The Ugly Nature of California’s Wealth Tax (Proposition 40)
When you hear the words "billionaire wealth tax," what comes to mind? Fairness? Justice? Maybe even compassion? Those are the words supporters of Proposition 40 want you to think about.
But today, I want to argue that this ballot measure isn't fundamentally about taxes at all. Instead, it’s about how we view success, excellence, and human flourishing. Does a healthy society celebrate those who build extraordinary things, or does it punish them? Should government encourage more people to pursue greatness, or should it limit those who have already achieved it?
These are the questions at the heart of Proposition 40, and I believe they're questions every Californian, and every Christian, should answer before casting their vote this November.
Proposition 40 – The Billionaire Tax
The very first proposition we are covering together is none other than the Billionaire Wealth Tax! If you remember, I covered this back in February when it was in the initial stages of raising signatures to get on the ballot. Unfortunately, it did raise enough signatures, and we will be voting on it come November!
As a reminder of the terms of this proposition, Prop. 40 lays out the following: “Billionaires living in California on January 1, 2026, would have to pay a one-time state tax equal to 5 percent of their net worth. The tax would be due in 2027.”[1] So, what is being proposed is a one-time tax of 5% on the total assets minus liabilities of anyone in California who had wealth of $1 billion or more at the start of this year.
Now, if you have questions about what a wealth tax is, what this practically means, and the effects it would have on California – you should absolutely go read my previous article where I break all of that down (Democrats Divided Over California’s Wealth Tax! on February 26th, 2026). Those are not the points I want to reiterate today – instead, I want to speak directly to the underlying motivations behind a wealth tax, and why by design this is something we should reject. I want us to explore why so many people in our state believe this is morally good, because underneath Proposition 40 isn't simply a tax proposal, but is a political philosophy and framework for viewing the world that truly matters and needs to be addressed.
You may have seen a speech by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on political terrorism circulating this month. In it, he states that radical leftist ideology is:
“…a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice and liberation, an overwhelming need to tear down what greater men have built, to wreck what is beautiful and what is right on behalf of people who are only filled with ugliness and have nothing else to offer the world.”[2]
Listen to what he goes on to say, because this relates exactly to what we will talk about today:
“One of the criticisms you sometimes hear of communism, for example, is that it sounds good in theory, but it never works in practice. That’s actually not true. Communism does not sound good in theory. The world it envisions for all of us is small, flat, grey, leveled of all exception, drained of all that is good and noble in the human soul. The world it envisions is a world without courage, a world without creativity or ambition, a world without heroes or glory or great causes to strive towards, a world without miracles, without myths, without men who rise above the rest to do incredible and extraordinary things. And the world communism envisions is a world without God.”[3]
So, here’s the question: When someone creates extraordinary wealth, is that something society should encourage, or something government should confiscate simply because it's too much?
Creating Wealth is a Form of Excellence
Let’s lay the foundation. Is creating wealth a good thing? That might sound like an odd question, but it's actually the question underneath this entire proposition.
If wealth itself is something bad, if becoming extraordinarily successful is somehow immoral, then of course it makes sense to tax it for the public good. But, if creating wealth is actually a good thing, then Proposition 40 is asking us to punish something we ought to instead celebrate and pursue.
Here’s the thing: wealth doesn't just appear out of thin air. In a free society, wealth takes work. It is often created by solving problems, meeting needs, inventing products, and serving other people on a massive scale. It meets supply and demand – those who create the supply for the demand benefit from their accomplishments. And what is the alternative? Should they not benefit from those accomplishments?
Think about what it actually takes to build a successful business. Someone has an idea, they risk their own savings, they often work eighty-hour plus weeks, they take on debt and risk, and they face years of uncertainty with no guarantee they'll ever succeed. Honestly, most businesses fail! It is far easier to be an employee of an already-successful company, earn a stable income, work reliable hours, and not risk your time or livelihood. But when businesses are successful, it means that someone has created something that millions of people freely choose to buy.
