This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
So an automatic process which was supposed to move fast swept in some people that the purity pony people can complain about.
The whole point was to have something extremely simple and automatic. A few thousand dollars to a handful of rich people is a waste of time to worry about (and a waste of time and money to pursue).
Who CARES??? This was a process to get money to people that needed it quickly. OUR âhouseâ didnât need it but we took it and distributed it to those who needed MORE.
The issue is not that billionaires got stimulus checks, itâs that those billionaires didnât pay much in taxes. Itâs a powerful argument for a wealth tax.
No, it is an argument for tightening up the tax code in already functional areas. Wealth taxes have a shit track record globally and are massively complex to administer (which is why theyâve mostly been dropped in EU). Inheritance, capital gains etc.
Itâs the same as food stamps tighten the regs to make sure cheaters donât get thru and deprive lots of people of timely assistance, or any assistance because of the rules, or let some cheats get by to make sure the most get help.
The sad part is that most of them wouldnât even know they got it, but that once having found out wouldnât turn around and return it to the IRS or at least donate it.
Oh yes, thereâs people who will game anything, but one does not throw out the baby with the bath water. We have at least one âsoup kitchenâ in our town that feeds the homeless. I try to send coupla of bucks periodically. Yet, Iâve hear assholes say that some who are not really needy go there. Damn, but I despise the people who say that. I tell them to drive by, then tell me you would trade places with anyone in that line for a meal.
The problem is WHY they qualified for the stimulus checks. Their taxable earnings show exactly how they make money. They are not salaried workers and taxed out of their paycheck (most donât have a significant paycheck). They can loophole their way out of any significant tax rate. Fucking billionaire grinches with no sense of societal responsibility.
Paul Krugman used his column today to give his thoughts on why billionaires, who have more money then they could possibly spend, are so hell bent on both not paying taxes and sucking every dime they can get from Government subsidies.
From the article:
"Elon Musk doesnât think visionaries like him should pay taxes the way little people do. After all, why hand over his money to dull bureaucrats? Theyâll just squander it on pedestrian schemes like âŚballing out Tesla at a critical point in its development. Musk has his sights set on more important things, like getting humanity to Mars to âpreserve the light of consciousness.
Still, the determined and so far successful opposition of incredibly wealthy Americans to any effort to tax them like normal people raises a couple of questions. First, is there anything to their insistence that taxing them would deprive society of their unique contributions? Second, why are people who have more money than anyone can truly enjoy so determined to keep every penny?"
Piketty makes a good case for them. Basically, wealth taxes ended the reign of the aristocrats in many countries. Because leaving a small class that owned much of the countryâs wealth made it hard for anyone else to build equity. Right now, we have billionaires with competing rocket ships and states like mine where nearly half of the pubic school students qualify for free or reduced price lunch.