{"id":823,"date":"2026-07-08T14:37:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T14:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=823"},"modified":"2026-07-08T14:37:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T14:37:52","slug":"what-does-newsoms-wealth-tax-flip-flop-portend-for-single-payer-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=823","title":{"rendered":"What Does Newsom\u2019s Wealth Tax Flip-Flop Portend For Single-Payer Health Care?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Will one policy flip-flop beget another? That\u2019s the question facing the governor of the nation\u2019s largest state as he ponders his political future.<\/p>\n

Read more IG Report Reveals $36K Smithsonian Exhibit Spread Hamas Propaganda About US Blowing Up Gazan Homes<\/a><\/p>\n

Gavin Newsom, D-French Laundry, who has opposed an initiative on the November ballot imposing a wealth tax in California, recently\u00a0announced his support\u00a0for passing a wealth tax nationwide. All this political straddling raises another obvious question: If \u2014 more like when \u2014 Newsom runs for president in 2028, what exactly will he do regarding single-payer health care?<\/p>\n

November Ballot Measure<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The California wealth tax initiative made it to the ballot due to efforts by the SEIU-Health Care Workers West. The\u00a0ballot measure\u00a0would impose a one-time, 5 percent tax on the net worth of California residents worth more than $1 billion, to help backfill the loss of federal revenue from the\u00a0purported health care \u201ccuts\u201d\u00a0Congress enacted last year.<\/p>\n

The measure brings with it obvious drawbacks. As currently constituted, the initiative will only lead to a one-time fillip of funds for California. But the prospect that its passage will prompt supporters to seek its renewal has already prompted several wealthy Californians to\u00a0move to other states, to avoid the potential tax should the initiative pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California\u2019s state budget is already highly dependent on revenue from tech executives. And the prospect that an exodus of one-percenters could blow a huge hole in the state budget prompted Newsom not just to oppose the state wealth tax, but to\u00a0enlist other leftist groups \u2014 including unions representing teachers and carpenters, and even Planned Parenthood \u2014 to line up against the health care union\u2019s ballot measure.<\/p>\n

But as soon as the deadline to keep the wealth tax off the November ballot passed, Newsom undertook a crafty pivot. While he said he would oppose a California-only wealth tax because it would lead to migration away from the Golden State, he\u00a0suddenly endorsed\u00a0a wealth tax on the federal level as a means to \u201csave democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appeasing \u201cBig Tech\u201d and \u201cBig Woke\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A federal wealth tax brings with it numerous obstacles, starting with its questionable constitutionality. (\u201cDirect taxes\u201d must be imposed on states according to population.) It also raises questions about its implementation \u2014 would people receive refunds in years when the stock market tanks and their wealth suddenly declines? \u2014 and the same concerns about people moving overseas to circumvent the tax that Newsom has raised about wealthy Californians moving to other states.<\/p>\n

Yet none of those questions stopped Newsom from suddenly endorsing a wealth tax that he has heretofore avoided like the plague.\u00a0Politico\u00a0noted\u00a0that the endorsement of a federal wealth tax \u201cwas a classic move by the California governor: Seize the news cycle with a splashy announcement in an effort to reframe the conversation on his own terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Leftist Lawfare Group Looks To \u2018Silence\u2019 Political Speech<\/a><\/p>\n

The editorial board of The\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0claimed\u00a0that the governor \u201cis trying to walk a line between his Silicon Valley donors and his party\u2019s ascendant left wing.\u2026Mr. Newsom is trying to keep Silicon Valley donors in his corner by opposing the state wealth tax. But at the same time he\u2019s abetting the union campaign by parroting their arguments.\u201d (Of particular note: after a January 2024\u00a0Journal\u00a0editorial\u00a0associated Newsom with a state-level wealth tax, the governor griped publicly: \u201cAre you supporting a wealth tax? No, yet again. Why the h\u2014 do you keep writing about that?\u201d)<\/p>\n

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif,, another potential 2028 candidate, put Newsom\u2019s evolving\u00a0positions\u00a0on a wealth tax more bluntly: \u201cThat\u2019s like saying I was for it before I was against it, and it\u2019s total flip flopping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whither Single-Payer?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

All these attempts to turn himself into a political version of Burger King (\u201chave it your way\u201d) make one wonder how Gavin Newsom will address single-payer health care during a possible presidential campaign. As I\u00a0recently noted, Newsom won his first campaign for governor in 2018 on a\u00a0pledge to enact single-payer\u00a0in California \u2014 notwithstanding the fact that Donald Trump, during his first term as president, could veto any waivers California needed for federal funding to make a state-based system financially viable.<\/p>\n

More recently, however, Newsom has effectively\u00a0entered the Witness Protection Program\u00a0regarding the issue. Under\u00a0legislation\u00a0that Newsom signed, his administration was supposed to develop a waiver application seeking federal approval for a unified health care financing system like single-payer. But the\u00a0\u00a0his administration commissioned \u2014 released over a year after its due date\u2014didn\u2019t come close to meeting the requirements of that law, and his own Department of Health and Human Services doesn\u2019t even mention that report\u00a0on its own website.<\/p>\n

The socialist left views single-payer health care as one of its shibboleths \u2014 something that politicians from Bernie Sanders to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Zohran Mamdani all endorse. So how will a Newsom presidential campaign address the issue? If he endorses it at the federal level, how will he explain how he failed to do the bare minimum to advance the left\u2019s big cause during two terms running the nation\u2019s largest state? If he suddenly opposes single-payer, how will he justify running away from an issue that is arguably the reason he got elected Governor of California and became a major presidential candidate in the first place?<\/p>\n

Kamala Harris\u00a0found out\u00a0about the problems associated with trying to have it every which way on health care during her campaign for President in 2019. Her flip-flopping on the issue\u2014first she\u00a0supported single-payer, then she opposed Sanders\u2019 bill, then she\u00a0supported\u00a0a\u00a0single-payer plan, but one that wouldn\u2019t take full effect until after she had left the presidency \u2014 brought to mind the old saw that the only creature in the center of the road is roadkill.\u00a0Her California colleague Newsom should bear in mind this recent history. Given all his waffling over a wealth tax, it seems increasingly likely that he could face a similar fate in the 2028 presidential primaries when it comes to single-payer.<\/p>\n

Read more Exclusive: Wisconsin \u2018Loophole\u2019 Imperils Secret Ballots<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will one policy flip-flop beget another? That\u2019s the question facing the governor of the nation\u2019s largest state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[521,524,432,1818,2569],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-care","tag-california","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-kamala-harris","tag-newsom","tag-wealth-tax"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Does Newsom\u2019s Wealth Tax Flip-Flop Portend For Single-Payer Health Care? - Property Transition Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=823\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Does Newsom\u2019s Wealth Tax Flip-Flop Portend For Single-Payer Health Care? - Property Transition Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Will one policy flip-flop beget another? 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