Capital for the people – an idea whose time has come
Rather than soaking the rich to raise revenue, California is thinking about harnessing capital the same way investors do, and then using the proceeds of the capital growth to fund the public sector.
If American states are, as former US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once put it, the “laboratories of democracy”, then it’s worth watching closely what’s happening in California right now.
The threat of rising taxes and a “soak the rich” political atmosphere has led some wealthy Golden State residents, including a number of technology entrepreneurs, to leave for cheaper pastures such as Austin or Miami. This has, in turn, prompted worries of a larger migration that would have an impact not only on the state’s tax base, but on the growth and innovation that have made California the world’s fifth-largest economy.
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Financial Times
Rana Foroohar is a global business columnist and an associate editor at the Financial Times, based in New York. She is also CNN’s global economic analyst.
