The consultant who once warned that California\u2019s richest poured millions into politics because they had something to gain is now helping billionaires fight a tax on their fortunes.<\/p>\n
\n
Ned Wigglesworth, who decried the \u201cbillionaire boys\u2019 club of politics\u201d as a campaign finance reformer decades ago, is a key strategist behind Building a Better California, the political organization opposing Proposition 40, the November ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on Californians worth at least $1 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The campaign has already pulled big Silicon Valley money\u2014Google cofounder Sergey Brin alone contributed over $100 million to the group, with venture capitalist John Doerr and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen also putting money into committees fighting the tax. Building a Better California has also reserved $87 million worth of advertising ahead of the vote.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear what led Wigglesworth from opposing the political influence of California\u2019s wealthy to helping them defeat a tax targeting their wealth. The San Francisco Standard called him a \u201cbillionaire whisperer\u201d while citing several interviews with anonymous colleagues of his who described him as a creature of Sacramento lobbying. His LinkedIn profile shows him at several communications firms: founding partner and CEO of Spectrum Campaigns for the past 10-plus years, and previously a partner at Redwood Pacific Public Affairs, Vice President at Goddard Claussen\/West and Vice President at the California Medical Association. Presumably, Wigglesworth\u2019s clients have migrated from less to more billionaire-friendly over time; he did not respond to Fortune<\/em>\u2018s requests for comment.<\/p>\nBut the arc of Wigglesworth\u2019s career reflects a tension that has long percolated through California politics: the Golden State state has produced extraordinary concentrations of wealth and a political appetite for taxing it while relying on the wealthy people and companies behind that prosperity.<\/p>\n
Gov. Gavin Newsom has been caught in this bind, both an opponent of the billionaire tax and yet an advocate for reducing inequality as it\u2019s become a potent issue for Democrats. Newsom has proposed higher taxes on the ultrawealthy at the federal level and argued that California needs to\u00a0 \u201cdemocratize our economy\u201d amid the rhetoric of AI-related job loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a campaign finance watchdog two decades before the billionaire tax proposition, Wigglesworth warned Californians about what happened when wealthy donors flooded politics with cash. \u201cThere\u2019s some very wealthy and powerful special interests who have enough at stake to spend 150 million bucks ,to either defend their turf or improve their bottom line,\u201d Wigglesworth said in 2005. \u201cThese people aren\u2019t spending money out of some benevolent sense of improving societal good, improving the public good. This is about people fighting for their piece of the pie.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn other words,\u201d Wigglesworth wrote in a 2007 Capitol Weekly<\/em> column, \u201cthey give because they get.\u201d<\/p>\nCalifornia\u2019s wealth tax battle offers an especially vivid test of Wigglesworth\u2019s (onetime) thesis. Prop. 40 would hit roughly 200 billionaires who lived in California as of Jan. 1 with a one-time levy equal to 5% of their wealth. Supporters say the measure could generate around $100 billion, with most of the proceeds earmarked for health care after federal Medicaid cuts.<\/p>\n
But for the billionaires affected, the potential bills are enormous, with Brin reportedly owing $13 billion if the measure passes. He and fellow Google cofounder Larry Page moved out of California before the Jan. 1 cutoff and have since amassed roughly $225 million in Miami real estate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tax has also sparked public sparring over whether California risks driving away the people who pay an outsized chunk of its bills, with nearly half of the state\u2019s personal income tax revenue coming from the top 1%. Gov. Gavin Newsom opposed the measure on those grounds. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla said he has no plans to leave California, but has warned the state could permanently damage its tax base if wealthy residents flee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sums involved today dwarf even the spending Wigglesworth was warning about more than 20 years ago. California\u2019s 15 richest billionaires had poured more than $336 million into state and federal elections this year, with Brin, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and Larsen accounting for $331 million of the total.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#consultant #criticized #billionaire #boys #club #helps #oppose #Californias #wealth #tax<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The consultant who once warned… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[274,479,582,631,655,3508,6025,6026,1028,3960,227,81],"class_list":["post-3324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-billionaire","tag-billionaires","tag-boys","tag-california","tag-californias","tag-club","tag-consultant","tag-criticized","tag-helps","tag-oppose","tag-tax","tag-wealth"],"yoast_head":"\n
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