This is the Libertarian Podcast from the Hoover Institution.

I'm your host Tom Church, and the Libertarian is Professor Richard Epstein.

Richard is the Peter and Kirsten Bedford senior fellow here at the Hoover Institution.

He's the Lawrence A Tish Professor of Law at NYU and he's a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.

And President Biden has left for an overseas trip without finalizing his spending bill which is in its, let's say,

nth iteration.

We may actually see a vote within a week and as it stands

right now reports say it contains new taxes of 1.85 trillion dollars meant to pay

for new spending on the president's climate and social agenda.

Richard, we've previously talked about a few provisions that look like they may have been

thrown out, but there's one I really want to ask you about.

And that's this idea of taxing

unrealized capital gains.

The idea made headlines when it was suggested that

Elon Musk, whose net worth is now $300 billion,

might face a tax bill of $50 billion. Can you talk me through? billion dollars.

Can you talk me through the logic of how we would tax

unrealized capital gains, especially when incomes and wealth go up and down

so much with equities.

I could try to do this. It's a somewhat of a complicated story and they have to

begin with the beginning and the usual claim that you're dealing with here has to do with the scope of the 16th Amendment.

This was an amendment which was adopted in February of 1913 just after Woodrow Wilson became president and it was clearly a progressive

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