Whatever happened to the campaign promoting San Francisco as the birthplace of innovation? With advertisements announcing “It All Starts Here SF,” the local campaign praised our city as the place where chatbox and the Summer of Love and waterbeds originated. Pro-San Francisco ads proclaiming “It All Starts Here” once decorated the walls of Muni stations.
I haven’t seen any new claims posted recently, but I would like to propose a program that will put San Francisco back in national headlines as a center of innovation. Make our city the new American capital of wealth taxes. “We’re making taxes great again!” could be the slogan.
Wealth taxes, if collected in quantity from payers who can afford them, might revive our city’s endangered resources. The new tax money could make public education more attractive, keep mass transit affordable, subsidize housing, provide needed health care, you name it. I suspect most local voters would be exempt from the new tax because they don’t have the wealth to qualify, and would welcome the levy if they found it on a ballot.
At a time when Republicans in Washington seek new and renewed tax cuts, namely extensions of previous Trump tax cuts beneficial to wealthy individuals and corporations, our local and state governments might survive and even thrive by collecting from the wealthy what the federal government won’t charge them. I would suggest a tax on the assets of Bay Area billionaires to begin with (millionaires will have to wait), and maybe a corporate wealth tax on large companies like Bezos’s Amazon that have offices and employees all over the place.
Billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates already said that they should pay higher taxes, and they can afford it. I’d like to see a few San Francisco billionaires say the same, or outdo Gates and Buffett, prove it “all starts here” by announcing they will contribute generously to our city’s new wealth tax fund.
A few upper-class San Franciscans might move to Texas (where Elon Musk is taking his X headquarters) or Bermuda, or another tax-haven, rather than pay their fair share. But chances are, those people already aren’t paying their fair share. Jeff Bezos will dodge taxes wherever he is; but as long as his Amazon delivery trucks and those Waymo self-driving cars (not his yet) continue to roam the streets of San Francisco and block other traffic while unloading boxes or passengers, a special “congestion pricing” fee charged to them would add revenue to the city’s coffers, and supplement the wealth tax fund.
Some of the latest conversations in Washington circles focus on reducing the costs and benefits of government. Trump’s friends plan to cut the Federal budget along with its taxes. More admirably, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna are suggesting that Trump’s efficiency crew cut the Pentagon’s bloated, lethal budget. Climate Hawks Vote (a green group) is suggesting that Washington end its fossil fuel subsidies. Regrettably, the weapons and oil lobbyists still exercise an influential, well-paid presence in the halls of Congress; cuts to their budgets are unlikely to take place if lobbyists and Republicans have their way.
Here in the Bay area, by contrast, we could increase government revenue and benefits. Berkeley Professor and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich is calling for a wealth tax, and promoting it through an entertaining video in which the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are accused of dodging their taxes. (Musk’s cost-cutting agency now working for Trump is abbreviated DOGE, by the way.) San Francisco’s leaders have an opportunity to follow Reich’s advice and lead the country in progressives tax reform.
Our new mayor, no stranger to wealth himself, should invite Gates, Buffett, and local billionaires to endorse and contribute millions in startup funds to San Francisco’s wealth tax fund. .
Make taxes on the wealthy great again – as they were during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency, when 90 percent of ultra-rich earnings went to the Treasury Department. Let Republicans now in power criticize Eisenhower if they must; it may be time for others to praise him, or at least praise his tax collection.
Joel Schechter has written several books on satire. This piece is not.
