Tax Reform Gone Wild
Optimist Economy
Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
4.9 • 829 Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From California to Washington to New York, states are trying to tax the very rich. The press keeps rehashing whether millionaires and billionaires will flee those states. Wrong question. The more important one is why we’re improvising tax policy state to state when it’s the federal government that should be dealing with health care, child care and affordability—all of which are national problems. Meanwhile, some Senate Democrats are proposing to take even more people out of the tax system entirely. None of these specific proposals make income taxes simpler or fairer, but they do suggest there’s an appetite for reform.
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Chapters:
00:01:18 Announcements
00:02:33 Retcon: Occupational Licenses
00:06:16 Terms & Conditions: Progressive
00:07:59 Big Pilcrow: Everyone Wants to Tax Millionaires
00:38:23 Executive Orders: Unreadable Menus and Tax Complainer Merch
00:41:42 Spiritual Sponsors: Dream Robin & the Nobel Laureate’s WNBA Contract
- Make Optimist Economy economically viable: https://optimisteconomy.com
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- The party is at the Substack chatroom.
- In lieu of a “I’m better than you… because I pay taxes” T-shirt, can we offer you an Optimist Economy one?: https://merch.ambientinks.com/collections/optimisteconomy
Got economics questions, anxieties, or executive orders? Send them to optimist.economy@gmail.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're used to hearing my voice on the world, bringing you interviews from around the globe. |
| 0:07.2 | And you hear me reporting environment and climate news. I'm Carolyn Beeler. |
| 0:12.1 | And I'm Marco Werman. We're now with you hosting the world together. More global journalism with a fresh new sound. |
| 0:18.3 | Listen to the world on your local public radio station and wherever you find your podcasts. |
| 0:30.1 | More professional every week. |
| 0:31.9 | More professional every week in this unpaid internship that Robert and I gave ourselves mid-career. |
| 0:37.8 | Exactly. |
| 0:40.3 | Hello, and welcome to Optimist Economy. |
| 0:47.3 | I'm economist Catherine Ann Edwards. |
| 0:49.3 | I'm editor Robin Rousey. |
| 0:51.3 | On this show, we believe the U.S. economy can be better, |
| 0:53.3 | and we talk about how to get there, one problem and solution at a time. |
| 1:03.7 | Today, big old problem. |
| 1:06.6 | Taxes. |
| 1:09.8 | It's our second tax episode of the tax season. |
| 1:13.2 | We're playing to the home crowd in L.A. because we all know Robin loves a tax story. |
| 1:17.9 | That's true. It's true. |
| 1:19.8 | So this episode we want to talk about who should pay income taxes and will the spate of |
| 1:26.8 | millionaire, billionaire income wealth taxes make them flee? |
| 1:30.5 | Okay. |
| 1:31.5 | Wherever the taxes coming from. |
| 1:33.0 | I guess I should have like there's like an end to that sentence of like flee like the world. |
... |
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