Oh, the Horror! Billionaires Threatened with Taxation!

We Americans are barraged these days with multiple crises, so, I hate to add anything else to our list of worries. But I’m told this one is an epic disaster, so we must respond! It started in California, and one financial leader there now calls it “the greatest tragedy this state has ever felt.” Holy Titanic! What can it be? Uh… it’s a tax. Does that mean it would add to the burden of hard-hit poor and middle-class families? No, it wouldn’t apply to them at all, or even to mere millionaires. Rather, it’s a ballot initiative to put a one-time wealth tax on the über-rich – the billionaire class . Indeed, only about 200 royally rich California folks would pay anything under this proposal. But those billionaires are squealing like stuck pigs, and they’ve hired hoards of lobbyists, lawyers, PR flacks, and front groups to try killing the proposal. Such overprivileged plutocratic ninnies as Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg have even declared that, By Gollies, they will just pack up and leave California if required to pay a pittance of their fortunes to support the basic needs of common people. Californians, though, seem not to care. In recent surveys, only 28 percent of the state’s voters oppose the wealth tax. Indeed, nationwide, 60 percent of us want billionaire tax dodgers to start paying their fair share. People are sick of the greed of… well let’s call them what they are: The filthy rich. There’s a fast-spreading attitudinal shift from the right-wing’s long insistence that the rich are to be admired and coddled. Instead, majorities today are reconnecting to the eternal truth that “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/

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Oh, the Horror! Billionaires Threatened with Taxation! is an episode from Jim Hightower's Radio Lowdown by Jim Hightower.

This episode is 2:10 long.

This episode was published on Mar 24, 2026.

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