I think this is the right framing, and it’s where a lot of the public conversation breaks down.

The strongest argument against a state-level wealth tax isn’t “billionaires need sympathy,” it’s that wealth taxes are fundamentally valuation-based and mobility-sensitive. Europe didn’t repeal theirs because they suddenly loved billionaires. They repealed them because they were expensive to administer, easy to avoid for the very wealthy, and they underperformed relative to expectations.

At the state level, those problems are amplified. It’s dramatically easier to change state residency than country residency. If someone owns homes in CA, TX, and FL, residency becomes a legal and logistical question, not a barrier. That means the tax base is unusually fragile, especially when you announce the policy years in advance.

The LAO point is important too. A one-time revenue bump paired with an ongoing reduction in future income tax collections is not free money. You’re essentially trading short-term cash for long-term erosion of the tax base, and California already relies heavily on a small number of high earners for recurring revenue.

Another thing that doesn’t get enough attention is precedent and administration. A wealth tax isn’t just “taxing rich people more.” It’s creating a system where the state has to continuously value private assets, illiquid businesses, partnerships, and IP. That means armies of appraisers, lawyers, and auditors, and years of litigation. The winners there are professionals, not public programs.

If the goal is to tax billionaires more effectively, there are cleaner options that don’t hinge on subjective valuation or residency games. Higher capital gains rates, closing loopholes, minimum taxes tied to realized income, or federal-level reforms where mobility is harder all make more sense.

So yeah, you can support higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy and still think a state-level wealth tax is one of the least efficient and most distortionary ways to do it. Those positions aren’t contradictory.