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(41,113 posts) Wed Mar 30, 2022, 05:57 PM Mar 2022

Really? A Billionaire Tax? Now? Are You Kidding Me? - Robert Reich

Last edited Wed Mar 30, 2022, 10:53 PM - Edit history (1)

- 'Really? A billionaire tax? Now? Are you kidding me?' Why it's still a real possibility. Robt. Reich, March 29, 2022. Ed.

President Biden’s budget, which came out yesterday, proposes a new minimum tax of 20% on households worth more than $100 million- which the White House says will reduce federal budget deficits by $1 trillion over a decade. The tax would apply only to the top 0.01% -- the richest 1% of the richest 1%. Half of the expected $1 trillion in revenue would come from 704 households worth $1 billion or more. If enacted, it would effectively prevent the wealthiest sliver of America from paying lower rates than middle-class families, while helping to generate revenues to fuel Biden’s domestic ambitions and keep the deficit in check relative to the U.S. economy.

Recall that America’s 704 billionaires have increased their wealth by $1.7 trillion since the start of the pandemic in February 2020, while most Americans have struggled to make ends meet. That means the billionaires could theoretically pay for everything Joe Biden and House Democrats have proposed — from childcare to climate measures — and still be as wealthy as they were at the start of the pandemic. Elon Musk’s pandemic gains, for example, could cover the cost of tuition for 5.5 million community college students and feed 29 million low-income public-school kids, while still leaving Musk richer than he was before Covid.

The dirty little secret is the ultra-rich don’t live off their paychecks. They live off their stock portfolios. Jeff Bezos’s salary from Amazon was $81,840 in 2020 yet he rakes in some $149,353 every minute from the soaring value of his Amazon stocks, which is how he affords five mansions, including one in Washington DC with 25 bathrooms. (Why would anyone want 25 bathrooms?)

So if you want to tax billionaires, you have to go after their wealth.

But does Biden’s plan have a snowball’s chance of getting this enacted in the hell called Washington? The problem is the old political chicken-and-egg: A big reason why the super-wealthy have done so well is they’ve bankrolled politicians who alter laws (such as tax laws) to give them even more wealth. They’ve bought armies of lobbyists to keep their taxes minuscule and create tax loopholes large enough to drive their Lamborghinis through. ProPublica’s bombshell report last June showing America’s super-wealthy paying little or nothing in taxes revealed not only their humongous wealth but also how they’ve parlayed that wealth into political power to shrink their taxes...

- More, https://robertreich.substack.com/p/billionaire-tax