People look at the founders of companies like Apple or Amazon or Google and despise them for how wealthy they are – but that overlooks the fact that no one is forced to buy an iPhone, or to shop on Amazon, or to use Google or Netflix. Every dollar those companies – and by association their founders – earn come from millions of voluntary decisions by consumers who buy their goods or services precisely because they believe that are getting something valuable in return. If Jeff Bezos created a company that literally gets goods to your door in one day or less, which is used by millions of people not just in America but around the world – why shouldn’t he make money from that invention? Why wouldn’t the hours and months and years of work be repaid when it proves to be a huge success?
Where this concept breaks down is when we think of wealth as a fixed pie – this is a popular narrative on the Left, meaning the only way someone becomes rich is by taking a bigger slice from everyone else. That is not true! Some of the wealthiest people among us, including people the Left despise like Elon Musk and President Trump, have created value that didn’t exist before them, and have driven forward innovation that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. They build companies, hire employees, pay suppliers, develop innovations, and produce goods and services that improve people's lives. Society isn't poorer because someone creates a successful business and then profits from it, society is richer because of it!
All of this is to prove the point that creating wealth is not inherently evil but is a form of excellence.
Excellence Blesses Society
The point that naturally follows is that excellence blesses society. I just explained part of this – as companies form and succeed, they meet needs by consumers. They provide services that you use! They create goods that didn’t exist that serve to make your life easier. Think about the technologies you used before you even left the house this morning! You likely have a phone that you used as an alarm clock, you made coffee in some sort of coffee maker, you drove a car to work or to the gym or to the grocery store, you drove that car on roads that were paved and accessible to you. Even right now you have internet connection which you're using to read this article! All of these are the direct downstream result of innovation and advancement, which is the primary creator of wealth.
This is how civilization advances! Wealth is often a byproduct for the people doing the innovating, a happy consequence of their hard work. But the real gain is contributing meaningfully to society and humanity! If everyone does exactly the same thing equally well and earns the exact same amount of wealth as a result, we do not get this degree of advancement. But when we recognize that people are different, and it is good for each person to develop their gifts to whatever degree and capacity is possible for them, then we pursue, incentivize, and ultimately benefit from that excellence.
A truly flourishing, healthy, moral civilization doesn't ask, "How do we make sure no one generates too much wealth or success?" Instead, it seeks to cultivate more and more people who can hone their gifts to bless others around them in this way.
Envy Reframes Excellence as Injustice
Proposition 40 does not cultivate this. The key problem with this ballot measure is that it treats extraordinary success as a problem that ought to be punished. If you are “too wealthy” in the eyes of the state, then you have done something to be ashamed of and should hand it over.
Scripture has a name for this. It's called envy.
Right off the bat, we need to make an important distinction: envy is different from justice. If someone becomes wealthy through fraud, exploitation, or theft, that's an issue of justice. Wrongdoing should be exposed, victims should be made whole, and the law should hold people accountable. But envy asks a different question. Envy isn't troubled because someone did wrong to achieve success, it’s just troubled because someone has more. Justice asks, “Were rights violated, or laws broken?” whereas envy says, “Why should they have something I don’t?”
A society that pursues and creates an incentive structure for envy cannot rejoice in another person's blessing or accomplishment; it would rather go to drastic lengths to tear someone down rather than celebrate what is good. This is what a wealth tax does. It looks at people over a certain asset threshold and says, “You shouldn’t have that much.” Why? What is the rationale given? Simply because others don’t have the same amount. That doesn’t seem fair or reasonable, and that is not a framework that is going to encourage more people to build successful companies, produce more entrepreneurs, or create more jobs.
But the danger in all of this is that envy has a remarkable ability to disguise itself as virtue. It rarely introduces itself by saying, "I resent your success." Instead, it borrows the language of fairness, equality, justice, and redistribution. So, people go along with it. Well-meaning Californians champion the wealth tax because they believe it really is a matter of fairness and justice!
But the wealth tax is not built on noble goals. These terms are a mask for the belief that if I cannot rise to your level, then perhaps you should be brought down to mine. So, not everyone who supports Proposition 40 is motivated personally by envy. But we have to be clear and honest about the true motivations and beliefs that have taken our society captive, deceived many, and decayed our moral foundations away from what is beautiful and good.
