{"id":318,"date":"2026-06-29T10:08:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T10:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=318"},"modified":"2026-06-29T10:08:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T10:08:45","slug":"a-bad-week-for-billionaires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=318","title":{"rendered":"A Bad Week for Billionaires"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You might say that the combination of the victories of DSA-backed congressional candidates in last week\u2019s Democratic primaries in New York with last week\u2019s placement of a billionaire wealth tax on November\u2019s 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, \u201cIt is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,\u201d so coming to Jesus may not be the way to solve their challenges.<\/p>\n

Read more Anti-Monopoly Bill Hits Make-or-Break Moment in California<\/a><\/p>\n

More from Harold Meyerson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

That failing, there\u2019s always subterfuge. As my colleague David Dayen reported on Friday, California\u2019s billionaires, spearheaded by Google\u2019s Sergey Brin, have placed two other measures on the state\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ll lose. Americans at virtually every point on the political spectrum overwhelmingly favor raising taxes on the rich. The one point that the tax\u2019s most prominent opponent, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, continues to make is that the tax will drive billionaires from the state\u2014though 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<\/em> year\u2014not next. Any flight that follows the tax\u2019s enactment, that is, won\u2019t 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 <\/em>wealth tax. And if billionaires want to move to other countries, that would mean they couldn\u2019t legally contribute to American political campaigns.<\/p>\n

Can I see a show of hands from the people who\u2019d be upset by that?<\/p>\n

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\u2019s adoption of social democratic policies and election of overtly socialist policymakers. Thursday\u2019s Wall Street Journal <\/em>reported on a sobering realization among New York\u2019s 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\u2019s doors to deliver a message, and, come to think of it, a message that appeals to actually existing voters.<\/p>\n

The New York elections understandably raised the question of whether democratic socialists could win elections in non-urban terrains. On the one hand, I have major doubts that a candidate like Darializa Avila Chevalier could prevail, as she did last week by winning a congressional primary in a Bronx-Manhattan district, in a suburban or rural district. On the other hand, we can\u2019t dismiss the crowds that turn out for Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the nethermost reaches of Rocky Mountain states, or Sanders\u2019s approval rating with the general public, which presently tops that of every other elected official.<\/p>\n

Read more Has Ukraine Turned the Tide?<\/a><\/p>\n

The charisma of a Sanders, AOC, or Zohran Mamdani is neither transferrable to nor commonly found among other Democratic pols, but the popularity of their economic platforms and perspectives extends well beyond not just DSA members but the left and liberals. The low approval ratings that the public gives corporations and the high approval ratings they give to unions, to price controls on drugs, to government initiatives to provide affordable child care and medical care, financed by taxes on windfall profits and the very rich\u2014all make the case that mainstream Democrats need to be running and focusing on social democratic economic platforms just as their avowedly socialist fellow Democrats do.<\/p>\n

Americans both understand and loathe the dominance that big money wields over our politics. Opposing that domination has to become the lingua franca of Democratic politics. Any Democrat seeking the party\u2019s presidential nomination in 2028 must be able to speak that language\u2014by, for instance, supporting a national wealth tax, and telling voters, as Franklin Roosevelt did during his 1936 re-election campaign, that when his efforts to wrest control of politics and government from the very rich roused them to furious opposition, he (or she) \u201cwelcomes their hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the bar the next Democratic presidential nominee needs to clear if the Democrats are to return to power and hold it.<\/p>\n

Read more Courts Keep Blocking Trump\u2019s Moves Against the Right to Vote<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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