Wealth Redistribution

[Tim]

If you doubt taxes won’t be used as a targeted weapon , read this. 467 people targeted for a 60% tax.
Looks like a tax on unrealized gains as well.
Scary stuff that likely has zero chance. But it shows a basic fundamental change to use taxes selectively.

The “Make Billionaires Pay Act” would impose a one-time 60% tax on wealth gains made by billionaires between March 18, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2021.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/sand...uckerberg.html

[Larry Ragman]

As if these companies did not provide a valuable service that everyone wanted during the pandemic... Then, just what we need, the government forcing stock sales and driving down the market just so it can extract a pound of flesh. Oh yeah, that would not distort the markets at all, or cause a flight of capital.

[ENT Doc]

Par for the course for Bernie.

[pulmdoc]

Grandstanding /= policy

[East coast]

Since we're posting about meaningless proposals...

Rumor has it that Federal Loan interest waiver is going to be extended today! How do I know? Someone said something!

[hightower]

Doesn't bother me one bit. GASP!! But a one time tax on billionaires isn't going to solve our problems, though it’s a step in the right direction and will help protect future tax payers from being solely on the hook for the crazy government spending that has occurred over the last 6 months.

Our current state of government is unsustainable and unstable. We have a government being run primarily with the interest of giant corporations and billionaires in mind. There’s easily enough wealth in this country to provide good public services that everyone can benefit from, not just directly via healthcare and education, but also psychologically from reduced stress from having less to worry about. And the rich would still be plenty rich. If Jeff Bezos was worth 50 billion instead of 100 billion, I think he would be just fine. The problem is greed can never be satiated so there’s no such thing as enough.

As Warren Buffet has famously pointed out many times, he pays less in taxes (percentage wise) than his secretary. The system is too friendly to accumulators of insane wealth. No one needs 100 billion dollars for themselves. Sure some of them do charitable stuff with it, but meanwhile there’s still millions of Americans who are suffering to afford their medicine or basic needs. Makes no sense to me. There’s no good to society when a handful of people are holding on to such a huge proportion of the wealth. I’m not saying it needs to be extreme, but this has to change or we will continue to decline as a country. Look at how horribly we’ve responded to the pandemic in comparison to the rest of the world. We’re not united as a country at all and in my opinion this has everything to do with our backwards mindset that says “every man for himself”. If we dont change our greedy ways, our children won’t have the kind of awesome life we all got to enjoy growing up. Well the billionaire children will have a pretty good time, but they’ll probably be living in bunkers in New Zealand when poop hits the fan.

Now bring on the hate replies from the Fox News crowd...

[VentAlarm]

Doesn't bother me one bit. GASP!! But a one time tax on billionaires isn't going to solve our problems, though it’s a step in the right direction and will help protect future tax payers from being solely on the hook for the crazy government spending that has occurred over the last 6 months.

Our current state of government is unsustainable and unstable. We have a government being run primarily with the interest of giant corporations and billionaires in mind. There’s easily enough wealth in this country to provide good public services that everyone can benefit from, not just directly via healthcare and education, but also psychologically from reduced stress from having less to worry about. And the rich would still be plenty rich. If Jeff Bezos was worth 50 billion instead of 100 billion, I think he would be just fine. The problem is greed can never be satiated so there’s no such thing as enough.

As Warren Buffet has famously pointed out many times, he pays less in taxes (percentage wise) than his secretary. The system is too friendly to accumulators of insane wealth. No one needs 100 billion dollars for themselves. Sure some of them do charitable stuff with it, but meanwhile there’s still millions of Americans who are suffering to afford their medicine or basic needs. Makes no sense to me. There’s no good to society when a handful of people are holding on to such a huge proportion of the wealth. I’m not saying it needs to be extreme, but this has to change or we will continue to decline as a country. Look at how horribly we’ve responded to the pandemic in comparison to the rest of the world. We’re not united as a country at all and in my opinion this has everything to do with our backwards mindset that says “every man for himself”. If we dont change our greedy ways, our children won’t have the kind of awesome life we all got to enjoy growing up. Well the billionaire children will have a pretty good time, but they’ll probably be living in bunkers in New Zealand when poop hits the fan.

