Eat the Rich: California Democrats Trigger a Reverse Gold Rush with a Wealth Tax

[rangerrebew]

Eat the Rich: California Democrats Trigger a Reverse Gold Rush with a Wealth Tax

Below is my column in the California Post and New York Post on the exodus of wealthy taxpayers from the state as Democrats seek to trap them with a retroactive wealth tax. They are engineering a type of reverse Gold Rush as up to a trillion dollars leave the state with a line of U-Hauls heading for the nearest border.

Here is the column:

This month, the anniversary of the California Gold Rush came and passed with little mention … for good reason. When James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill, millions traveled great distances to seek their fortune in the “Golden State.” Now, 178 years later, California has engineered an inverse Gold Rush, virtually chasing wealth from the state. Rather than covered wagons going West, there is a line of U-Hauls going anywhere other than California.

From boondoggle projects to reparations, California politicians continue to rack up new spending projects despite a soaring deficit and shrinking tax base. Rather than exercise a modicum of fiscal restraint, Democrats are pushing through a tax that takes five percent of the wealth of any billionaires left in the state.

https://jonathanturley.org/2026/02/13/eat-the-rick-california-democrats-trigger-a-reverse-gold-rush-with-a-wealth-tax/

[IsailedawayfromFR]

It may be decades for the state to get that tax base to return.

In the meantime, it will be difficult in many ways for the state to maintain what they have

[Free Vulcan]

To paraphrase a Rob Zombie song - dig thru the ditches and burn thru the riches.

And when that's all gone and there's no one else to tax, we shall perform our next hat trick with someone else's money!

Margaret Thatcher was a prophet.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Why would the tax base want to return?  Anything that can be done in Cali can be done elsewhere.

A state losing a taxpayer is akin to a business losing a customer.  Re-acquisition is going to be costly and may not be successful.

The jobs that left Mass to go to the South have never come back, nor will they ever come back unless there is a multi-generational political shift that embraces pro-growth public policies.