There is an interesting controversy brewing in California after four California university professors threatened a political candidate, Richard Lucas, for criticizing them for their roles in the “Billionaire Tax” and sent him a “cease and desist” letter. David Gamage from the University of Missouri, Brian Galle and Emmanuel Saez from UC Berkeley, and Darien Shanske from UC Davis claimed that the public criticism violated anti-doxxing laws by sharing contact information. They are clearly wrong. One of the aggrieved professors, Brian Galle, teaches at Berkeley Law School called Lucas “a clown,” but insisted that sharing public information is unlawful.
Attorney Catha Worthman sent the letter, but has reportedly refused to respond to inquiries after attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) pushed back on her legal claims and those of her clients.
I have long been a critic of such wealth taxes, specifically California’s Billionaire Tax, as economically moronic and legally questionable. The proposal has already cost the state trillions in lost wealth as wealthy taxpayers have fled, taking their businesses and jobs with them.
As I discuss in Rage and the Republic, these wealth taxes have a terrible track record and, on the federal level, face serious constitutional challenges. In California, the drafters included a retroactive clause that can also be challenged.
One of the four professors — who Lucas referred to as “the looter dream team” — destroyed the claims of many supporters that this is just a one-time tax. Some of us have written that this is simply the first salvo. Once they succeed in targeting billionaires, the same measure will likely be used for those in lower tax brackets.
In a recent debate, Berkeley professor Emmanuel Saez admitted that he could not seriously claim this would be a one-time tax, as many in the public have asserted. He said they would have to wait to see if it passes, but it is likely to be repeated, and noted that there may also be a federal wealth tax on the way.
He said:
“I don’t think it’s going to be a one-time tax…because you can’t surprise billionaires more than once.
Even then, you know, maybe some of them were expecting something like this.
So it’s going to be a debate about this time, you know, a permanent wealth tax at a low rate that’s going to last for a number of years.”
Saez has publicly taunted the wealthy who are fleeing the state:
He noted the move on the left to create a federal wealth tax which has been pushed by Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna.
The legislation, “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act,” echoes the growing “eat-the-rich” mantra on the left — seeking to replicate a disastrous push in California that has led to an exodus from that state and an estimated loss of $2 trillion in taxable assets.
It is also flagrantly unconstitutional.
Under the plan, Congress would target 938 billionaires to tap them for $4.4 trillion. That money would then be redistributed as a $3,000 direct payment to every man, woman, and child in a household making $150,000 or less – $12,000 for a family of four.
Now back to the legal threat. I believe that the threatened legal action is wildly off base. Putting aside the fact that this is protected speech, the two anti-doxing statutes, Penal Code §653.2(a) and Civil Code §1708.89, contain clear scienter or intent requirements.
They must show that Lucas demonstrated an “intent to place another person in reasonable fear for their safety, or the safety of the other person’s immediate family.” Penal Code §653.2(a); Civil Code §1708.89. There is no evidence of such intent. If simply posting such identifying information is a violation, a significant range of protected speech would be proscribed.
There are ample reasons to criticize this tax and the claims made by its champions. There is a type of self-sustaining pattern on the left in support of such measures. Universities have largely purged conservatives and libertarians from departments, leaving most faculties with professors who run exclusively from the left to the far left.
These professors then added intellectual support for radical proposals like wealth taxes. The media then reports that experts have reviewed and approved the measures. It becomes an entirely closed loop from political groups to academics to media creating a uniform narrative.
The ADF wrote a strong letter pointing out the flaws in the claims of these professors under anti-doxxing laws from the lack of intent to the protection of free speech. These professors became public advocates for this ill-conceived plan and, as a result, have drawn criticism for that advocacy.
Lucas was one of those critics:
Nevertheless, the professors sent two cease and desist letters to Lucas, requesting that he remove their names and contact information from his website “California Wealth Exodus.” Lucas has remained adamant that he will not remove their contact information.
The site for figures like Galle link to his academic page, as I have done above. We routinely link to such sites for people to look at the background of figures discussed in columns. In the case of Lucas, it is also meant to allow citizens to express their views to those pushing this proposal.
In my view, the threat of legal action is fundamentally flawed and would not prevail in the courts. These professors will need to respond to their critics rather than work to silence them.
This is a ridiculous discussion. The judicial branch is a complete failure; it cannot perceive the difference between the Constitution and the Communist Manifesto. Americans should have enjoyed the equal protection of the law in 1789, long before the unconstitutional “Reconstruction Amendments.”
America is neither a church nor a charity.
The “HEAD TAX” represents the ultimate application of procedural fairness and strict legal equality. By treating the state as a neutral service provider and charging every citizen the exact same “price of admission,” it completely removes arbitrary political brackets, wealth redistribution, and government intrusion into personal finances.
“Government should treat individuals as equals before the law and protect their basic rights.”
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“All men are created equal.”
– Declaration of Independence
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It asserts a moral and political principle: every person has the same fundamental worth and equal natural rights (not that everyone is identical in abilities or status). Historically, it declares that political authority derives from consent and that no one is born with an inherent right to rule over others—so laws and government should treat individuals as equals before the law and protect their basic rights.
I may be on a fool’s errand, but I’ll try anyway.
