Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) isn’t the only person on the Hill looking to tax those at the “tippy tops.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is proposing a new wealth tax. This is not really a shock for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, Democrats love taxes. There is not a tax they don’t like. In California, state Democrats there floated the idea of taxing text messages. That got scuttled, but alas, the state is considering taxing…drinking water. Benjamin Franklin said nothing is certain but death and taxes. Democrats decided they wanted to combine the two into a socioeconomic policy. Democrats 2020: taxed to death. Also, Liz Warren announced her 2020 exploratory committee, so she’s doing her part to show her progressive bona fides, despite her pretty much culturally appropriating the Cherokee Nation. A DNA test showed that Warren is only 1/1024th Native American. By that standard, I’m Scottish, but here’s her tax proposal (via WaPo):
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will propose a new annual “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.
Warren’s campaign declined to comment on details of the plan.
You can’t help the poor if you destroy the rich. Also, the lack of details is becoming a hallmark staple of the far left. Medicare for all is suffering the same appalling lack of details for how they will pay for the $30+ trillion program that will come with loads of new taxes that will wipe out any revenue this trash tax will supposedly generate. Also, how much in taxes do the upper-middle class and the so-called wealthy, also known as the job creating and investing class, pay in this country? Yeah, they’re paying more than their fair share and every time the GOP wants to simplify the tax code, which is around 70,000 pages, Democrats balk unless there are new taxes. It’s a vicious cycle.
Don’t call Warren’s tax a 2% tax. Over 10 years it would wipe out 18% of wealth over $50M and over 50 years it would wipe out 64%. Over a billion dollars it would wipe out 27% over 10 years and 82% (!) over 50. And that’s not taking into account the returns on these assets.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) January 25, 2019
We all know about compounding returns. Warren’s 64% wealth tax spread over 50 years would wipe out highly performing assets and use them to fund a bureaucracy with zero social or financial returns.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) January 25, 2019
Due to compound interest, the progressively lower amounts able to be invested year after year due to Warren’s tax would have a much greater effect than 2% a year.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) January 25, 201
It’s cute that people think these assets aren’t put to use. They’re used to fund the entire startup economy, the #1 net job creator. The massive concentration of wealth is also being used to wipe out malaria, fund clean energy, and reach new frontiers in space.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) January 25, 2019