California Governor Gavin Newsom just called for a national billionaire tax, as he whined about "wealth inequality" and a lack of "democracy" in the economy in a nearly two-minute-long video posted to social media.
It's time for a national billionaires tax and a new social contract.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 26, 2026
10% of Americans own two-thirds of the wealth. Wages have stagnated. The cost of living has skyrocketed.
The system is fundamentally broken.
The federal tax code, a corporate code, and an inheritance code… pic.twitter.com/tLRbUId6yi
"It's time for a national billionaire's tax and a new social contract," Newsom said. "Think about this, just 10 percent of people, 10 percent of people in this country own two-thirds of the wealth."
The fact that just 10 percent of the population owns two-thirds of the wealth does not change the reality that this wealth was created from nothing, and that the standard of living for the poorest Americans has steadily improved for more than a century.
Yet prices keep climbing anyway, and Americans are becoming even more frustrated, especially in college, housing, medical care, and countless other sectors. Why is that? The dirty little secret Newsom would never acknowledge is that in industry after industry, the very government policies sold as solutions to lower costs are always the same ones that end up driving those costs higher.
Without fail, when government steps in with an active economic solution, it always makes costs go up.
"The system is fundamentally broken," the governor went on. "The federal tax code, the corporate tax code, and the inheritance tax code seem to be written for a different set of Americans. It's time for an economic reset, a true minimum tax, a true minimum tax on billionaires that, well, ensures the people at the very top pay at least the tax rate their own workers pay."
Then he made an appeal to America’s 250th birthday and to the Democrats’ favorite buzzword: democracy.
"We're nearing the 250th anniversary of this country's revolution," Newsom continued. "The system the American founders built, well, was designed to prevent the concentration of power in a few hands. But we've allowed that concentration to happen anyway, slowly and in plain sight over the course of decades and decades. But we can reverse it. We can reverse it together. It's time to democratize the American economy to save our democracy."
First, let’s be clear: the Founders overwhelmingly favored the free market. Competition does more than keep businesses in check; it prevents any one person, government, or even society at large from fully controlling the economy, while leaving people free to pursue their own happiness without interference from those who think they know better.
As for “democratizing the American economy,” the Founding Fathers did not trust democracy as a governing principle, let alone as a model for business. Democracy is an inherently flawed system that allows one uninformed voter to cancel out the judgment of a more informed one. Handing millions of Americans the power to decide how wealth should be distributed, regardless of their judgment or knowledge, would be a disaster of equal proportion. But of course, because the word “democracy” is used, many automatically treat it as some great virtue.
This comes as Newsom continues setting the stage for an inevitable presidential run. After Tuesday's socialist takeover in New York, it's clear the California governor can sense the changing tides and wants a piece for himself.