Bernie Sanders' Praise of CA's Wealth Tax Got a Community Note Dose of Reality

Bernie Sanders posted his praise for California's wealth tax like it was a slam dunk, and within hours Community Notes did what Bernie's staff apparently won't: check the math. Turns out the millionaires and billionaires this tax is supposed to squeeze have something Sacramento didn't fully account for, which is the ability to leave. California has been bleeding high earners to Texas, Florida, and Nevada for years now, and a wealth tax aimed squarely at the people most capable of relocating their assets and their zip code isn't exactly a mystery in terms of outcome.

This is the part that never seems to land with the "tax the rich" crowd. The rich aren't a fixed target sitting still waiting to be taxed. They have accountants, lawyers, and moving trucks. When they leave or shelter their wealth, the revenue California promised itself doesn't just vanish, it gets replaced by looking harder at everyone else. That's the trickle-down nobody on the left wants to talk about, the one where today's tax on billionaires becomes tomorrow's tax on small business owners and eventually regular paycheck workers because the state still needs the money it budgeted for.

What makes this notable isn't that Sanders is wrong about the problem of wealth concentration. It's that his solution keeps running into the same wall every time, and the platform he used to sell it just got tagged with the receipts. California's own fiscal history is right there for anyone who wants to look. A tax that sounds great in a tweet and falls apart in a spreadsheet isn't reform. It's a talking point that outsourced the fact-checking to the public because nobody in Sacramento wanted to do it first.