What Is Wrong With California's Billionaire Tax?

Reed Hastings supports higher taxes on rich people and still calls California's billionaire tax a smash and grab. He wants loopholes closed, including cheap long-term capital gains and estate taxes. Proposition 40, the California ballot initiative, is a different case: super poorly written, and built as a one-time tax.

The proposed tax is supposedly 5 percent. If it passes, a follow-up at 50 percent is the worry that makes the plan a crazy smash and grab. A tenth of a percent every year, small and ongoing, probably would have won. The initiative does not appear to be aimed at that smaller permanent tax.

Favoring higher taxes on rich people can sit beside a no on a single California ballot. A modest charge every year is the shape that probably would have won. The one-time 5 percent version is the raid.