Why did California's billionaire tax fail to surf the blue wave?
NPR analyzes why California's Proposition 40, a proposed billionaire wealth tax, failed despite a strong Democratic performance in other races. The piece features perspectives from economists on the impact of campaign spending and the political viability of wealth taxes.
Why it matters
The failure of this initiative provides insight into the political challenges of wealth taxation and the influence of campaign finance in US state politics.
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Late Monday, The Associated Press determined that California voters had rejected Prop 40, the proposed billionaire wealth tax I wrote about last week . Given the big blue wave we saw during the midterms, why did this tax on billionaires fail to surf to victory?
To make sense of the results, I went back to the two economists I spoke with last week: UC Berkeley's Gabriel Zucman, a leading champion of wealth taxes, and Stanford's Joshua Rauh, a prominent critic of Prop 40.
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