Bernie Sanders and Gavin Newsom become adversaries billionaire tax

Bernie Sanders is coming to Los Angeles to campaign for a proposed “billionaires tax” that has set off an uproar in the Silicon Valley and led to divisions among Democrats

LOS ANGELES -- As national Democrats search for a unifying theme ahead of the fall's midterm elections, a California proposal to levy a hefty tax on billionaires is turning some of the party’s leading figures into adversaries just when Democrats can least afford division from within.

Bernie Sanders will be in Los Angeles campaigning Wednesday for the tax proposal that has the Silicon Valley in an uproar, with tech titans are threatening to leave the state. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is among its outspoken opponents, warning that it could leave government finances in crisis and put the state at a competitive disadvantage nationally.

Sanders is planning a late afternoon rally near downtown, and in the past he has turned out overflow crowds in the heavily Democratic city. The Vermont senator, a democratic socialist, is popular in California — he won the 2020 Democratic presidential primary in the state in a runaway. He’s been railing for decades against what he characterizes as wealthy elites and the growing gap between rich and poor.

A large health care union is attempting to place a proposal before voters in November that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires — including stocks, art, businesses, collectibles and intellectual property — to backfill federal funding cuts to health services for lower-income people that were signed by President Donald Trump last year.

Sanders wrote on the social platform X that he strongly supports the tax “at a time of unprecedented and growing wealth and income inequality.”