California's Billionaires Have Been Living Their Best Life—Time for Working People to Redistribute the Pain

Photo Credit: Adam Gray / Stringer / via Getty

Statement from the Ramsey4Gov Campaign

California's 194 billionaires are fighting tooth and nail to kill a one-time $100 billion tax while working people can't afford rent, healthcare, or groceries. Governor Gavin Newsom is leading the effort, choosing the billionaire class over working families. Meanwhile Democrat congressman Ro Khanna supports the tax but calls it an "anti-revolution tax" to save capitalism. Neither understands what working people need: permanent taxation that funds housing, healthcare, jobs, and education as guaranteed rights—not one-time relief we have to beg for every decade.

A proposal to tax California's billionaires 5% one time would raise $100 billion for healthcare, education and food assistance. This one-time tax could be paid over a five-year period starting 2027. In the face of federal cuts to Medicaid, working people need that relief now. Any effort that forces billionaires to give back wealth stolen from workers deserves support. Every voter should vote “YES” on any billionaire tax measure. But we also know that a one-time tax will not meet the scale of the affordability crisis in California, let alone transform the system. In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood with Memphis sanitation workers and declared it was time to "redistribute the pain." Nearly sixty years later, billionaires have been living their best life while working families struggle—and it's time we build a movement to make billionaire wealth taxes permanent.

Why One-Time Taxes Don’t Meet the Scale of the Problem

Healthcare costs won't stop skyrocketing in 2027. Housing profiteering continues every month. The climate crisis intensifies every year. A single $100 billion payment can't fund the permanent programs working families need to survive.

More importantly, one-time taxes don't touch billionaire power. After paying 5%, California's billionaires still control over $1 trillion and the political system they bought with it. They'll still control California's economy, still extract wealth from workers' labor, still fund politicians who help the rich get richer. Emergency redistribution is necessary—but it's not transformation.

We need permanent, ongoing taxation that funds housing as a right, universal healthcare, guaranteed union jobs, and free education—not temporary relief we have to beg for every few years. Ramsey’s platform calls for real, permanent solutions to these issues. 

We Don’t Need Billionaires

Working people make California rich, not billionaires. If a billionaire wants to leave California, we won't stop them. We know who will stay: the farmworkers in the Central Valley who grow our food, the teachers who educate our children, the tech workers who build the tools that power the world, the construction workers who frame our homes, the warehouse workers who keep goods moving. It's 40 million working people who make California run—not 194 billionaires.

Our Program: Permanent Transformation, Not Temporary Relief

Ramsey Robinson's campaign is building the working-people’s movement to permanently redistribute wealth and power. Our program doesn't ask billionaires nicely—it organizes workers— to take back what we create.

We'll tax billionaires and corporations enough to permanently fund:

• 1.4 million units of public housing with rent capped at 20% of income

• Universal single-payer healthcare free at point of service for everyone

• Guaranteed union jobs at $30/hour minimum for every worker

• Free childcare and free education through college

• Free publicly-owned renewable power and free transit statewide

Power redistribution, not just money:

• A constitutionally-guaranteed affordable cost of living

• Ban all corporate donations, lobbying, and ballot measure spending

• Ban corporate landlords

• State Department of Anti-Discrimination run by elected representatives from marginalized communities with power to block racist, sexist, homophobic laws

This isn't emergency relief—it's a new economic foundation where working people permanently take back a portion of the wealth we create for us all.

Democrats Choose Billionaires Over Working Families

Governor Gavin Newsom—a multimillionaire winery and hotel owner with deep ties to the Getty family fortune—calls taxing billionaires "really damaging" and warns they'll flee California. He's working behind the scenes to kill the measure before it reaches the ballot, protecting the billionaire class he belongs to.

Newsom's claim that billionaires will leave is propaganda designed to scare working people into accepting poverty. Massachusetts raised taxes on millionaires and their millionaire population grew 39%. Stanford research proves the wealthy move at one-quarter the rate of working people. Billionaires threaten to leave—then they stay and keep getting richer off our work.

When Newsom says he'll "do what he has to do to protect the state," he means protect billionaires. He vetoed heat protections for farmworkers but rushes to defend tech oligarchs from a 5% tax. His wealth comes from aligning with the wealthy, not working families.

Congressman Ro Khanna supports the billionaire tax but calls it an "anti-revolution tax" to "save capitalism from itself." He thinks modest redistribution will convince billionaires to accept reform and preserve the system. But tech billionaires are trying to primary him with millions from Peter Thiel, forming WhatsApp chats calling him a traitor, proving his theory wrong in real time. The billionaire class will fight every challenge to their power—modest or transformative—because they understand what's at stake: the entire system that produces their wealth.

"Progressive capitalism" is a fantasy. You can't reform away a system built on exploitation. History proves this: when FDR tried, capitalists plotted a coup against him. Today's billionaires—Peter Thiel, Larry Page, Palmer Luckey—threaten to leave California rather than pay 5% once. Their threats reveal the truth: they'll use every weapon to protect the wealth they hoard.

Who Benefits from Division

The billionaire class uses racism, xenophobia, and fear to divide working people. They want white workers blaming immigrants, men blaming women, straight workers dismissing LGBTQ struggles—because when we're divided, they win. When we unite across race, gender, and immigration status to fight the billionaire class together, we build the power to put people and the planet before their profits.

California's 194 billionaires vs. 40 million working people. Whose side are you on?

Take Action Now

Vote YES on any billionaire tax measure that makes the ballot. Emergency relief matters—people need healthcare and food funded now.

Join millions of Californians building an independent working-people's movement:

Most Californians support taxing billionaires to fund our basic needs. We're fed up with billionaire greed and the Democrats who protect them. When you organize with us, you're part of the majority ready to fight back.

• Register Peace & Freedom Party at ramsey4gov.com—the party of working people, not billionaires

• Get involved: Volunteer to build working-people power in your neighborhood

• Donate: Support the only 100% working-class funded campaign—no corporate money, no billionaire donors

One-time taxes provide relief. Permanent wealth taxation builds power. We need both. Support emergency measures AND elect socialists who will transform the system at its root.

The wealth belongs to the people who create it. It's time we organize to take it back.

— Ramsey Robinson

Socialist Candidate for Governor

Peace & Freedom Party, 2026