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I don’t really understand why tax avoidance is the holy grail of the richest American families.

When you’ve got more than enough money to fund your lavish lifestyle, your family foundation or, say, send your wife on a girls’ trip to outer space, why not just happily pay your taxes?

But that’s me being naive.

In this country, I guess, the point of getting rich is to get even richer.

As convicted tax evader and New York real estate mogul Leona Helmsley once so infamously put it: “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”

Years later, Helmsley’s real estate rival Donald Trump channeled the very same sentiment: During a 2016 presidential debate, Trump’s Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton accused the Republican nominee of not paying federal taxes. His response? “That makes me smart.”

I’m so over this attitude.

I’m tired of the in-your-face conspicuous consumption of couples like Jeff and Lauren Bezos. I’m sickened by the grotesque displays of brummagem in the Oval Office, and of the greedy urge to pay for lower taxes on the rich by kicking low-income Americans off Medicaid and choking off their healthcare subsidies. (And don’t get me started on the cost of the ill-conceived war on Iran, which we learned this week is topping $25 billion. So far.)

If we’ve learned anything about Republican tax-cutting mania over the past few decades, it’s that George H.W. Bush was absolutely correct when he described Ronald Reagan’s “trickle down” theory as “voodoo economics.” Other critics have aptly dubbed it “supply side snake oil.”

Repeat after me: Tax cuts do not pay for themselves.

Like a lot of left-leaning voters, when I first read about California’s proposed 2026 Billionaire Tax Act I was tickled.

Why not? The billionaire families it would affect are benefiting hugely from Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax cuts. Why not force them to give........

© Los Angeles Times