Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
A Bad Week for Billionaires by Harold Meyerson
https://prospect.org/2026/06/29/bad-week-for-billionaires-california-tax-new-york-dsa/]
You might say that the combination of the victories of DSA-backed congressional candidates in last week’s Democratic primaries in New York with last week’s placement of a billionaire wealth tax on November’s California ballot constitutes a come-to-Jesus moment for the oligarchs of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Then again, it was Jesus who reportedly said, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,” so coming to Jesus may not be the way to solve their challenges.
That failing, there’s always subterfuge. As my colleague David Dayen reported on Friday, California’s billionaires, spearheaded by Google’s Sergey Brin, have placed two other measures on the state’s November ballot designed to deceive voters into negating the wealth tax even if they vote to enact it. Neither measure even mentions the wealth tax, instead promoting themselves as a way to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending. But each contains abstruse provisions that would block the wealth tax from becoming law, provided these measures win more votes than the wealth tax measure.
What those two measures do reveal is the refusal of the wealth tax opponents to even enter into an open debate on the tax, for fear that they’ll lose. Americans at virtually every point on the political spectrum overwhelmingly favor raising taxes on the rich. The one point that the tax’s most prominent opponent, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, continues to make is that the tax will drive billionaires from the state—though the tax has been structured to levy a one-time 5 percent tax on the approximately 200 billionaires who lived in the state on January 1 of this year—not next. Any flight that follows the tax’s enactment, that is, won’t exempt these guys (and they are mainly guys) from its requirements. Moreover, by basing his opposition to the wealth tax on the specter of billionaires moving to other states, Newsom is effectively and unintentionally making the case for a national wealth tax. And if billionaires want to move to other countries, that would mean they couldn’t legally contribute to American political campaigns.
Can I see a show of hands from the people who’d be upset by that?
If the Barons of Silicon Valley can do no better than subterfuge in their effort to hoard their wealth, their Wall Street counterparts are also at a loss on how to deal with New York’s adoption of social democratic policies and election of overtly socialist policymakers. Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported on a sobering realization among New York’s wealthiest that money no longer sufficed to win local elections, and that they were devoid of the two other components now so cruelly imposed on them if they want to greet Election Days with a smile: the campaign workers who knock on people’s doors to deliver a message, and, come to think of it, a message that appeals to actually existing voters.
That failing, there’s always subterfuge. As my colleague David Dayen reported on Friday, California’s billionaires, spearheaded by Google’s Sergey Brin, have placed two other measures on the state’s November ballot designed to deceive voters into negating the wealth tax even if they vote to enact it. Neither measure even mentions the wealth tax, instead promoting themselves as a way to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending. But each contains abstruse provisions that would block the wealth tax from becoming law, provided these measures win more votes than the wealth tax measure.
What those two measures do reveal is the refusal of the wealth tax opponents to even enter into an open debate on the tax, for fear that they’ll lose. Americans at virtually every point on the political spectrum overwhelmingly favor raising taxes on the rich. The one point that the tax’s most prominent opponent, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, continues to make is that the tax will drive billionaires from the state—though the tax has been structured to levy a one-time 5 percent tax on the approximately 200 billionaires who lived in the state on January 1 of this year—not next. Any flight that follows the tax’s enactment, that is, won’t exempt these guys (and they are mainly guys) from its requirements. Moreover, by basing his opposition to the wealth tax on the specter of billionaires moving to other states, Newsom is effectively and unintentionally making the case for a national wealth tax. And if billionaires want to move to other countries, that would mean they couldn’t legally contribute to American political campaigns.
Can I see a show of hands from the people who’d be upset by that?
If the Barons of Silicon Valley can do no better than subterfuge in their effort to hoard their wealth, their Wall Street counterparts are also at a loss on how to deal with New York’s adoption of social democratic policies and election of overtly socialist policymakers. Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported on a sobering realization among New York’s wealthiest that money no longer sufficed to win local elections, and that they were devoid of the two other components now so cruelly imposed on them if they want to greet Election Days with a smile: the campaign workers who knock on people’s doors to deliver a message, and, come to think of it, a message that appeals to actually existing voters.
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
