Billionaire Blues Fuels Dishonest Direct Mail

The envelope pretended that the unnamed Billionaires Tax was a tax on everyone, not the 246 people actually targeted by the ballot measure.

In last month’s California Red progressive tax column, “The unfathomably vast yet still growing level of California’s economic inequality” we learned that our state’s billionaires are busy making unintentional arguments for raising taxes on themselves. As Exhibit A, we heard the statement by tech mogul Tim Conway who, in speaking of the Billionaires Tax, described it as “…the greatest tragedy this state has ever felt”. We’re fairly certain that, say, Native Californians who suffered a genocide in the nineteenth century, falling from a third of a million people pre-contact, to fifteen thousand by 1910, might disagree with Conway’s historical viewpoint.

It would be hard to top this perspective for revelation of the navel-gazing narcissism of the billionaire set at the prospect they might have to pay their fair share of taxes to support the society that had made them rich, but at least it had the virtue of honesty, albeit of the self-delusional variety. No such sideways move accompanied billionaire activities earlier this month, when a large envelope landed in the letterboxes of homes across the state. 

Designed to mimic official state electoral mailers—the printing even said “OFFICIAL 2026 VOTER PETITION ENCLOSED”—it contained three elements: a flyer headed “Yes to Protect Retirement and Life Savings”; a petition for an initiative measure for the November state ballot; and an already-paid return envelope to send the filled-in petition to something called “Californians To Protect Retirement and Life Savings” at a Burbank P.O. Box. 

Reading between the lines

The outside of the mailer said, “Sign now to stop Sacramento politicians from taxing your personal property”. On the inside, the unnamed politicians pushing their unnamed tax on everyone were further chastised.

You would have to read between the lines, but two of the flyer’s three bolded bullets give away its actual agenda. One tells us that the ballot measure petition we are being urged to sign “prohibits new state taxes on personal savings, and personal property…” . The other “prohibits retroactive taxes”.  

The only proposed tax on personal savings and property, which is indeed designed to apply retroactively to January 1, 2026 (that much is true), is the Billionaires Tax, which will fall on the shoulders of precisely 246 people in the Golden State. Nonetheless the flyer argues that “Politicians should not be allowed to change the rules and tax what you have worked a lifetime to earn” (emphasis added). 

Despite the second person form of address, no one will be taxed by the Billionaires Tax unless he or she is a billionaire. However, the Billionaires Tax is not mentioned anywhere in the flyer. To do so might undercut the multiple deceptions at the heart of this mailer.

Part of the text of the flyer inside the mailer. Who exactly is the “you” here?

Worn and tattered economic blackmail banner

The BT is not emanating from scary Sacramento politicians. It is an effort spearheaded by a health care workers union, United Health Workers-SEIU, to plug the $20 billion per year hole opened up in the California state budget for Medi-Cal recipients by Trump’s HR1, the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”, beginning in 2027.  Should the Billionaires Tax fail to make it, with no other action taken, millions of the poorest Californians would lose their health care, and tens of thousands of decent union health care jobs would disappear as well. 

As for those unnamed but undoubtedly evil “Sacramento politicians” supposedly pushing the tax, Sacramento politician numero uno, Gavin Newsom, among many others, opposes the Billionaires Tax. His deeply unoriginal reasoning is the worn and tattered economic blackmail banner that always gets waved about by wealthy would-be tax dodgers—they’ll all leave the state! and take all the jobs with them!—which research has proven to be largely fallacious. 

The main argument—dishonest in form, as well as content—is the one that states that the proposed tax is on “you”—and since everyone hates taxes, or so it is assumed by the makers of the argument, “you” will become incensed and get to work opposing it. Here the authors of the mailer thoughtfully provide a petition for “you” to sign and return in a pre-paid envelope. (They must be hoping that the “you” is more than the 246 people who are actually the “you”.)

Certainly a handful of anti-social billionaires oppose the tax. It’s hard to imagine a more selfish perspective. According to the Billionaires Tax campaign website, “California billionaires have increased their wealth 158% over the last three years, making a 5% tax, spread over five years, truly negligible relative to their enormous gains.” In other words, this wealth tax doesn’t actually decrease billionaire wealth; it merely slows down its rampaging growth in order to save Medi-Cal. 

Tsunami of lies headed our way

The goal of this mailer and its petition is nullification of the Billionaires Tax, should it pass. Let’s be clear: the billionaires tax campaign hasn’t even finished gathering signatures, let alone qualified for the ballot, and, dare we mention the final hurdle, gained fifty percent plus one of the votes of the electorate. We are seven months from Election Day, and tens of millions of dollars in right wing billionaire money has already been dropped into our mailboxes and into credulous mainstream media stories breathlessly announcing the drain-circling our fourth largest economy in the world will undoubtedly suffer when all the billionaires leave. Imagine the tsunami of advertising, mailers and surrogates lying through their teeth all washing over us once the measure qualifies.

Lost in all the noise are two simple points. First, everyone, meaning the megarich too, needs to pay their fair share of taxes—Silicon Valley billionaires who have benefited hugely from Trump’s federal tax cuts included. Second, elections in a democracy should be decided on the basis of the merits of the argument—not dishonest scare tactics amplified by unlimited billionaire spending. Ironically, the dirty tricks already pulled by this campaign demonstrate that the billionaires behind it have more money than is good for truth, fair elections and their own better selves, should they actually have any. 

They might want to pay a bit more attention to the rising public perception that their political spending is bad for democracy. They might then decide it’s in their own interest too to pay their fair share to support the basic public services needed by the rest of us. As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it over a century ago, taxes are “the price we pay for a civilized society”.