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california
'This Is Not a Drill': Ad Promoting California Billionaire Tax Airs During Olympics
"Massive federal funding cuts will shut hospitals and emergency rooms forever because billionaires refuse to pay their fair share."
Feb 23, 2026
Organizers behind a proposed billionaire wealth tax in California aired their first campaign advertisement on the final day of the 2026 Winter Olympics over the weekend, styling the 30-second spot as an emergency alert warning of a looming healthcare catastrophe in the Golden State.
"This is not a drill," the ad says. "California healthcare is facing an emergency. Hospitals will close. Expect longer wait times and overcrowded emergency rooms. Massive federal funding cuts will shut hospitals and emergency rooms forever because billionaires refuse to pay their fair share. Prepare to make alternative plans for care, or vote yes to make billionaires pay their fair share."
Watch the ad:
The advertisement aired days after US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) headlined an event formally launching the push to get the proposed billionaire wealth tax on the California ballot in November amid intense opposition from the state's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and some of its wealthiest residents.
If enacted, billionaires residing in California as of the start of 2026 would face a one-time 5% tax on their fortunes, and the revenue—around $100 billion, according to supporters—would go toward counteracting the impacts of federal cuts to Medicaid and nutrition assistance approved last summer by congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump. Proponents of the billionaire tax note that more than 3 million Californians could lose healthcare coverage if the state doesn't act.
Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff at Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which is leading the campaign for the wealth tax, said the new ad "underscores the choice California faces—more tax breaks for billionaires, or keeping our hospitals open."
"It’s important to alert as many Californians as possible to the healthcare collapse that is looming, because it’s preventable if billionaires pay something closer to their fair share,” Jimenez added.
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Republican Unveils Bill to Let Billionaires Escape Proposed Wealth Tax in California
California's roughly 200 billionaires have more than $2 trillion collectively. Rep. Kevin Kiley said it's "unfair" to tax 5% of it to fund healthcare coverage for 3.4 million people at risk of losing it.
Feb 19, 2026
As Sen. Bernie Sanders barnstorms California to champion a proposed wealth tax on billionaires, a Republican congressman has joined the tech and crypto tycoons trying to stop the proposition in its tracks.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) United Healthcare Workers West, the union that launched the effort, is currently working to gather nearly 900,000 signatures by April get the proposal on the ballot.
If they're successful, Californians will have the chance to vote this November for a one-time 5% tax on people in the state with more than $1 billion, which is projected to raise about $100 billion over the next few years to support healthcare spending gutted by President Donald Trump.
Proponents of state or local tax increases on the rich have often had to face fears that their proposals will backfire, leading CEOs to flee the state to protect their riches.
Indeed, several of the state's billionaires have signaled that they may leave the state or pull assets if they are required to pay the tax—including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
California's proposal, however, avoids this problem by requiring any billionaire who resided in the state as of January 1, 2026, to pay the one-time tax, even if they move.
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) on Wednesday announced plans to introduce legislation that would protect these billionaires from any plans to "confiscate" their wealth if they decide to flee.
The bill prohibits California and any other state that may try something similar from imposing a retroactive tax on individuals who no longer reside there.
“California’s proposed wealth tax is an unprecedented attempt to chase down people who have already left as a result of the state’s poor policies,” Kiley said. “As a result, many of our state’s leading job creators are leaving preemptively. No state should be allowed to reach back in time and impose a new tax on someone who no longer lives there. That is fundamentally unfair.”
Proponents of the tax argue that the unequal distribution of wealth it's meant to address is quite a bit more "unfair" than a tax hike on the state's richest would be—especially after Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year handed a historically large tax break to the wealthiest 1% of Americans, while social services for the poor were cut across the board.
"Last year alone, after receiving the largest tax break in history, the 938 billionaires in America became $1.5 trillion richer," Sanders shouted to a booing crowd at a rally in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
He emphasized that the roughly 200 billionaires in California are collectively worth more than $2 trillion and that paying just a single 5% tax on their wealth would protect healthcare for more than 3.4 million people facing coverage losses due to federal Medicaid cuts.
Billionaires in the state have marshaled huge war chests and hired seasoned campaign veterans to promote rival ballot measures aimed at undercutting the wealth tax.
One committee, backed by Brin, has already raised $35 million from industry barons around the state, according to Politico. Crypto mogul Chris Larsen has dumped $2 million into Brin's committee and spent $5 million more to create his own.
Another committee is staffed by consultants associated with Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom—a likely 2028 presidential frontrunner who has also come out against the tax, warning that it would cause too great a drain on California's state treasury.
