Public employee unions in California are organizing a ballot measure seeking to authorize what is being advertised as a one-time (haha) 5% tax on billionaire wealth. The SEIU wants to use billionaires’ wealth to plug holes in the state’s bloated budget. Bloomberg’s Ben Steverman and Biz Carson report:

California billionaires would face a one-time 5% tax on their wealth through a ballot initiative that advocates say could bring in about $100 billion to cover state health-care costs.

The proposed levy, which faces significant hurdles before adoption, would target about 200 California residents worth $1 billion or more. Supported by a health-care workers’ union, the tax is being framed as a way to counteract federal funding cuts.

Four of the top 10 richest people in the world live in California, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms Inc., Jensen Huang of Nvidia Corp. and Alphabet Inc. co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin together worth more than $840 billion. If eligible for the tax at current valuations, they alone could owe more than $40 billion combined.

Read more here.