Can they not do basic math? There are around 30 mil adults in California. Even if provision 18992.1 (b) is 5 mil people, that's still 25 mil people. That's 25 mil * $12,000 = $300 bil a year. The ENTIRE California state budget for 2020 is only $220 bil. They would have to more than double the tax revenue for a state with already very high taxes. Now, assuming the most generous interpretation of their 10% VAT proposal…
Maybe its not the general population that will foot the bill. Also, if other state benefits were reduce, that would change the math. It's easy to throw around FUD. But anything that redistributes wealth from the top 0.1% is the right direction.
No. No, it's not. There are several ways to do it that are very much not the right direction. (See Venezuela for a couterexample.)
Note well: This does not mean that this specific proposal is in the wrong direction (though I suspect it is). I merely mean that "just take it from the 0.1%, it will all work out" is a very inadequate failure mode analysis.