California Insider

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Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

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March 18, 2004

Mental Wealth

Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg and allies backing a ballot measure that would raise taxes on million-dollar earners to pay for expanded mental health care say they have collected nearly twice as many signatures as they need to qualify the initiative for the November ballot.

The campaign for Mental Health plans a press conference at the Capitol tomorrow to make the official announcement. If approved, the measure would raise an estimated $600 million in its first full year, with most of that distributed to counties to expand mental health services. The money would come from a 1 percent surcharge on earnings over $1 million, with that surcharge applied on top of whatever tax rate is applied through the normal tax system. In other words, it would be separate and in addition to any tax increase levied on the wealthy to help balance the budget. The mental health tax would effectively increase taxes by about 10 percent on about 25,000 taxpayers at the top of California's income heap.