Senate Is It Time For A Wealth Tax?

Believe it or not, I am not proud of it

 

@Kenneth Morgan What would you propose? We stay with our current plan that is totally working out great?

Have less Taxes? I would genuinely like to know what you think since you don’t seem on board with taxing the rich and I do mean the 1% more. So what would you propose? A tax increase on 400k would cover basically the entire 1% plus a little bit extra

 

Then we freeze/seize every asset we can. Every mansion, every yacht, every jet, every piece of property. Everything.

 

I have plenty of sympathy for your proposal, but I'm just pointing out the obvious that the rich, the big companies, will play the field for the best deal they can get.

As the Brexiters are finding out, put companies in a position where they have to pay more tax, and they will pick up entire industries from the UK and move them into the EU.

It's why Amazon can make cities compete for their love.

I know what you want, but it's a tricky thing to do.

 

Let 'em. We're talking about money that, by definition, they aren't even using. Meanwhile, other people are literally dying because they don't have money for their basic needs. And we're talking about taking minimal percentages of money that these people will not even miss. If people are so terrified of their extra money being used to save lives, well, they are among the most evil ************* who have ever lived and they can get right the **** out if they want to.



Sociopathic billionaires fleeing the country isn't a bug, it's a feature. We might eventually be able to have something approximating an actual democracy. Just think, if we'd had a wealth tax years ago, Trump might have never been President.

 

I had a thought about an income equality tax bonus. The idea is, the less income inequality a company has, the lower their taxes would be. Let's say one company's lowest paid janitor makes 1% of what the CEO makes, that company gets a 0.1% tax bonus. But a company where the janitor makes 50% of the CEO's pay, their tax bonus is 5%. Make it so that it benefits the company to pay their employees a decent wage and not give buckets of money to the few at the top. I'm no economist or financier so my numbers are probably way out there, but the general idea is to give companies incentives to reduce income inequality.

 

Nope. I'm just cynical about such things.

 

I'm the wrong guy to ask about that. I'm just saying that taxing the rich and thinking it'll solve all of the problems doesn't work. That's because people have different definitions of "wealthy", which results in the wrong people getting focused upon; because people who have a lot of money usually figure out ways to keep it, and that those who decide how to use the taxes collected frequently decide that the money should be instead spent on something other than what the voters were told it was intended for, resulting in demands for more tax money to make up for what has been diverted to a sometimes shady elsewhere. At least, that's what I've seen happen over the years.

 

All of that makes sense. I just don’t want to underestimate the craftiness of and resources available to obnoxiously, offensively wealthy people. If there’s a way for them to get out of some obligation to society, they’ll find it.

They’re like small, spoiled children. If one parent doesn’t give them what they want, they’ll go to the other one. If that one doesn’t either, they’ll go to a grandparent. Someone, somewhere, is going to be a weak link in the chain.

 

I don't disagree, they're not going to part with their wealth willingly. There's only one solution.

 

You literally solved all these supposed flight risks on page one. And yet.

 

If there was a humble 2% wealth tax over capitals larger than a billion dollars, billionaires would just pay it.
They wouldn't flee, they wouldn't hide their wealth, they wouldn't move it abroad.

They have way more to gain than they have to lose for so little.

And since we are here, getting back to a marginal income tax rate of at least 70% wouldn't be a bad idea either.

 

Might be worth looking at info on the London Living Wage in these respects. As, without anything from government, major companies have signed up to it.

Why? Turns out paying people a level of salary that enables them to pay their bills tends to result in less stressed, more productive employees which benefits the employer in tangible and intangible respects.

 

Yes, but as the "parents" in this illustration, the country keep giving in to their tantrums. That's why the idea of a wealth tax is a pipe dream in the US--we've enabled spoiled children to continue their infantile behaviors rather than grow up.

 

No, you're not. You're a nihilist. It's like saying "People in power inevitably become corrupted", which allows you to shrug at the latest scandal and say "See? I told you. Just the way of the world." But it isn't true. The cynical view is that the corrupt are attracted to power. Similarly, taxes being misused aren't an inherent part of government. It's a result of low citizen interest and participation in government. The cynical view is that people will want to abuse and manipulate the system so it is vital to make sure that they don't. Which is to say, doing something more than chuckling at atrocious morning DJs cracking jokes about how "those fat cats up in Washington are at it again".

 

Yes.

 

Nope, that's incorrect. I'm cynical about the current state of affairs. I figure that, at some point, people will wise up and we'll get some effective reforms. I'm not exactly holding my breath waiting for it, but I think there are enough good-natured, honest people around that it could happen. It's just that much of the current crop of leaders and/or prospective leaders don't seem to be it.

 

@Kenneth Morgan
Sooner or later you will have to make at least one concrete example. Making the generic statement "politicians are bad, so we shouldn't fund healthcare" accomplish nothing but drying up the conversation.

 

You know, if someone has a gold toilet, they're literally saying that their **** deserves to be treated better than basically every person in the world.

A 2% wealth tax should be the least of their worries. They should be begging for a wealth tax. Because we as a society are being unbelievably, incredibly gracious to them just to let them exist as a class in the first place. So it should probably be framed that way. How about you give us 5% of your wealth and, in return, we won't drag you into the streets? Today, at least. Oh, what's that? You want to give us 10%? Sounds good. I think you just bought yourself today and tomorrow.

 

Going back many years, NJ voters were told that allowing casino gambling in A.C. and the state lottery would fund education easily without the need for additional taxes. Turns out they didn't, thus property taxes were expanded, and then expanded again.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't fund health care. I'm saying that the position of "just tax the 'wealthy' and all will be well" isn't going to work.

 

Or you could tell them, "Give 5% of your wealth directly to charitable organizations who will immediately help those in need and we'll give you credit for it on your taxes." It beats saying, "Give the government 5% of your wealth, in the hope that they'll possibly use it for something worthwhile, or you're a dead man." The former makes people feel and look good; the latter inspires mistrust and a desire to outwit those who are apparently shaking you down.

 

Obviously there needs to be a workable and coherent plan on what to do with that money, I don't think anybody in this thread would deny that, and I'm not saying we shouldn't redistribute money from the grotesquely overfunded military to other services, but resources are needed for healthcare, for education, for infrastructure, to tackle poverty, etc., and that has to come from somewhere. Why not take it from the minuscule amount of the population that's hoarding the majority of the wealth?

Because a ton of wealthy people already donate to charity for tax write-offs, and there's only so much that charities can actually do, in addition to the fact that many charities and non-profits just give the lion's share of that money to their own executives and owners. The burden of making a better society for all the people to live in can not rest on the shoulders of charities that do not have the authority to create needed changes at the institutional level. The fact that we already rely on them to do so of this work, or that we rely on GoFundMe campaigns so people can get life-saving procedures, is part of the problem, and the perpetuation and escalation of that problem is not the solution.

 

@Kenneth Morgan
Letting them choose the charitable organization they want to fund is WAY more inefficient than just collecting their money in the form of taxes.
The alternative solutions you propose would make the problem you highlighted much worse than what it is.

 

Charity is a big scam for the wealthy to give the illusion they're doing their part for society so they don't need to pay taxes.