What’s Yours Is Mine

Guess what? Fireworks erupted when the Service Employees International Union proposed the California Billionaire Tax Act to collect an “emergency” 5% wealth tax on billionaires—allegedly to counter $100 billion in federal funding cuts to healthcare.

In a classic case of “what’s yours is mine,” according to a podcaster, Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna, smiling and nodding along, “You made all your money in California, you ingrateful piece of s—. You can figure out a way to pay more taxes, and we deserve the taxes from you.”

In San Jose, which might sound more like California Dreamin’, there is a mayor who reacts against this kind of response. Mayor Matt Mahan is 43, a Democrat, and threatening to run for governor. Mayor Mahan cautions that people can move. “Yup. In December, Google founder Larry Page bought more than $170 million in Florida real estate. Capital is mobile.”

Mayor Mahan adds, “I don’t believe that high-net-worth individuals should be able to borrow against appreciated assets endlessly as a way to avoid paying capital gains.”

The mayor of the country’s 12th-largest city thinks that rather than impose wealth taxes, California should press Congress to eliminate the step-up in basis at death, so that estates or heirs would pay a tax on the appreciation of a decedent’s assets. (California has no estate tax.) That wouldn’t put “our economy, our engine of innovation and prosperity, at risk.”

The mayor of San Jose worries that we will potentially push the billionaires and capital out of the state. We may push out the engine of high-wage jobs and equity and make everyone poor.

Mr. Mahan says what’s so devastating about this proposal, and even just the threat of it is already starting to have that effect.

Mr. Mahan wants the state to focus “on waste, fraud and abuse.” What Mayor Mahan doesn’t get are “politicians who defend the status quo and pretend that government couldn’t possibly be more efficient, more effective, more technology-enabled.”

“You look at Sacramento in particular. I think they’re billions of dollars’ worth of waste and even outright fraud,” he says, starting to sound angry. “I don’t know why politicians seem to think they can exempt government from needing to invest in productivity gains every year.” (Mr. Mahan knows of productivity from his previous work at startups.)

Street homelessness is another hot button, another perennial election issue in California. “There’s a huge amount of unnecessary human suffering, people languishing on the street, self-medicating with hard drugs, and people become habituated to that hard lifestyle.” The Mayor notes that in San Jose, “we’ve reduced the number of people living outside by a third.”

Mr. Kessler thanks the mayor for saying “homeless,” rather than the trendy “unhoused.”

Mr. Kessler asks Mayor Mahan if San Jose is a sanctuary city. “We have never passed a policy called ‘sanctuary,” ’says. San Jose’s mayor. “We don’t explicitly ask people, ‘What is your status?’ We don’t check people’s documents. I analogize it to local entities and services, even law enforcement, that don’t check your tax returns.” That’s a little bit of a cop-out—pun intended. But San Jose is no Minneapolis. Or Seattle.

Instead, says Mayor Mahan, San Jose is a law-abiding city.

“If you’re committing a serious crime, deportation is a likely consequence and a valid consequence.” Thinking even bigger, “I don’t know why anyone argues with having a secure border and knowing who comes in and out of the country. On the other hand, we have a lot of folks here . . . who have been hardworking, contributing members for 20 to 30 years, paid taxes, abided by every local law, and I believe they deserve a pathway to legal status in the country.”

When Kessler accuses the mayor of sounding like a moderate, the mayor agrees, “I am a moderate.”

“If you’re committing a serious crime, deportation is a likely consequence and a valid consequence.” Thinking even bigger, “I don’t know why anyone argues with having a secure border and knowing who comes in and out of the country. On the other hand, we have a lot of folks here . . . who have been hardworking, contributing members for 20 to 30 years, paid taxes, abided by every local law, and I believe they deserve a pathway to legal status in the country.”

McMahan professes not to be scared of any interest group.

“We need serious solutions—homelessness, crime, high cost of living, economic opportunity, economic competitiveness,” Mr. Mahan says. “This proposed wealth tax just shows how far off base many of our statewide leaders are.” In campaign mode already, he fires off: “I’m increasingly concerned with the leadership vacuum in Sacramento, the lack of common-sense problem solving.”

Not just common sense—any sense.

Andy Kessler wonders, A moderate Democrat? In California? Then AK quotes Ghostbusters: “Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!”

“Whether or not Mr. Mahan becomes governor,” advises Mr. Kessler, “he’s someone to keep an eye on.”