First, the Reconstruction Amendments are part of the U.S. Constitution. It makes no sense to say they’re unconstitutional. That’s like saying the Constitution violates itself. Again, that’s illogical on its face.
Second, the Declaration of Independence is not law. It is an explanation to the King of England, but it does not lay down binding laws that anyone in the US is required to obey. The Constitution, on the other hand, is law.
Have a good day.
“Everyone loves bells. I don’t know why they left it broken for so long. That’s the way the Democrats do things. They just leave things in a state of disrepair. It’s sad. I’m the only president who could fix it.”
https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-repairs-the-crack-in-the-liberty-bell
It is unconstitutional to single out billionaires for punitive and confiscatory taxation, denying them the equal protection of the laws.
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14th Amendment
No State shall…deprive any person of…liberty…nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
I’m sure the dems don’t care.
Did the judge immediately strike these vexatious litigants?
Tax uniformity is the fairest tax policy – and in a happy coincidence, is also one of the most conducive to job creation and economic growth. A Tax Uniformity Amendment is needed, which would apply to both the feds and the states:
Taxes shall be uniform. The effective rate of taxation on a thing cannot depend on the quantity of the thing being taxed.
That’s it, done, finito. Save blue state voters from themselves.
Old Man, the billionaire can afford to pay far more than the dishwasher. Don’t insult us with your wacky math.
Please cite the Constitution for “can afford to pay,” comradette.
the billionaire can afford to pay far more than the dishwasher.
That is correct, and the billionaire will pay more (way more) if they both are subject to the same tax rate.
Old Man knows you can’t tax the dishwasher more than ‘X’ percent because they can’t afford to pay anymore.
So if that ‘X’ percent is 20, that’s nothing to a billionaire. A multi-million income taxed at 20%, is almost like ‘no tax’ to a billionaire.
Why do Joe The Plumber types want a class of super rich lords? Like Victorian England is a model to emulate..??
A flat tax would probably be well below 20%, as that would be politically unpopular. And 20% would be unneded. By specifying “effective tax rate” (not just “tax rate”) in the amendment I’m proposing, you get rid of deductions. 10% of a billionaire’s income, if the billionaire cannot claim any deductions, is huge.
More job growth, more economic growth, and that dishwasher can definitely afford a 10% flat tax. Wealth creators would not flee the jurisdition, and tax revenues would be higher, so benefits for needy individuals, including low-income workers, would be more easily afforded.
The only glitch in the above is if massive illegal immigration depresses wages. So perhaps the amendment would have to also include some provision to stem the flow of illegals. If you have any constructive suggestions on that topic, I’d like to hear them.
One other point about the dishwasher: it is only fair that he or she contribute their fair share of the cost of government, even if they don’t make as much money as other people. They benefit from having an orderly society with infrastructure and police protection, etc., and so it is only fair that they make some contribution propotional to what they earn. If people want to live in a society that is free and ordered, they can’t just get everything for free. If they are low-earners, fine, then their tax burden should be low. But it should not be zero.
See, you just proved how dumb you really are. Check the IRC records on who pays the most.
Or try Goggle.
Sorry IRS records
Professor Emmanuel Saez strikes me, from the linked videos, as someone enamored and firmly committed to the brilliance and correctness of his economic theory. He seem oblivious to any consequences of the wealth tax such as entrepreneurs leaving. This is in sharp contrast to the cultivation of Silicon valley entrepreneurship by Stanford and UC Berkeley universities as well a the aerospace and movie industries much earlier. Those are examples of how states can develop environments suitable for wealth creation. To quote Thomas Sowell, “…the political left has long had a remarkable lack of interest in how wealth is created. As far as they are concerned, wealth exists somehow and the only interesting question is how to redistribute it.” The goal for a state government should not be to tax the millionaires more but to tax more millionaires. The ingeniousness of our Federal system is that states are laboratories for good and bad ideas – thus providing some limitation on the spread for bad ideas and a gestation environment to develop good ideas. Prof. Saez, a dual French and American citizen and associate of fellow French economist Thomas Piketty, is about to find out. Piketty, likewise fixated on the distribution of wealth, assumed that productivity would drop – clearly not foreseeing the application of AI is practically every endeavor. So these very smart well spoken professors speak a good story and yet can be utterly wrong.
As far as they are concerned, wealth exists somehow and the only interesting question is how to redistribute it.
This is illustrated in the famous story of the goose that laid the golden eggs. The best thing to do is make sure the goose thrives and keeps laying those eggs. The leftist approach is to kill the goose to get at the gold inside and redistribute it. What they don’t realize is that, even if a little bit of gold is found inside, that pales in comparison the quantity of gold that would come out of the gooes if it had been allowed to live.
Or maybe they realize it and they are just trying to get power through demagoguery.
The ingeniousness of our Federal system is that states are laboratories for good and bad ideas
The laboratories of democracy idea (per Justice Louis Brandeis) works well where there is freedom to travel. That is happening now with the massive flow of wealth out of deep blue states like NY, WA, IL, and CA, and toward red states like TN, TX, and FL.
Just like with North and South Korea, the results of the experiment are clear. What’s unclear is whether the voters in the failed-experiment states will ever wake up and realize their preferred policies have led to misery and destruction.