Now bring on the hate replies from the Fox News crowd...

It has nothing to do with need. What right do you have to come in to my home and say “I deserve this more than you” or “don’t worry, I can do a better job of handling this than you can.”

What you are suggesting is extreme. Sure, you don’t think of it as extreme if you just take a small portion, but this is extreme and against the foundation of capitalism. It would destabilize our country (if were not already too far gone).

Read the birth of plenty.

[CordMcNally]

It's a Bernie Bill...what do you expect?

[Shant]

It has nothing to do with need. What right do you have to come in to my home and say “I deserve this more than you” or “don’t worry, I can do a better job of handling this than you can.”

What you are suggesting is extreme. Sure, you don’t think of it as extreme if you just take a small portion, but this is extreme and against the foundation of capitalism. It would destabilize our country (if were not already too far gone).

Read the birth of plenty.

Oh the irony of you calling Hightower's position extreme.

[Hank]

And yet anyone, whether Bezos or Bernie or hightower already is free to cut a check to charity or to the general fund of the U.S. Treasury for 60% of their increased wealth since the bottom of the market back in March. Tellingly, very few who say taxes should be higher voluntarily pay the higher rates they propose. Some, like Stacey Abrams, don’t even pay what they owe under our current, relatively low tax rates.

[G]

Doesn't bother me one bit. GASP!! But a one time tax on billionaires isn't going to solve our problems, though it’s a step in the right direction and will help protect future tax payers from being solely on the hook for the crazy government spending that has occurred over the last 6 months.

Our current state of government is unsustainable and unstable. We have a government being run primarily with the interest of giant corporations and billionaires in mind. There’s easily enough wealth in this country to provide good public services that everyone can benefit from, not just directly via healthcare and education, but also psychologically from reduced stress from having less to worry about. And the rich would still be plenty rich. If Jeff Bezos was worth 50 billion instead of 100 billion, I think he would be just fine. The problem is greed can never be satiated so there’s no such thing as enough.

As Warren Buffet has famously pointed out many times, he pays less in taxes (percentage wise) than his secretary. The system is too friendly to accumulators of insane wealth. No one needs 100 billion dollars for themselves. Sure some of them do charitable stuff with it, but meanwhile there’s still millions of Americans who are suffering to afford their medicine or basic needs. Makes no sense to me. There’s no good to society when a handful of people are holding on to such a huge proportion of the wealth. I’m not saying it needs to be extreme, but this has to change or we will continue to decline as a country. Look at how horribly we’ve responded to the pandemic in comparison to the rest of the world. We’re not united as a country at all and in my opinion this has everything to do with our backwards mindset that says “every man for himself”. If we dont change our greedy ways, our children won’t have the kind of awesome life we all got to enjoy growing up. Well the billionaire children will have a pretty good time, but they’ll probably be living in bunkers in New Zealand when poop hits the fan.

Now bring on the hate replies from the Fox News crowd...

I'm not the Fox News crowd, but I'll just point out it is all perspective. Yup a billion is a lot; I'll never have that. But how much do you bill in an hour? I suspect that it is more than average human on this planet will make in a month. Would you identify yourself as greedy?

Anyway, these debates go nowhere.

[MPMD]

this should be shut down fairly soon.

[Lordosis]

This reminds me of playing games with my son. He asks me to make it more fair by giving advantages to the little kids. I always correct him that it is not more fair. It is just more of a challenge.

[Kamban]

Not going to comment if this bill is right or wrong ( people already know my views) but his grandstanding by an idiotic senator is what raises my shackles.

We elect them to make sensible laws or proposals that have a reasonable chance of passage with some compromises. Instead we have a man who has never done a useful day of work in his life and has become a millionaire owning 3 houses by being a career politician espousing pie in the sky views just to pleases a small set of followers who think that this will pass.

I hate it when politicians think we do not have any neurons to think for ourselves.

[Tim]

The intent was to discuss tax policy. I guess that can’t happen.