BAES 160: DEBATE: Is the Billionaire Tax a Bad Idea?

**Emil** (0:00)
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**Ben** (0:18)
Billionaire Tax Act. Why does it matter? It is presumed to raise $100 billion on California's 200 or so billionaires to raise money for health care, food assistance, and education. It's like, get a job, right?

**Emil** (0:33)
Which in that instance, if you're trying to evade this tax, it seems like it will be more difficult to do than just buying a ranch in Texas and being like, boom, that's where I live now.
I spend all my time there. I hang out with Joe Rogan.

**Ben** (0:45)
You got to bring it.

**Emil** (0:46)
I go to the mothership weekly. Yeah, without it being national, that is the thing. The risk is there will be some kind of billionaire flight. Yeah, and if there is, whether or not it's still nets out.

**Ben** (0:57)
Peter Teal wants to go live in Argentina. Go for it, my brother. Go for it.
Take away his passport.

**Emil** (1:02)
They're basically saying, well, the billionaires have us by the balls, so we can't do anything. We'd love to do it. You're just saying we can't do anything that would upset them because then they'll leave us. It's like, all right, you're just describing an abusive relationship and we need to go, we need to fix that immediately.

**Ben** (1:17)
You don't want to pay the taxes? Fine. Well, we'll get to whack your balls once a year, twice a year.

**Emil** (1:21)
Even if you pay the taxes.

**Ben** (1:21)
Quarterly.

**Emil** (1:22)
We're whacking your balls.

**Ben** (1:23)
We're whacking your balls.

**Emil** (1:24)
No matter what, those balls are getting whacked.

**Ben** (1:53)
What's going on? Tell me what's going on? Ladies and gentlemen.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:59)
I thought you were going to do the full song.

**Emil** (2:01)
No, what is it? Four non-blondes, three non-blondes? How many non-blondes is it?

**Ben** (2:05)
Non-blondes?

**Emil** (2:07)
That's what's going on.

**Ben** (2:10)
Oh yeah, no, I was doing our theme song.

**Emil** (2:12)
I realized, that's why I said, I thought you were going to do-

**Ben** (2:15)
Oh yeah, no, I'm not doing four non-blondes. I did not know that that's the name of the song.

**Emil** (2:21)
How many non-blondes is it?

**Ben** (2:23)
Four non-blondes. Holy God. Well, anyway, if you want to know what's going on, you came to the right place. My name is Ben, that's Emil, and this week we're talking about-

**Emil** (2:34)
All about four non-blondes.

**Ben** (2:35)
Four non-blondes. No, we're talking about the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act. And I am going to be, I think I'm going to probably be making the case against it.

**Emil** (2:45)
What'd you call it?

**Ben** (2:46)
The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.

**Emil** (2:48)
Oh, interesting.

**Ben** (2:49)
Isn't that what it's called?

**Emil** (2:50)
I've just been calling it Prop 40 I didn't know it had a-

**Ben** (2:52)
Yeah, well, Prop 40, I believe the official name is the Billionaire Tax Act.
And it's surprisingly, well, I guess not surprisingly, it is a highly contentious, highly hotly debated topic. And we're going to be just absolutely digging into that.

**Emil** (3:09)
Billionaire Taxes in general have been, it's obviously been bandied about in many political circles, not just California.

**Ben** (3:19)
Yeah, political polygons, all sorts of things.

**Emil** (3:21)
The political polygons, the political polycules.

**Ben** (3:24)
Yeah, and if we have time, which we probably will, we're going to talk about some other stuff in the markets. You got the Trump accounts, Trump hating short guys. What's that all about, huh?

**Emil** (3:35)
What's his problem?

**Ben** (3:36)
A bunch of people became millionaires, except for you, of course, sorry to hear that. But we'll talk about that. But you also, you might be one of the lucky Americans who lost a ton of money on betting.

**Emil** (3:47)
But you also might have become a billionaire. We don't know if one of the billionaires is listening. A millionaire, excuse me.

**Ben** (3:51)
That's true. That's true.

**Emil** (3:52)
And if you're listening, we tip our hat to you.

**Ben** (3:55)
Yeah, we tip our hat to you.

**Emil** (3:56)
Way to become a millionaire.

**Ben** (3:57)
And yeah, maybe some gaming stuff and some robot stuff. And it's just a fan.

**Emil** (4:02)
And if you're one of the people from Microsoft who got laid off, we also tip our hat to you.