{"id":47144,"date":"2026-04-28T05:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T05:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/47144\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T05:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T05:14:09","slug":"the-billionaire-tax-sounds-good-until-you-look-closer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/47144\/","title":{"rendered":"The Billionaire Tax sounds good \u2014 until you look closer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cbillionaire tax\u201d has qualified for the ballot, according to the union organizers who launched it. It may lose in November. It may be thrown out by the courts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is already hurting California<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Almost as soon as the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West launched its signature drive, many of the state\u2019s billionaires moved out of California.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t hard for them. Most already owned real estate in other states, or had business interests there<\/a> \u2014 states like Texas and Florida (which manage to provide for residents without an income tax, let alone a seizure of wealth).<\/p>\n

Trillions in wealth left California.<\/a> And billions of dollars in future income, which will no longer fill our state\u2019s coffers, to be used (we are told) for essential public services, especially for the poor.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s something many people don\u2019t know. Billionaires are already taxed in California \u2014 highly.<\/p>\n

The top 1% of earners in California pay almost 50% of the income tax for the entire state \u2014 which depends on income taxes for its budget.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Larry Kimberly White<\/p>\n

Bernie Sanders \u2014 who is not from California \u2014 likes to say billionaires should pay their \u201cfair share.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, if we were to charge billionaires their \u201cfair share,\u201d they\u2019d get a massive tax cut.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a sinister side to the billionaire tax \u2014 a resentment of success and of wealth, which is entirely foreign to California.<\/p>\n

Small wonder that the \u201cbillionaire tax\u201d is not originally a local idea. It is imported from Europe, via UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n

Two economists in particular helped inspire it. One is Emmanuel Saez; the other is Gabriel Zucman.<\/p>\n

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Both are originally from France \u2014 a nice place to visit, but not exactly a paragon of prosperity.<\/p>\n

For decades, France had a version of the billionaire tax. Called the \u201csolidarity tax,\u201d it targeted a wider range of wealthy people \u2014 those with assets greater than 1.3 million Euros.<\/p>\n

Wealthy people simply left the country \u2014 by the tens of thousands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron repealed the tax.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t deterred the far-left \u2014 nor SEIU leader Dave Regan, who dragged California into a fight that many fellow union leaders quietly didn\u2019t want.<\/p>\n

\"Peter Roger Askew\/The Oxford Union\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Regan arrived from the post-industrial Rust Belt and apparently decided that what California needed was more of the misery that many once moved west to escape.<\/p>\n

The next step will be to tax the wealth of the middle class \u2014 and even that won\u2019t be enough to pay for the ballooning cost of public health care.<\/p>\n

Chasing away billionaires who invest and create jobs will make things even harder for middle-class Californians, more of whom will have to leave to find opportunities elsewhere.<\/p>\n

A smarter approach would do two things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, we should look for ways to cut the costs of health care. That means fighting the lawyers and other entrenched special interests.<\/p>\n

Second, instead of taking away the wealth of billionaires, we should be trying to make more of them \u2014 and to keep them here.<\/p>\n

The more people know about the \u201cbillionaire tax,\u201d the less they like it.<\/p>\n

Now is the time to lay the facts before the voters \u2014 before it is too late.<\/p>\n

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