Billionaires Spend 0.07% of Their Wealth to Avoid a 5% Tax

A satirical mock-defense of a campaign by fictional venture firm Endlessen Horrorwitz and 30 California billionaires and spouses to defeat Proposition 40, a proposed one-time 5% tax on great fortunes. The donors spent $293 million - about 0.07% of their combined wealth - against a measure projected to raise at least $107 billion. The firm presents the spending as a public service because it supports jobs in advertising, polling, and campaign production, and boasts that spending so little to avoid the tax amounts to a roughly seventy-to-one return. It also celebrates funding two additional measures designed to cancel Proposition 40 if they receive more votes.

The piece sharpens its satire by treating the campaign’s self-interest as admirable business logic. It calls the roughly 230 billionaires who did not contribute “early beneficiaries,” argues that the tax’s relatively small cost is objectionable because it could establish a precedent, and compares state spending on healthcare unfavorably with the donors’ supposedly higher-yield advertising. It mocks claims that the campaign is buying an election by describing it instead as renting voters’ attention for a few weeks. The fictional firm concludes that, whatever the vote’s outcome, it will form another committee to oppose future wealth taxes, using the campaign’s low cost as its central argument. The humor exposes how concentrated wealth can be used to resist taxation while framing political influence as ordinary investment.