The "Wealth Tax"
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I wonder if this will pass constitutional muster.
A slew of Democrats on Capitol Hill — including progressives Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — on Monday proposed a 3% total annual tax on wealth exceeding $1 billion.
They also called for a lesser, 2% annual wealth tax on the net worth of households and trusts ranging from $50 million to $1 billion.
The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act aims at reining in a widening U.S. wealth gap, which has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic.
“The ultra-rich and powerful have rigged the rules in their favor so much that the top 0.1% pay a lower effective tax rate than the bottom 99%, and billionaire wealth is 40% higher than before the Covid crisis began,” Warren said Monday in a statement.
About 100,000 Americans — or, fewer than 1 in 1,000 families — would be subject to a wealth tax in 2023, according to Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists at the University of California, Berkeley.
The policy would raise at least $3 trillion over a decade, they found.
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DO you know what really gets me about these proposals? They're driven by malice. Or at least the motivations are invidious.
It's true she says that such a tax will allow us to pay for x, y, and z. But she would happily pass x, y, and z and finance it with just debt. Without a second thought.
The tax isn't a means to an end, it's an end in itself. Really she just wants to smite people who have done very well under the current system.
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@jon-nyc said in The "Wealth Tax":
DO you know what really gets me about these proposals? They're driven by malice. Or at least the motivations are invidious.
It's true she says that such a tax will allow us to pay for x, y, and z. But she would happily pass x, y, and z and finance it with just debt. Without a second thought.
The tax isn't a means to an end, it's an end in itself
Give her some credit. If she can pay for x-y-z then she can use debt to finance aa, bb, cc...
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@jon-nyc said in The "Wealth Tax":
DO you know what really gets me about these proposals? They're driven by malice. Or at least the motivations are invidious.
It's true she says that such a tax will allow us to pay for x, y, and z. But she would happily pass x, y, and z and finance it with just debt. Without a second thought.
The tax isn't a means to an end, it's an end in itself. Really she just wants to smite people who have done very well under the current system.
One could say the ends are the next election so the ends justify the means. I get that when the wealth gap is too large it could be a destabilizing force. I was struck by the comment somewhere that the Uber wealthy no longer congregate in church, go to the same schools nor socialize at all with the unvarnished masses and that somehow because many businesses no longer need massive labor, the wealthy have lost interest.
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@jon-nyc said in The "Wealth Tax":
Really she just wants to smite people who have done very well under the current system.
Agree. I dont think that there are any parents in the world who tell their kids,
"I want you to grow up to be poor!"
DOnt be jealous of those who have done well.
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A three percent total annual tax on Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates can be expected to materially impact the stock prices of their companies, since they'd end up having to dump their own stock to pay it. Of course the same can be said of any ultra wealthy individual whose wealth is primarily tied up in the market, regardless of how diversified within it they are. These are the sorts of policies that actually would affect the stock market, TG.
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@jon-nyc said in The "Wealth Tax":
The tax isn't a means to an end, it's an end in itself. Really she just wants to smite people who have done very well under the current system.
Well, it's probably better explained by her wish to appeal to an electorate that wants that. Her own motivations are probably more strictly selfish, to win, not to smite.
