The Other Huge Election Issue: Taxing the Billionaires

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Understandably, almost everyone's focus during the US midterm election campaign this year has been on the possible swing of one or both houses of Congress to majority Democratic control.  That is without doubt the most important question that will be determined two weeks from today.

(As an aside, however, please understand that we will not know for days, weeks, or perhaps months after November 3 how that question will have been answered on Election Day.  Brace yourselves.)

But beyond control of Congress, there are other fundamentally important matters to be determined at the ballot box, including state-level offices and referenda.  From my perspective, by far the most important of those matters is whether the billionaire class will succeed in buying themselves out of being taxed, which they are trying to do by flooding the airwaves in certain states with anti-tax propaganda.

With that in mind, and in lieu of new content here today, I offer this link to my annual contribution to the Jotwell site:

The Billionaire Tax: Dispassionate Analysis of a Policy that We Desperately Need 

I hope that Dorf on Law readers will use the time saved by not finding a new column here to click over and read that piece.  In it, I discuss a California ballot initiative that would impose a one-time tax on extremely high wealth people.  I summarize and endorse a very nice, short primer written by Professors Brian Galle, David Gamage, Emmanuel Saez, and Darien Shanske:

Expert Report On The California 2026 Billionaire Tax: Revenue, Economic, and Constitutional Analysis

In the coming two weeks (and perhaps beyond) here on Dorf on Law and perhaps also on Verdict, I plan to extend my analysis of tax-the-rich issues.  I will, however, stop here for now.

- Neil H. Buchanan