Good examples are great. But it doesn't solve the problem. The only way to fix this busted economy where inequality is increasing and few, wealthy individuals are gaining insane amounts of political power through spending is systemic change in the structure of our tax base.
Why not tax the gov though? "Nobody should have that much control" means you must first have limited government and some mechanism to stop unstable governance dynamics which allow for capture. Currently it seems like billionaires are one way to stop that.
What do you mean "let's" like we're the billionaires? The ultra wealthy have had over a century (in only this country!) to read The Gospel of Wealth. They're not going to do it. And it's fine to admit that.
The book from anti-union Carnegie, which recommended to his fellow wealthy that they uplift society while actively undermining the efforts of workers to improve their own lives?
By "let's" I mean us, as voters, as citizens.
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." (Edmund Burke)
I mean, let's do it. But it seems more straightforward to tax wealth as capital gains when it's used as collateral for liquid assets (low interest loans, lines of credit, buying twitter).
The wealth has barely been taxed at all. Wealth comes from holding assets not from labor, and asset ownership is barely taxed:
1. stocks and commercial real estate are allowed to appreciate without taxation (unlike personal residences outside Cali),
2. multinationals wrote for themselves obscure tax rules so they end up paying almost no tax,
3. interest expense for companies and ultra high net worth individuals is subtracted from taxable income (for personal mortgages the interest expense deduction is capped)
4. Rich people organize their assets so estate taxes do not tax their estates when they die and thus their wealth goes to their children.
Well, no, it hasn't. Much of the wealth is in the form of unrealized capital gains. It won't be taxed until it becomes a realized capital gain, that is, until the underlying asset is sold.
Even if it fails, California has taken a multi billion dollar tax hit from all of the wealth flight as a result of this. Not to mention that those people may take jobs with them, straight to Florida or Texas or other friendlier states.
These taxes are an abject disaster everywhere they're tried. France tried it and it was extremely bad for them.
The cash raised from the tax is dwarfed by the wealth flight, every time.
Napkin math for just the people who have left already over 5 years show $50 billion in lost tax revenue. Probably far more in indirect losses (jobs, consumption, etc).
If you won't do anything about the wealth, the top 1%, or top 0.1% will own more and more, until they own everything. Literally. There is no other outcome possible
Over the last 100 years the wealthy have expanded their gap between themselves and everyone else AND poverty rates have become the lowest at any time in history.
Seems to me that the status quo is allowing billions of the poorest people to afford food, shelter and more.
When you contextualize it that way, your argument looks like jealousy. For your argument to make logical sense, you must show that the poor are worse off than they were 100 years ago. But that's completely false. Extreme poverty was almost eradicated completely in that time.
You've got the 2nd wealthiest man in the world who created a company that sells essential goods at margins between 0 and 5%, far lower than typical 30% margins in retail. The poor have benefited profoundly from this, as their buying power has never been better (not to mention the lifts in living standards, wages, etc).
I actually think billionaire flight is a good thing. Billionaires do not contribute to their community. Sure some tax accountant and some security people will lose their jobs, but this not matter for regular folk.
If nothing else, billionaires flight is a positive thing.
I am hoping all the billionaires leave my Washington state as a result of the millionaire tax - it may become a normal state like Oregon.
Starbucks HQ moving to Tennessee is not caused by WA state millionaire tax - Burito Boy was hired on August 2024 well before the millionaire tax was even envisioned. Part of his compensation is predicated on these costs savings - and these were part of Burrito Boy’s negotiations before he even signed up his employment contract. So this move has nothing to do with the millionaire tax.
And just to let you know- Starbucks is not that popular in Seattle. They have been closing stores right and left in Seattle to the point where I only know store that is open. Seattle is not missing them that much.
Florida has never had an income tax. With few exceptions, most of its wealthy are retirees or heirs, who don't have much income anyway.
Texas does not have an income tax. Despite its century of oil wealth, it has fewer billionaires than CA or NY.
These states don't have income taxes because they're unpleasant places to live at the best of times and nobody would choose to live their if they had to pay income taxes.
'Trickle down economics will start working any day now, do you really want to miss out on our billionaire trickle?'
