You’d have to be as dumb as a John Carney to oppose this tax increase
At long last…we now live in a country where continuing to think that smash and grab tax cuts are “good for the economy” identifies you as a full-blown idiot.
Elizabeth Warren is rolling out a “wealth tax” as a proposal to address the Gilded Age-levels of economic inequality currently blighting our futures (The Post):
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will propose a new “wealth tax” on Americans with more than $50 million in assets, according to an economist advising her on the plan, as Democratic leaders vie for increasingly aggressive solutions to the nation’s soaring wealth inequality.
Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two left-leaning economists at the University of California, Berkeley, have been advising Warren on a proposal to levy a 2 percent wealth tax on Americans with assets above $50 million, as well as a 3 percent wealth tax on those who have more than $1 billion, according to Saez.
The wealth tax would raise $2.75 trillion over a ten-year period from about 75,000 families, or less than 0.1 percent of U.S. households, Saez said.
Good for her. My only quibble is that it’s too small.
The political ground has shifted on taxation. People recognized Trump’s tax cut for what it was — another plutocrat smash-and-grab. Donors loved it, but voters didn’t.
Via Baloon Juice
I see what you did there.
This seems totally normal in the greatest country in the world.
https://mobile.twitter.com/jchausow/status/1088421376300646400
A 53 year-old homeless man was arrested after trying and failing to use a counterfeit $20 bill to buy toothpaste and food. Manhattan DA prosecuted him, a jury convicted, and he was sentenced to 4-8 years in prison. Ct. of Appeals just reduced it to 3-6.
Docs:
http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2019/2019_00371.htm
this too:
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-indiana-superintendent-used-insurance-help-sick-student-20190124-story.html
She’s a hero.
It’s gonna cost more than $20 to incarcerate him for 3-6. Prolly more than it would cost to send him college.
But I vote Green Party, so WTH do I know.
I don’t have a problem with this. He now gets shelter, food, health care, etc. let the state pay to take care of him since they aren’t in the first place
This is an ignorant take. The idea that prison satisfies the basic needs of human beings rather than torturing them lacks baseline human awareness.
“This seems totally normal in the greatest country in the world.”
Don’t go dragging Canada into this.
The appropriate penalty would be a $20 fine, payable in counterfeit money. The guy already got jobbed out of $20, or do they suspect he printed it himself?
I’m of two minds on a wealth tax on assets over $50 million. Historically in America we tax income, not assets. Taxing assets is a big leap. The logical and moral justification for taxing income is totally different from the logical and moral justification for taxing assets. The only other tax on assets I can think of is estate tax, which I am also in favor of.
On the other hand, if you are sitting on $50 million at this point in history, you are basically in receipt of stolen goods, and probably smirking about it. My first thought on a wealth tax is to frame it as a temporary clawback to correct a structural problem in our economy, and not a permanent fixture.
We already tax property here. In most states we tax consumption. In some states, the property tax is more than just your house and land. It’s your car, boat, etc. And we also have a luxury tax in some places where we tax sales of really expensive stuff.
This isn’t much different.
The reason we tax income is that it can’t be hidden the way wealth can. Simple as that.
For Warren’s wealth tax, a lot will depend upon what is included in “assets” and how it is calculated. Just cash? Stocks and bonds? Real estate? Automobiles? Furniture and other personal property?
I see this as an interesting idea but ultimately a non-starter because of the issues surrounding what’s in and what’s out.
After you decide what’s in and what’s out, the super-rich will simply move their assets into items that aren’t subject to the calculation.
Besides, who’s going to put the price tags on the items that are included?
Look at real estate. I don’t know what Irenee du Pont’s Granogue is worth today, but I suspect it’s a little more than the nearly $21.5 million calculated when property was last assessed in NCCo in 1983.
I’ll concede that Warren and the government’s tax experts know more about this than I do, but I find it hard to fathom that the Senate will come up with a simple majority on what assets should be included … unless they come up with a lobbyist-written definition that excludes just about everything.
Didn’t they already kill in the estate tax or was it the inheritance tax. Not sure if they are different?