SF Killed the CEO Tax. Sacramento's Billionaire Tax Is the Same Playbook — and Even the Doctors Oppose It.

The billionaire tax crosses a line SF voters just rejected with Prop D: taxing what people own, not what they earn. Today the threshold is $1 billion, but as this post argues, a tool built for the very top doesn’t always stay there. The coalition that defeated Prop D — small founders, nurses, immigrant business owners — now faces a statewide version of the same fight. The question isn’t whether 200 billionaires can afford it; it’s whether a new category of wealth taxation locks in or whether California’s pragmatic center can hold.

The initiative qualified June 17 promising a healthcare rescue, but the California Medical Association, Planned Parenthood, and the California Primary Care Association all oppose it — the very providers it claims to help. Their objection: a one-time levy routed through annual legislative appropriations gives clinics no reliable funding stream. The LAO warned the revenue would likely be offset by a permanent drop in income-tax collections as billionaires relocate. Two weeks later, two separate analyses would frame this as the successor to SF’s failed Prop D.