The 1% Could Pay Off Our Entire National Debt

[DanieRains]

And still be richer than god.

Simply pay taxes on amassed wealth oner $10 million.

Pay down / off the national debt.

It's just math.

[Polybius]

1. Did you actually do the math on this?

I'm not saying that you didn't, just asking because the National Debt is $23.3 trillion as of February 2020. That's a huge amount of money.

[GregariousGroundhog]

2. I was curious, so I did a Google search on this

Forbes reported on October 8, 2020 that the top 1% of U.S. households have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion and CNBC reported on June 23, 2021 that number as $41.52 trillion.

[qazplm135]

10. Net worth

Isn't the same as actual liquid assets.

[Hoyt]

3. Don't go questioning MISinformation.

[ret5hd]

6. Where was the misinformation? I don't see it.

Hell, from the numbers above, they could pay over a quarter of it with less than a years increase in their wealth.

[Hoyt]

9. Well, first that wealth is on paper. If all the rich had to immediately convert paper wealth to

cash, they'd be lucky to get 20 cents on the dollar.

Second, as soon as any government proposes converting a significant portion of paper wealth into cash for taxes, investments that create future jobs will pretty much dry up.

Personally, I think we need to increase income tax rates substantially, including capital gains rates, and implement a strong estate tax.

[LT Barclay]

5. From what I understand that is about how much

they have hidden overseas to avoid taxes.
I believe the Panama Papers confirmed this.

[Hoyt]

7. Panama Papers are mostly about wealthy people from other countries, not taxable here.

There have been studies that show USA might be missing as much as $100 B of taxes per year from offshore accounts. Assuming that $100 Billion is true, that's about one month of our current deficit. Significant, for sure. But not a panacea for anything.

[gratuitous]

4. And why shouldn't they shoulder most of the burden of the debt?

After all, a lot of that debt was incurred by giving tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations that don't really need them. Time to pay it back, and support the country and the economic system that made them so fabulously wealthy in the first place.

[RFCalifornia]

8. Why would they want to do that?

They make a lot of money off the interest of that debt

[brooklynite]

11. And what's the basis for arbitrarily picking $10 M?

[leftstreet]

12. Seize their assets n/t