Pretty good piece from CalMatters on why the proposed California wealth tax is just speedrunning the exact mistakes France made twenty years ago.
Watching the state legislature push for this is a uniquely exhausting experience if you actually live here. Whether you’re dealing with the housing crunch down in San Diego or the commercial real estate collapse up in the Bay Area, there are some massive, structural economic issues out here… and most of them stem from Prop 13.
Instead of fixing the actual tax code and building more housing, we are trying to pass a performative tax that is guaranteed to just push mobile capital across the border to Nevada. Europe already ran this experiment.
In simpler terms? Stop subsidizing demand, repeal Prop 13, and just tax land lol.
!ping USA-CA
Eilemthxx on
Can’t repeal prop 13 without the votes. If the voters want a wealth tax and no repeal on prop 13, then it’s out of the hands of the legislators without an amendment to the California constitution. Wealthy people might leave because of tax hikes and suburban voters might oust current democrats or even flip Republican over property tax hikes.
They both have risks, but there are far more lower and middle class benefiting from prop 13 than there are rich people benefiting from the current tax rate, so Democrats have certainly more reasons to be afraid of one compared to the other.
2 Comments
Pretty good piece from CalMatters on why the proposed California wealth tax is just speedrunning the exact mistakes France made twenty years ago.
Watching the state legislature push for this is a uniquely exhausting experience if you actually live here. Whether you’re dealing with the housing crunch down in San Diego or the commercial real estate collapse up in the Bay Area, there are some massive, structural economic issues out here… and most of them stem from Prop 13.
Instead of fixing the actual tax code and building more housing, we are trying to pass a performative tax that is guaranteed to just push mobile capital across the border to Nevada. Europe already ran this experiment.
In simpler terms? Stop subsidizing demand, repeal Prop 13, and just tax land lol.
!ping USA-CA
Can’t repeal prop 13 without the votes. If the voters want a wealth tax and no repeal on prop 13, then it’s out of the hands of the legislators without an amendment to the California constitution. Wealthy people might leave because of tax hikes and suburban voters might oust current democrats or even flip Republican over property tax hikes.
They both have risks, but there are far more lower and middle class benefiting from prop 13 than there are rich people benefiting from the current tax rate, so Democrats have certainly more reasons to be afraid of one compared to the other.