A Civilization that Punishes Excellence Gets Less of it
So then, what king of civilization should we be trying to build? This conversation really isn't ultimately about billionaires, but it is about what kind of people California wants to produce. What we reward as a state – and as a society – is what we get more of. So, do we want to create more builders, inventors, entrepreneurs, and success stories? If so, then we must celebrate them, not punish them.
Proposition 40 tells every young entrepreneur, every future inventor, every ambitious college student that there comes a point where your success makes you problematic and starts becoming something the state will try to strip away from you. This is what I loved most in Secretary Rubio’s speech: “The world it envisions for all of us is small, flat, grey, leveled of all exception, drained of all that is good and noble in the human soul…a world without courage, creativity or ambition, heroes or glory or great causes to strive towards…without men who rise above the rest to do incredible and extraordinary things.”[4]
Great civilizations do not fear greatness! They cultivate the pursuit of excellence and extraordinary commitment and refuse to resent success. This is what we need more of in California. We need more freedom to pursue excellence, greater reward for those who work hard and rise above, and less regulatory and political control over those who are exceptional.
We will not drive forward this kind of culture if we pass Proposition 40. We will continue to pursue the small, flat, grey world where men are too afraid or see no value in rising above the rest to do incredible things.
Pursue Excellence & Steward Wealth
What then is the message we should be teaching about wealth? It is not to idolize wealth, or even to encourage people to pursue riches. Instead, the message is to pursue excellence, and to steward what results from that excellence.
Scripture never idolizes wealth, but neither does it demonize it. We are warned against sins like greed, arrogance, and the love of money – and so we must guard our hearts from chasing earthly possessions or monetary gain as a means to our happiness or soul satisfaction. But all blessings come from the hand of God, which means your individual responsibility is gratitude and stewardship.
Christianity doesn't teach us to resent those who have been entrusted with much; rather, it teaches that those entrusted with much will answer to God for how they used it. We should cultivate values in our society that respect humility and thankfulness for the blessings a person is given and encourage good use of those blessings.
After all, human beings can create, innovate, and achieve extraordinary things in the first place because we are created in the image of God! And we are only able to be successful because He gives us common grace in our society that allows human flourishing. From the very beginning, God gave Adam and Eve a calling: to fill the earth, work it, and steward what He had created. He gives us the same calling today.
This is where the Christian worldview offers something different from both greed and envy. Greed says, "What I have belongs only to me." Envy says, "What you have should be taken away because you have too much." But stewardship says, "Everything I have ultimately belongs to God, and I am responsible for using it faithfully." Whether we have much or little in terms of monetary possessions, we are all called to faithfully develop the gifts God has given us and to pursue what is right.
This kind of society, a society grounded in the moral framework of accountability, does not worship billionaires, but it also does not hate them. It instead encourages billionaires to act with integrity, to create value, and to bless others. Then, it encourages those of us who are not billionaires to celebrate excellence, to pursue righteousness, and to answer to God for our own actions and heart motivations.
What This Means Practically
Bringing it to the practical to round this all out: this does not mean that all billionaires are good, excellent, or moral. But taxing billionaires to redistribute their wealth in ways that the state defines as good, excellent, and moral is not the answer to that problem. A wealth tax will not eliminate poverty, and it will not prevent greed. It will not satisfy the masses who are discontent with their financial situation and envious of billionaires in their state. It will not heal our culture or encourage greatness.
And so, to steal once more the words of Secretary Rubio: One of the criticisms you hear of a wealth tax is that it sounds good in theory, but it never works in practice. But that is not true. A wealth tax does not sound good in theory. The California it envisions for all of us is small, flat, grey, leveled of all exception, drained of all that is good and noble in the human soul.
If you want to live in a state where extraordinary people are encouraged to extraordinary things, then the choice is clear: vote no on Proposition 40.
References:
[1] Legislative Analyst’s Office, “New Tax on the Wealth of Billionaires. [Ballot],” December 11, 2025, https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Initiative/2025-024.
[2] United States Department of State. “Remarks at the Opening of the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism - United States Department of State,” July 16, 2026. https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/07/remarks-at-the-opening-of-the-ministerial-on-the-resurgence-of-political-terrorism.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
