如果说还有什么值得注意的，那就是11月3日选票上加州财富税的辩论，正在暴露支持该税种论据的虚伪性。请看加布里埃尔·祖克曼的思想翻跟头：这位现任职于伯克利的法国经济学家是40号提案的主要支持者。
If nothing else, the debate over the California wealth tax on the Nov. 3 ballot is exposing the dishonesty of the case for it. Consider the intellectual gyrations of Gabriel Zucman, the French economist now at Berkeley and a leading Prop. 40 proponent.
祖克曼先生正拼命但徒劳地试图抹黑我们上周告诉读者的胡佛研究所论文。40号提案支持者声称，对净资产超过10亿美元的居民征收所谓的一次性5%财富税，将带来1000亿美元收入。但这一估算忽略了许多亿万富翁将离开该州这一事实。
Monsieur Zucman is frantically, if fruitlessly, trying to discredit the Hoover Institution paper we told you about last week. Prop. 40 supporters say the supposedly one-time 5% tax on residents with more than $1 billion in net worth would raise $100 billion in revenue. But that estimate ignores that many billionaires will leave the state.
胡佛研究所经济学家本杰明·贾罗斯和约书亚·劳赫估计，考虑到法院极可能阻挠该提案部分条款，且亿万富翁会离州，财富税实际仅能筹集300亿美元。他们还估计，随着时间的推移，年度所得税收入的下降将比这笔财富税收入多出389亿美元。
Hoover economists Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh estimate that the wealth tax would raise only $30 billion after taking into account that courts are likely to block some of its provisions and billionaires will leave the state. They also estimate that the decline in annual income-tax payments over time will exceed this wealth tax revenue by $38.9 billion.
祖克曼先生反驳道：“非也”，声称胡佛研究所经济学家错误地认为亿万富翁会逃之夭夭，因为他们认为该税种会被延长。“世界各地的经济学学生都被教导，这不是建模行为的适当方式，”他在X.com上写道。
Mais non, says M. Zucman, claiming that the Hoover economists wrongly think billionaires will vamoose because they think the tax will be extended. “Economics students around the world are taught this is not an appropriate way to model behavior,” he wrote on X.com.
得了吧。正如奥巴马政府经济顾问杰森·弗尔曼所言，估算税收政策收入效应的标准方法，是考虑到“该法律带来的行为后果”。我们还以为左派经济学家相信行为改变的“助推”作用呢。
Well. As Obama economic adviser Jason Furman says, the standard way to estimate the revenue effect of tax policies is to account for the “behavioral consequences from that law.”And here we thought left-wing economists believed in the “nudge” of behavioral changes.
祖克曼先生及其法国名流经济学家同僚托马斯·皮凯蒂和埃马纽埃尔·萨伊兹，不相信高税收和慷慨的福利国家会实质性影响工作和投资的激励。当人们对政客制造的扭曲激励做出可预测的反应时，法国经济学家却声称他们是在非理性行事。财富税也是如此。
M. Zucman and his fellow French celebrity economists, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, don’t believe high taxes and a generous welfare state materially affect the incentives to work and invest. When people respond predictably to the perverse incentives that politicians create, French economists claim they are acting irrationally. So with a wealth tax.
但逃避财富税真的不理性吗？正如胡佛研究所的经济学家所解释，第40号提案取消了州宪法对无形动产税的上限限制。“一旦该上限被取消，未来的投票倡议和立法行动都可以依据该修正案赋予的权力，以任何税率、针对任何门槛征收额外的财富税，”胡佛研究所的两位学者写道。第40号提案还将允许民主党控制的立法机关以三分之二多数票延长征税期限并降低收入门槛。
But is it really irrational to flee a wealth tax? As the Hoover economists explain, Prop. 40 removes the state constitutional cap on intangible personal property tax. “Once that cap is lifted, future ballot initiatives and legislative action can build on the authority this amendment creates to impose additional wealth taxes at any rate, on any threshold,” the Hoover duo write. Prop. 40 would also let a two-thirds majority of the Democratic Legislature extend the tax and lower the income threshold.
第40号提案的支持者声称，需要征收财富税以抵消去年共和党减税法案所谓的医疗补助削减。但联邦医疗补助支付在过去一年增加了14%。2025年共和党改革带来的大部分预算节省要几年后才会生效，因此在此期间，财富税收入将被纳入更多的医疗补助开支中。
Prop. 40 supporters claim the wealth tax is needed to offset supposed cuts to Medicaid by last year’s GOP tax bill. But federal Medicaid payments have increased 14% over the last year. Most of the budget savings from 2025 GOP reforms don’t kick in for several years, so the wealth-tax revenue will get baked into more Medicaid spending in the meantime.
“一时性”收入花完后，财富税支持者将要求延长征税。这就是加州的常态。2012年，民主党说服选民暂时提高高收入者的所得税。四年后，他们请求选民将增税延长至2030年。今年，他们正寻求使其永久化。
After the “one-time” revenue is spent, wealth-tax supporters will demand an extension. C’est la vie in California. In 2012 Democrats convinced voters to raise income taxes on high earners temporarily. Four years later, they asked voters to extend the hike through 2030. This year they are seeking to make it permanent.
财富税的美元门槛也很可能会降低，以便覆盖更多富人，特别是为了弥补亿万富翁外流造成的所得税损失。M. Zucman（注：加州大学伯克利分校经济学教授加布里埃尔·祖克曼）本人也说过类似的话。“这项一次性税收只是可能发生的事情的起点，”他今年对《资本与主流》新闻网站表示。
The wealth-tax dollar threshold is also likely to be reduced to hit more wealthy people, especially to compensate for income-tax losses from billionaires leaving. M. Zucman has said as much himself. “This one-time tax is just the starting point of what could be,” he told the Capital & Main news site this year.
他还建议征收2%的年度财富税：“即使考虑到一些亿万富翁会搬走这一事实，如果征收2%的年度财富税，该州的状况仍会好得多。”因此，即使他也承认一些亿万富翁会搬出加州。
He has also suggested an annual 2% wealth tax: “Even if you factor in the fact that some billionaires will move, the state would still be vastly better off with a 2% annual wealth tax.”So even he admits some billionaires will move out of California.
扎克曼感叹，许多亿万富翁利用财富为自由市场和个人自由摇旗呐喊。“政治体制下游的一切——包括法院、监管权力、经济政策、媒体独立性等等——都受到亿万富翁影响力激增的冲击，”他在今夏发布于加州大学伯克利分校网站的一篇采访中说。
M. Zucman laments that many billionaires use their wealth to advocate for free markets and individual liberty. “Everything that is downstream of the political system—including the courts, regulatory power, economic policy, media independence and so on—is affected by the surge of billionaire influence,” he said in an interview this summer posted on the UC Berkeley website.
左翼法国经济学家是法国——以及欧洲——当前财政与政治动荡的主要思想设计师。人们不禁要问，他们是否如此执意要让美国重蹈覆辙，因为美国的相对成功对他们的观点构成了尴尬的反驳。
Left-wing French economists are the leading intellectual architects of France’s—and Europe’s—current fiscal and political uproar. You almost have to wonder if they are so determined for the U.S. to make the same mistakes because America’s relative success is an embarrassing rebuke to their ideas.