Mike Konczal at The Nation writes—This One Weird Trick Makes Economies More Fair!
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have proposed wealth taxes, with Warren’s taxing 2 percent of wealth for those worth over $50 million and 3 percent after the first $1 billion. Sanders’s plan would levy a 1 percent tax on households worth more than $32 million, with higher tax rates for the wealthiest—up to 8 percent for those with fortunes in excess of $10 billion.
Researched and defended by economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, a wealth tax is one of the most progressive government levies available to us, falling entirely on the extremely wealthy. It would help with some of the evasion problems: Efforts to hide income as wealth would be rendered futile, as that fortune would be taxed anyway.
Experts are addressing objections to the wealth tax. There is a question of how to value wealth so it can be taxed and whether people would be liquid enough to pay these taxes. Fortunately, much wealth is in stocks and bonds, which are easily calculated. And the IRS can develop new evaluation techniques for other financial assets. Sanders and Warren want to increase the agency’s enforcement budget. Under Sanders’s plan, billionaires would be audited every year. And the liquidity issue of having the cash on hand to pay can be addressed by allowing limited deferrals with interest. Unlike many countries, the United States collects taxes from citizens overseas. It also has a wealth penalty it charges people who renounce their citizenship to avoid taxes, as some fear might happen if a wealth tax is implemented. Warren’s plan, for instance, would impose a 40 percent exit tax on Americans worth more than $50 million who give up their citizenship.
It is worth noting what kind of public program expansion could happen with this kind of revenue growth. Saez and Zucman said that a proposal like Warren’s would raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years and that Sanders’s could raise $4.35 trillion over the same period.
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QUOTATION
“All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”
~~Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Chambliss wants economic stimulus for Afghanistan:
Well this pretty much tells you everything you need to know about what Republicans think is really important: appearing on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Georgia Republican U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss endorsed a new economic stimulus package...for Afghanistan. […]
Developing Afghanistan's economy may be a laudable goal, but it's too bad Chambliss doesn't feel the same way about America, where he continues to oppose any sort of legislative initiative to create jobs and rebuild the strength of our economy.