It's "tax wealth, not income" that made me decide to switch to Warren.

[LAS14]

One of the commonest complaints about Warren is that her "plans" are not do-able. But the numbers are there if, as she says, we let the wealthiest keep their first however-many-millions and take 2 cents from each of the next dollars. She's the only one to propose paying for things that sounds like it would work. And with the wealth gap, the time is ripe.

Some people say it's too complicated. How do you calculate wealth? Her reply is that it can be done. "These people have stables of accountants that do this all the time." (Not an exact quote, but close).

What's wrong with this argument?

Then, the bottom line for me, is that, as she says "we have problems a lot bigger than Donald Trump." I figure with climate change looming we have to go for broke. We have to work really, really hard to get every Democrat to the polls in those swing states AND in the states with winnable senate seats, and then do BIG THINGS. The alternative is not an alternative. Will Biden's incrementalism reduce carbon fast enought?

tia
las

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. It's a bold, substantial plan, but I fear the current SCOTUS would rule against it nt

[elleng]

4. On what basis?

I'm definitely not a tax expert, but do no something about law.

[Fiendish Thingy]

7. I believe there was a previous ruling against the federal govt. taxing wealth/property

The ruling was long ago; That's why we have an income tax now.

Hopefully Warren has figured a workaround to this precedent- I have seen criticism that focuses on this very issue.

[elleng]

9. Thanks

[DrToast]

2. One of her worst ideas and completely unnecessary

We already have means to collect a “fair share”: income taxes and capital gains. You don’t need an entirely new tax plan that may or may not work; you just need existing tax rates set at appropriate rates.

[HelpImSurrounded]

6. We need it as a correction to trickle down tax policy.

After that, yes, a tax rate formula based on the Gini Index would be ideal.

[Newest Reality]

3. I like her ideas...

and we could TRY something workable and different because what we have now is clearly working well only for vested interests and those who have. They have been having a "great economy" and we hear about it booming in the Two Americas, (remember that?)

My concern for any candidate who does win the Presidency with a platform that finally bucks the system, (and I mean that in contrast to the trumpian debacle) is the MIC. Oh, it never went away, but you rarely here the term used anymore. The Military Industrial Complex is about acquiring and holding enough of our total economic and other forms of resources to capture and retain power over the entire system. This is not a conspiracy "theory", it is just a rather clandestine machine that functions as a collaborative, vested interest that works above and even beyond our surface politics and economy.

When you do some research into it, not only is it clear, but it even makes sense in regards to the overall goals and effects we see. Where there is a surface or superficial view, there is also an underlying depth.

What will be interesting then is the dynamic, considering what's at stake and the ruthless, play for keeps that that inspires, is how much push will come to shove should we get a candidate in office who is actually for the people and not in the faux and trumpian, dictatorial, populist sense.

Note: I look forward to the word trumpian to become a dictionary word. I have some definitions in mind already, but it should have several, all derogatory, of course. Just getting the ball rolling. Coin it, use it.

[HelpImSurrounded]

5. It's really only good as a temporary solution because we have failed to tax income correctly.

A wealth tax is a good and necessary correction to decades of bad tax policy (i.e. trickle down economics) but only if that revenue is put to the right uses.

At a certain point, we will want to abandon the wealth tax in favor of a properly progressive income tax. Ideally, we'd settle on an income tax rate formula that uses the Gini Index for Income Inequality as a variable so that the upper end of the tax rate would automatically rise as the Gini rises and lower as the Gini lowers.

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. What is Gini?

[HelpImSurrounded]

10. Gini Index of Income Inequality

It's a way to measure income inequality in a economy. The math is complicated but the result is very very useful. For example, the Gini today is higher than it's been since the before the Great Depression.

[link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient]



Since it results in a number from 0 to 1, it can easily be added into a tax rate formula to adjust up and down without political tampering.

[GeorgeGist]

11. It's a Start.