Not another tax on California\u2019s most productive citizens. Labor unions in Los Angeles are proposing a ballot initiative called the \u201cOverpaid CEO Tax.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The effort is sponsored by the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which partners<\/a> with the United Teachers of Los Angeles, UNITE HERE Local 11 (tourism workers) and other unions that have helped make life more unaffordable and public schools even worse.<\/p>\n The campaign explains<\/a> the initiative, if passed, \u201cwould progressively tax large businesses whose CEOs make more than 50 times what their median worker makes.\u201d The higher the ratio, the higher the tax. The goal is to raise $500 million every year from businesses that bother to stick around.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA growing and dangerous divide is tearing Los Angeles apart,\u201d complained Local 11 co-president Kurt Petersen. The CEOs \u201clive in their own world,\u201d while workers juggle two or three jobs and \u201cmake impossible choices between medicine and rent.\u201d LAist reported<\/a> he was speaking at a signature-gathering rally before the Tesla Diner<\/a>, a charging station and eatery in Hollywood.<\/p>\n Petersen missed the irony. Tesla CEO Elon Musk moved its headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin, Texas in 2021. In 2024 he moved<\/a> SpaceX headquarters from Hawthorne to Starbase, Texas, and X from San Francisco to Bastrop, Texas<\/a>\u00a0The Lone Star State extracts no state income tax, compared to 14.4% for the Golden State\u2019s top rate paid by CEOs.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s value can be seen in the number of orbital launch attempts in 2025, with SpaceX dominating global efforts. \u201cIndeed, SpaceX launched nearly twice as many orbital missions as China did this year, and the company\u2019s 2025 output represented about 85% of the United States\u2019 total tally,\u201d reported<\/a> Mike Wall at Space.com. That\u2019s the value of one CEO genius.\u00a0<\/p>\n Company and jobs exits hurt real people. According<\/a> to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in November the unemployment rate for Texas was 4.2%, below the 4.6% national rate. But in California it was 5.5%, the highest for any state. It was even higher<\/a> for the L.A.-Long Beach-Glendale metropolitan area, 5.7%.<\/p>\n The Overpaid CEO Tax would better be called the Exiting CEO and Jobs Tax. That could be imposed on top of a statewide initiative called the California Billionaire Tax Act. Its website<\/a> explained it would be a \u201cone time\u201d \u2013 yeah, right \u2013 \u201c5% emergency billionaire tax\u201d \u2013 not on income, but their entire wealth. It supposedly would pay for health care and other needed programs. Our editorial<\/a> against it urged, \u201cProposed California wealth tax is absurd and must be defeated.\u201d<\/p>\n