Lots of discussion about last week’s midterms and why Republicans took such a beating. We’ll leave the autopsies to others. For Main Street, the takeaway is simple: the tax policy environment in Washington just got a lot harder.

Which makes the vote on Proposition 40 — the California wealth tax — all the more remarkable. The same night voters handed Democrats a massive wave, Californians rejected the nation’s first tax on billionaire wealth and appear poised to place a ban on future wealth taxes into their constitution.

It’s an important result because, like it or not, the debate they just had in …

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Is there a penalty for bad reporting?  This week’s WSJ article entitled “The ‘Buy, Borrow and Die’ Wealth Strategy Has Become a $5 Trillion Market” makes a strong case that there should be. Here’s the lede:

Buy, borrow and die is a mantra of the rich. They love to take out loans against stock they own, so they don’t have to sell it when they want to buy other things such as mansions, yachts and movie studios.

Lots to unpack here. Start with the label. “Buy, Borrow and Die” is a misnomer.  The phrase describes a supposed strategy employed …

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This recent note from Oren Cass over at American Compass caught our eye:

Kim Clausing and I disagree on tariffs and have enjoyed debating each other a number of times, but we agree on this: There is a smarter way to tax the rich (Financial Times). Tax capital, folks. This statistic, especially, fascinated me: “Despite having the world’s most successful public companies, the US raises much less from corporate tax (about 2 per cent of GDP less) than other rich countries.”

Sure, it’s a fascinating stat. It’s also entirely bogus, as it ignores the taxes paid by 95 percent of …

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