The billionaire tax is on the ballot. There will be no backroom deal to keep it off. 

The fact that the SEIU’s Dave Regan even tried to use the billionaire tax as negotiating leverage to force other changes shows how cynical the union bosses have become. 

They treat the rest of us as pawns.

Gavin Newsom did nothing to stop the billionaire tax, or even to oppose it. Sure, he claimed he was against it. What he really opposed was all the billionaires fleeing to other states. 

On Friday, he proposed a nationwide billionaire tax, so California’s rich would have nowhere else to go.

Does he think billionaires haven’t figured out how to move their wealth to other countries?

One backroom deal that did, in fact, take place was an agreement to require a two-thirds majority for all new real estate transfer taxes at the local level, not just a simple majority.

That’s the result of an agreement by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) with Democrats in Sacramento.

HJTA, which exists to protect the cap on property taxes that passed as Proposition 13 in 1978, has been fighting a wave of local real estate taxes, like LA’s Measure ULA, the “mansion tax.”

It put an initiative on the November ballot to cap local transfer taxes at a pitifully low rate.

There was a real chance it would have passed. That’s why socialists like Nithya Raman started talking about reforming Measure ULA — lest they lose it altogether.

Democrats countered HJTA with their own ballot initiative — to make initiatives harder to pass.

At the last second, there was a compromise. HJTA agreed to remove its ballot initiative, and in return Democrats agreed to raise the threshold to pass new local real estate transfer taxes.

That means fewer tax increases in future. So taxpayers scored a rare win in Sacramento. 

Californians will vote on the new proposition, which has yet to be given a number, in November.

The deal does not, however, change Measure ULA — the original motivation for HJTA’s effort.

Oh, well. LA will have to sort that one out on its own.

It is deeply disturbing that so much of our state’s tax policy is made in backroom deals.

The legislative process, and the ballot initiatives, are all a show. The real action is behind the scenes.

At least, this time, taxpayers appear to have come out ahead. Rare indeed.

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