John D. Rockefeller, Sr. combined. Still, there’s something arrogant when Larry Ellison owns his own Hawaiian island and Sergei Brin can afford to drop $45 million opposing the billionaires tax. If he gave the money to the Oakland Police Department instead, he’d be doing humanity a service.
Actually, this debate on billionaires—which is currently raging in California and seems likely to spread across the country as Newsom gets nearer to the nomination—is one of the most interesting political questions of our time: just what or whom does the Democratic Party stand for? Is it the party of common people like you and me, or is it allied with rich corporate interests? Even Newsom’s Democratic opponents for the nomination are going to charge him with being “the billionaire’s candidate.” His longtime friendship with the Getty family remains a sore point. Newsom is going to have to tackle this ongoing chatter. Yes, much of it will be old hat for us Californians. But to much of the rest of this country, Newsom is someone they know only a few things about: the French Laundry fiasco, his good looks, he married the gays, he has reclusive ultra-wealthy backers, and he’s good on most progressive issues. Whether or not this is good enough to get him elected against, say, Vance or another of their club is an open question.
If I read Newsom’s mind correctly, I think he’s concerned that if billionaires leave California, the state will suffer in ways the public doesn’t fully appreciate. When rich people move out of California (Brin, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg already have), the state loses not only their regular income taxes but their capital gains (hundreds of millions a year), not to mention their philanthropy. As Newsom has stated in the past, the wealthy, who account for just 1 percent of the population, generate 50% of all income taxes in California. Newsom also has stressed that, even if voters approve the billionaires tax, it will be years and years before all the legal challenges are resolved (if they ever are). And finally, the billionaires who remain in California are propping up our state’s budget status, which was healthy enough for Newsom to prevent large cuts in areas such as education (which actually got significant increases) in his 2027 budget. (Let me note that Newsom has proposed a national billionaire’s tax, an idea that seems to be going nowhere but could if the idea catches fire.)
There are more than enough reasons, then, to oppose the billionaires’ tax. But on the other hand, the cuts from Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” are severe, and passage of the tax would go some way toward reducing its harmful impacts.
I give credit to Newsom for occasionally bucking the progressive trend of the Democratic Party, as for example when he expressed concern over trans men playing women’s sports. He also opposed Prop 36, which increased criminal penalties for repeated theft and passed overwhelmingly. (Newsom knew perfectly well he was on the losing side of that one, but opposed it anyway.) He’s made no secret of his disdain (if that’s the right word) for his party’s far left. Newsom is, in short, a moderate Democrat. And that puts him squarely in the center of the debate: should Americans embrace the Democratic Socialist positions of Mandami in New York City and El-Sayed in Michigan, as well as Bernie Sanders, AOC and Elizabeth Warren? Or would that be the death knell for a party whom voters already are suspicious of for its progressive stance on cultural issues?
If Newsom is smart (and he is), he should push this billionaire’s tax issue more forcefully into the media conversation. He’s a wonky, erudite man and an able defender of his views, but all too often the only Gavin Newsom most people know is the hair-gel guy, the French Laundry hypocrite, the slick, too-polished politician. Partly this is his own fault: If Bill Clinton was “the explainer in chief,” then you’d need “a dictionary of his favorite jargon” (in the words of Cal Matters) to translate his English into ordinary lingo. It’s not Newsom’s fault that he’s so professorial, but it is his problem. Joe Sixpack and Sarah Soccermom have no idea what he means by “iterative process,” even though both use this intellectual tool every day of their lives when making important decisions.
This is Newsom’s task, one we should all wish him success with. Our most effective presidents (Reagan, Obama) have been magnificent explainers, and Newsom should study them for their clearness. (I’d include Trump here, too, although his pestilential corrosiveness precludes me from saying anything nice about him.) Imagine if Newsom took out a bunch of op-eds in newspapers and explained, in detail and using simple English, just what about the billionaire’s tax he doesn’t like. It’s called “having a conversation with the American people,” and it’s the one thing Newsom hasn’t yet done that could clinch him the nomination, and the election.
Steve Heimoff