Looking at the title of today’s column, the answer is yes, and it’s been yes for a long time.

But what’s been happening so far in California is slow-motion suicide.

Every year, it seems, there is more taxing, more spending, more mandates, and more regulating. The net effect is a steady loss of productive people to other states.

Sooner or later, when there are too many people riding in the wagon and too few people pulling the wagon, this will cause an economic crisis.

But some people are impatient. They want crisis, bankruptcy, and decline to happen right away.

These are the people pushing a state wealth tax. They don’t say they want bad things to happen quickly, but that will be the inevitable result if they get their proposal on the ballot and California’s foolish voters approve the measure

For background, here are some excerpts from a New York Times report by Ryan Mac, Theodore Schleifer and Heather Knight.

Billionaires including Peter Thiel, the tech venture capitalist, and Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, are considering cutting or reducing their ties to California by the end of the year because of a proposed ballot measure that could tax the state’s wealthiest residents… The moves are being driven by a potential California ballot measure from the health care union, Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West… The proposal calls for California residents worth more than $1 billion to be taxed the equivalent of 5 percent of their assets. If the measure gains enough signatures to reach the state ballot in November and wins approval, it will retroactively apply to anyone who lived in California as of Jan. 1, 2026. Those with $20 billion in assets who resided in the state on that date would face a one-time tax of $1 billion… For Mr. Page, whose net worth is estimated at $258 billion, the measure could result in a one-time tax of more than $12 billion. The tax bill for Mr. Thiel, whose net worth is around $27.5 billion, could be more than $1.2 billion.

But the potential exodus involves a lot more people than just Thiel and Page.

David Lesperance, a tax and immigration adviser for high net-worth individuals, said it would be a “process” for people to successfully claim nonresidence in a state. …Because of the potential ballot measure, “almost all of my clients are taking steps as quickly as possible both to sever California residence and to move assets outside of the state,” Mr. Lesperance said… Brett Harris, a high-end real estate agent in the Miami area, said he had been contacted recently by five California billionaires who planned to make Florida their home so they could “offset their risk of exposure to the billionaire tax.”

Interestingly, California’s left-wing governor, Gavin Newsom, opposes the measure. Perhaps a sign that he’s irrational, but not completely irrational.

But here’s the part of the article that deserves attention. California’s budgetary bureaucrats apparently understand the Laffer Curve!

California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office and Department of Finance have estimated that the state “would collect tens of billions of dollars from the wealth tax” in onetime payments. But they added that state income tax revenues would also fall over the long term by hundreds of millions a year if billionaires decided to move away.

The bottom line is that a wealth tax would be an economic disaster for California.

But that’s economic analysis. What about political analysis?

I think there’s an analogy to the 2017 debate in California over whether to adopt a government-run, single-payer heath system. Even though the left controlled all the levers of power in California, state politicians ultimately realized it would be crazy to double the burden of government in one fell swoop, so the legislation died.

I’m guessing that California’s misguided voters will have a similar epiphany and realize that it’s not a good idea to chase away the geese with the golden eggs.

Though part of me would be happy if they voted yes. After all, it helps to have bad examples when teaching economics. Actually, California already is a bad example. Enacting a wealth tax would make it a catastrophic example.