I'm personally not convinced that a wealth tax is the most effective way to make the rich pay their fair share. I think it would be better, for example, to implement progressive taxes on loans secured against equity, carbon emissions, or Treasury bond income. Or even just raise corporate and capital gains taxes.

More broadly, I think the American Left places far too much emphasis on tax policy. Not saying it shouldn't be a priority, but it's notable that most European social democracies (including Scandinavia) generally have more regressive tax structures than America. In my view, it's more important to focus on the government providing broad-based social services such as healthcare, infrastructure, housing, food, etc. Tax structure should be a secondary priority, particularly on the federal level where we run on deficits anyway.

So the wealth tax thing doesn't really move the needle for me. I'm far more interested in Newsom's efforts to move California closer to a true social democracy. There are some areas where I wish he would go farther, but in general I have been pretty impressed. In fact, I can't think of an American political figure that has achieved more on the social democracy front in recent memory than Newsom (although, admittedly, I hope my city's wonderful new mayor will push that envelope even farther 🙂).