Leaving California means stepping away from the highest concentration of billion-dollar outcome creation in the U.S. Over the past ~40 years, California has produced on the order of ~120–200 billionaire-producing startups, versus ~15–35 in Texas and ~10–25 in Florida, depending on how you define origin.
Using standard venture-style risk and reward thinking, the data favors staying. The distribution of extreme upside outcomes remains heavily concentrated in California. Now if your a done/finished investor/creator or you have to be cost conscious it makes sense to leave the dream state and move to the retirement home states that cater to the has been class versus the creator class. No shame in having to be cost conscious or being ready to give up and fade into the retirement home of states lifestyle.
Starbucks is shifting corporate jobs from Washington state to Tennessee as a result of this rhetoric. Chicago's financial industry was famously carved out due to the same kind of rhetoric, with Citadel moving to Florida, causing massive damage to the city and a huge financial hole (the city can barely fund the CTA, and it nearly collapsed in 2025).
You sure showed those billionaires by destroying the jobs of thousands of middle class workers and losing out on the tax revenue that was funding public transit and critical infrastructure. Nice!
I hope all billionaires will depart for that island in Florida to bunk with Bozos and Kushner. That poor island will probably sink under the weight of so much ego.
In fact, we should have expanded it to be a "millionaire tax" where everyone who has a home worth more than $1M needs to pay a one time $50k+ tax to the highly efficient state government. I'm sure they can easily figure out how to sell a small fraction of their home to cover it.
If there is one thing that history has proven, I think it's how valuable dry taxation is for everyone in the long term.
In California, it's capped at a knowable amount when you buy the home and pegged at the sale price. You know what it is and what it always will be when the transaction happens. The people whom have owned a house now worth a million for 30 years probably pay a few grand a year and always have. Dry taxing the technical value of their assets today would destroy millions of families. The point is that dry taxation is generally pretty stupid.
1. The tax is not pegged at the sale price. What prop 13 actually does is limit the amount of appreciation the state can recognize for tax purposes.
2. There are lots of states/cities in the US that do not cap the appreciation of your house for tax purposes, and I don’t think it destroys millions of families. In fact the California cap is generally seen as a terrible policy because it distorts the housing market
I wouldn’t call it stupid, but it is a policy choice. On the other side, why should Grandma pay 5% of the property taxes as the new couple next door while receiving the same access to public services, while also pushing another family to live farther away?
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is basically a billion dollars. At this scale, it’s the same comparison between a billion dollars and a homeless person.
In the USA "all men are created equal". Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money. Companies/institutions should not be allowed to spend money on politics, and a flat tax would solve this.
Unless you're a prisoner convicted of a crime. Stating that the founders of the United States owned slaves is not "nihilistic nonsense", it's an important distinction to note that they sought political power for themselves, and no one else. The phrase "all men are created equal" should be interpreted as "all white land-owning men are created equal"
Your elementary school social studies teacher failed you; the statement you referenced is written in the Declaration of Independence, not the US Constitution.
The parent OP that I first replied to stated that "Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money". This is a position not at all worth defending, and completely at odds with the concept of "all men are created equal".
To be fair. I grew up in Ireland and have never lived in the USA. I just admire the protections for the individual that your country aims for. Anyway I appreciate the correction :)
I think I heard that the Carthaginians used to auction off political positions, and the proceeds were effectively the taxes which ran society. While on the surface it sounds like a ridiculous concept, maybe it'd be better if we just cut out all the middlemen. At least policy could be directly connected to the paymasters.
Whild I hate the idea of a zillionaire tax, and I largely think good allocators should allocate, I also recognize that simply pricing things and allowing them to be bought is unstable in many cases.
If you can use it to take over a country it must be stopped.
The rich are always going to manipulate politics. Maybe it'd be better for them to directly influence politics with their names and votes attached to policies, as opposed to hiding in the shadows and using representatives as fall guys.
Think we'd all be better off if the whole lobbying caste was dismantled and there were simpler paper trails.
Why not let Bezos, Musk et al spend £1bil/year to sit on the senate?
Mckenzie Scott is working through donating her share. Same for Melinda Gates, Dustin Moskovitz & Cari Tuna.
Warren Buffet plans to donate the larger part to charity.
Let's keep building the good examples so the alternative (power consolidation across generations) is unthinkable for future generations.
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