The âStruggling Billionairesâ taxâŚ
âBut if you take 2 to 3% of my moneyâŚâ
âYOUâRE STILL FILTHY, STINKING RICH!!!â
âBut thatâs not faiiiiirrrrr!â
âTell that to the single mom making minimum wage, Thurston. Oh, and fuck off.â
Makes perfect sense to me.
The good thing is that this will hit everything they own, not just income (the wealthy donât really have income that gets taxed like the rest of us, they get a huge gift from that). It also opens the discussion up on something that hasnât been discussed for decades, making sure the wealthy pay their fair share. There will be huge outcries by Republicans about this, and they will try to make it sound like it taxes everyone, but I think Warren framed it so that wonât work. And, I think Americans will be in favor of taxing the wealthy based on their net wealth (and that should be the worldwide total, not just US holdings).
Can it pass Congress? Nope, not until Republicans get pushed out enough to learn that they need to follow the will of the people again.
This proposal is way too meager, IMHO. It ought to be up in the 40-50% range, with all their coveted tax loopholes permanently closed.
She knows this wonât fly. I doubt 70% is even a number sheâs shooting for, or believes in. But sheâs just starting the discussion â or rather, sheâs picking up on what AOC began, and making it part of the primary season and the coming debates. Good for Warren. I look forward to the debates â and sheâs good at them.
ETA: Woops. Sorry. Iâve been obsessed with the shutdown and the goings on in the Senate all day and so was simply assuming Warren is in line with AOC (and with Trumpâs immediate denigration today of her proposal), so I only now read through to the reality of what sheâs actually proposing. Agree with @tiowally above. She could be starting much higher. But hellâs bells, thereâs something to be said about starting at 3%. Who the fuck can argue with that? I mean, really. Besides the Kochs and the Wilbur Rosses of this world.
I hope people get over their allergic reaction to Warren, which reflects on them, not on her. Sheâd be a great candidate and president. The negative allergic reaction I can only understand as having to do with the fact that she is a highly intelligent, strong, and intellectual woman â all of that combined: the isolated pieces donât explain it.
I think that number makes a lot more sense for a tax on revenue than it does as an annual fee.
As a fee, it would work like a lawnmower, and after a few successive years it would become obvious that itâs an absolute cap on wealth.
I am in favor of an absolute cap on wealth, but it will never fly. If youâre Charles Koch, and youâre facing the prospect of losing everything past the first $2bn, youâll gladly spend half of the modulus in a single election year to buy every federal election â because youâll lose all the money if you fail, and youâll only lose half the money if you succeed. Not to mention that it would be challenged as unconstitutional, and Koch/Adelson/Mercer will happily spend $10bn to simultaneously retain every major law firm to ensure that there are no competent folks defending the law.
As a tax, Iâd say 40-50% is a good start, but we really have to get it up around 70%, and we absolutely need that number to apply to all forms of income.
Actually 2-3% as a PROPERTY TAX is a good idea. It is much harder to dodge than any kind of income tax, since there is an entire industry devoted to redefining EARNED INCOME as anything else you can think of. A PROPERTY TAX, which is what this amounts to is much harder to dodge. In addition, it is easy to explain, since most citizens pay for their public schools with taxes on their Real Property to their local school districts.
I say, BRAVO, Senator Warren. This is a great idea. My only suggestion be that it start at an assessed worth of $100M, but apply to ALL assessed wealth, not just that above an arbitrary $50M threshold.
Think of this as a PROPERTY TAX and not a marginal income tax rate. 1-2% for a PROPERTY TAX makes much more sense.
so far all the âjob creatorsâ havenât really been stepping up - or they hire from overseas
I think marginal rates on total assessed assets of 1% at 25mil, 2% at 50 mil, 3% at 100mil, 5% at 500mil, and 10% at 1bil oughta slow the rise of dynastic wealth, eh?
I love the Senator from Mass. but that is the problem. She could easily be replaced by a Republican in that strange state and we need desperately to win the Senate back in President Kamala Harris is to have a fighting chance of enacting a progressive agenda with fair and qualified judges. So far Harris is the only Senator in the ring that would be safely replaced by another Democrat.
Sheâll contribute a lot to the debates, and I look forward to hearing from her but I donât think we need to worry about her taking the prize â though Iâd never say never. Iâve seen some clips of her at events in Iowa and (never having been much exposed to her as a campaigner) I have to say I was surprised at how well she works a crowd. Her years as a college professor serve her very well answering questions, and listening with a practiced ear. She looks very youthful too, much younger than her age. And of course she is young compared to Biden and Sanders.
But this is a very interesting analysis and I think the discussion points are illuminating, not just in relation to Warren and her chances, but to all of the candidatesâ chances. It very clearly maps out where they have have to win to win.
âŚjust close the loopholes and their asses will follow⌠the 3% she talks about here is 3% of the upper 1/2 of 1%, the total numbers that represents are staggering.
But I do agree, take away half their abundance without telling them, they would never know it if some zealous low-level bookkeeper who wants to be one of them didnât scream about it out loud like he was gutshot.