In remarks on the House floor introducing his bill, Kiley claimed that "$1 trillion has exited California simply in anticipation of this policy," though in reality, many billionaires have merely claimed they were preparing to leave without actually having done so yet.
Christopher Marquis and Nick Romeo explained in TIME on Wednesday that while this "tax-and-flee story" often spreads whenever a tax hike is proposed, it is "based on biased or sloppy arguments where anecdote replaces systematic evidence, correlation poses as causation, and every modest redistributive proposal is framed as an existential threat to prosperity."
They wrote that:
Discussion should not focus on whether one billionaire makes a threat, but on what the data show across years, across the tax base, and after real policy changes. According to the data analysis firm Altrata, there were over 33,000 New Yorkers worth $30 million or more as of 2025. Quoting some famous ones on either side of the issue makes for a good headline—but bad reasoning.
We should look instead to systematic studies, like this one by the Fiscal Policy Institute, which found no significant out-migration by residents of New York State in response to tax increases in either 2017 or 2021; the latter increase is estimated to raise approximately $3.6 billion annually.
Sanders said billionaires "lie a lot," noting that some wealthy New Yorkers pledged to flee the city if Zohran Mamdani—who also pledged to hike taxes on the rich—was elected mayor, threats that have largely not materialized.
"I'm sure these guys don't want to pay a few billion dollars more in taxes. But for them, in many ways, that is pocket change," Sanders said. "What they are saying is 'If you stand up to us... If you think it's more important that children get healthcare than that we get massive tax breaks, we are going to punish you... We're going to move. We're going to shut down businesses here.'"
He added: "All that the folks in California are saying is that at a time when the very rich are becoming phenomenally richer, when the very rich have been given a massive tax break by Donald Trump, when millions of people in this state are struggling to be able to afford healthcare, maybe billionaires should start paying their fair share of taxes."
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Sanders to Oligarchs Opposing California Billionaire Tax: 'You're Treading on Very, Very Thin Ice'
"Starting right here in California, these billionaires are going to learn that we are still living in a democratic society where the people have some power," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Feb 19, 2026
US Sen. Bernie Sanders used his appearance at a rally in Los Angeles on Wednesday to call out—in some cases by name—the billionaires using tiny slices of their fortunes to fight a proposed wealth tax in California.
"What I can tell the oligarchs is that the American people are sick and tired of their greed," Sanders (I-Vt.) told an enthusiastic audience gathered at The Wiltern theater, with members of the crowd donning "Tax the Billionaires" T-shirts. "They are sick and tired of people like Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, who is spending $20 million to defeat this tax on billionaires."
"It's not just Mr. Brin," the senator continued. "Mark Zuckerberg is the wealthiest man in California and the fourth-wealthiest person in the world, worth $226 billion. And for Mr. Zuckerberg, it is apparently not good enough to own one yacht. He had to buy three yachts worth $530 million. He had to buy 11 homes in Palo Alto to make a family compound. Mr. Zuckerberg, you can afford to pay your fair share of taxes so that people have healthcare."
The senator also condemned billionaires' fearmongering about the supposed negative impacts of wealth taxes and threats to flee the state if the levy proposed in California is enacted.
"I would say to these oligarchs: Be careful, because you are treading on very, very thin ice," said Sanders. "At a time when the very rich are becoming phenomenally richer, when the very rich have been given a massive tax break by Donald Trump, when millions of people in this state are struggling to be able to afford healthcare, maybe billionaires should start paying their fair share of taxes."
Sanders's remarks came as California organizers, led by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), continued their efforts to collect the roughly 875,000 signatures necessary to get the billionaire wealth tax proposal on the November ballot. Supporters of the proposal are facing opposition from some of the most powerful forces in California, including Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
If approved, the measure would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires living in California as of the start of 2026, with the revenue aimed at offsetting the impacts of federal Medicaid cuts on the state's healthcare system.
“Massive federal healthcare cuts could force many of our local hospitals and emergency rooms to close their doors forever—all because billionaires insist on paying lower tax rates than the rest of us,” Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff for SEIU-UHW, said at Wednesday's rally. “If we don’t act, hospitals and ERs across California will close, and patients will suffer."
"If we don’t act, millions of people will lose access to the healthcare services they rely on," Jimenez continued. "If we don’t act, our neighbors, our patients, and our loved ones will have to drive twice as far, and wait twice as long, to receive emergency care. And for what? So billionaires can have another yacht? I don’t think so!"
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