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The School Behind the Billionaires and the Billionaire Tax

UC Berkeley will inevitably be behind the defeat or victory of Proposition 40.

Student walks past Sather Tower on the main campus of UC Berkeley

Something of an identity crisis is taking shape in the Bay Area at the University of California system’s flagship university. 

The foggy region is being torn in two as programmers and progressives duke it out in a battle over California’s Proposition 40, or “Billionaire Tax,” on the ballot in November. Since its announcement last November, it has spurred a pricey political spar to the tune of tens of millions. On one side of the brawl are academics and students spearheading the effort to pass the progressive measure. On the other are some of the wealthiest names in Big Tech pouring millions into efforts to stop it. 

Oddly enough, all parties hail from my university, UC Berkeley. The measure’s chief intellectual architects include Emmanuel Saez, a preeminent scholar on wealth inequality, taxation, and retirement who has taught at UC Berkeley since 2002. He’s joined by Professor Brian Galle of the UC Berkeley School of Law who, along with David Gamage and UC Davis professor Darien Shanske, authored the measure. Together, they form the brain trust behind what Saez describes as “the first time, anywhere in the world, there’s going to be a direct vote on whether people want to increase taxes on the ultrarich.”

But some of Saez’s fiercest opposition comes from another Golden Bear. Among Proposition 40’s most prominent critics is Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive and billionaire who spent six years at Berkeley earning his master’s and doctoral degrees. He has teamed up with tech billionaires Larry Page and Sergey Brin to pour a combined $85 million into opposition campaigns.

UC Berkeley will inevitably be behind the defeat or victory of Proposition 40. The irony of Saez—who’s made a career addressing income inequality— and Schmidt—whose fortune is contingent on income inequality—having the same blue and gold logo on their LinkedIn profiles is striking. But to Professor Saez, it’s not confounding nor a coincidence that UC Berkeley’s fingerprint is all over the upcoming election in California. According to the economics professor, the efforts of both parties are natural byproducts of a Berkeley education. 

“We praise ourselves for being the best public........

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