Make California Post a Preferred Source Voters rejected the “billionaire tax” in California — but approved a variety of other taxes, especially at the local level.
It was a remarkable result in an election in which voters constantly said that the cost of living was the top concern.
California politicians complain about “affordability,” then make the state more unaffordable. And with Democrats, there are almost never any controls on spending, no careful management of funds, no accountability to the taxpayers. Their only solution to every fiscal crunch is: Raise taxes.
Voters prepare their ballots during the midterm election at California State University, Los Angeles, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. ZUMAPRESS.com Here’s just a partial list of local results.
In San Francisco, voters passed Measure H, which creates an annual parcel tax on local property to fund the city’s ailing Muni transport system. Voters in the broader Bay Area also chose to raise sales taxes through Measure RTM to fund BART and other transit agencies.
In San Diego, voters appear to have passed Measure B, which raise county sales taxes by 0.5%, some of which would supposedly go toward health services.
In Los Angeles, voters passed Measure FD, which will raised sales taxes in the city by 0.5% to provide funding to the fire department that the city should arguably be providing already.
That’s on top of the 0.5% sales tax that voters passed in LA County in June, which was sold as a way to pay for local health care services.
Even in formerly conservative Orange County, voters passed sales tax and hotel tax hikes in some towns.
What’s remarkable about these results is that voters weren’t raising taxes on other people, in most cases, but rather on themselves.
It could be that the same “blue wave” that brought left-wing voters to the polls also resulted in more tax hikes.
The lights of Downtown Los Angeles buildings turn on at sunset in an aerial view taken from a helicopter on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016. Getty Images But that cannot explain the fact that the billionaire tax failed.
Maybe the billionaires who opposed Proposition 40 did a better job of explaining the consequences to voters.
Somehow there is a disconnect in voters’ minds between voting for higher sales taxes on Election Day, and paying more for groceries every other day.
Proponents of local sales tax hikes are good at explaining what the money is for, in theory. Who wouldn’t want the fire department to have more equipment?
But voters rarely hear the other side of the argument: That LA could fund the fire department if it hadn’t wasted billions on homeless services that made no impact whatsoever.
Whatever the reason, California voters need to understand they are making their own lives more expensive.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has been a lone voice defending Proposition 13 — which limits property tax hikes — for decades.
It’s time for other California leaders to step up and say: enough.
