PROGRESSIVES TRIP OVER OWN FEET AGAIN: 'BILLIONAIRE TAX' CRUMBLES UNDER COMMON SENSE

The folks over at the Santa Barbara Independent, bless their bleeding hearts, seem genuinely baffled by the idea that voters might actually use their brains when confronted with a ballot full of shiny, 'tax the rich' schemes. Their latest exposé, 'The Billionaire Tax Could Be Defeated by Two Other Tax Measures. Here’s How,' reads less like reporting and more like a therapist's notes from a session with a very confused progressive.

Apparently, the shocking revelation is that when you propose a tax designed to punish success (the so-called 'billionaire tax'), and then others propose *other* taxes designed to counteract the first one, voters might actually get a little leery of the whole shell game. It's almost as if the tax-and-spend crowd didn't account for the fact that people don't enjoy being treated like ATMs, especially when the money is earmarked for the usual parade of failed government programs and the burgeoning pension liabilities of the very bureaucrats pushing these measures.

What the Independent conveniently misses, of course, is that the 'billionaire tax' isn't about billionaires; it's about a foot in the door to tax *everyone's* assets. It's a wealth redistribution scheme disguised as a civic duty. And the only thing worse than one bad tax measure is three of them, each trying to out-virtue-signal the last. Perhaps the voters, in their infinite wisdom, are just tired of being told that the solution to every problem is to confiscate more private wealth and hand it over to the same government that can't manage a pothole repair on time.

The real story isn't that a 'billionaire tax' might be defeated; it's that the architects of these fiscal follies are perpetually shocked when common sense and fiscal responsibility somehow manage to eke out a win. It’s almost as if hardworking taxpayers prefer keeping their money to letting politicians play Robin Hood with it, especially when said politicians are more likely to spend it on consultants and studies than on anything tangible. Who knew?