Posted on 11/13/2019 10:36:43 AM PST by karpov
Forget whether the math works. (It doesn’t.) Expecting billionaires to pay for all the nice things is bad for democracy.
One of the more exhausting rituals of presidential campaign season is the effort to make every new proposal “add up.” Sure, it’s better that politicians try to come up with a plan to pay for their wish lists. The problem is that the explanations are often a disguise that make the impossible seem possible, even practical. Fake budgets are the tribute that pandering pays to pragmatism.
You could confiscate the wealth of every billionaire and centimillionaire in the country and it wouldn’t come close to paying for Medicare for All or the Green New Deal.
But let’s pretend that the fantastical (albeit unconstitutional) wealth tax Elizabeth Warren has proposed would work like she claims. Let’s also stipulate that the wealthy wouldn’t respond by hiding their wealth, moving out of the country, or cutting back in the sort of investments the government is utterly incapable of replicating. Let’s even concede for argument’s sake that Warren could get her plan through Congress and the courts.
Would that be good for the country?
Warren sees the rich as a natural resource that can be mined for its wealth indefinitely. Well, we have a lot of examples of countries that depend on natural resources to pay for everything. Saudi Arabia comes to mind. Oil revenues pay for almost everything. The problem with such societies is what political scientists and economists call “the resource curse” or “the paradox of plenty.”
It works like this: When the government doesn’t need the tax dollars of a middle class, the middle class has less political power. Virtually everywhere democracy has taken root, starting with England and Holland, it has done so because the middle class demanded representation
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
But shaking down the rich for a 10 to 1 return on investment is how Washington D.C. works. It’s only the middle class and little people who pick up the Beltway tab.
But he wanted Hillary to win in 2016.
Uh, dumb-ocracy! Not what we gots here.
It is bad for a Constitutional Republic as well...
Threatening billionaires is stupid. They are wealthy enough to leave and go somewhere where they are not threatened.
And it’s REALLY bad for a Republic!
>>Threatening billionaires is stupid. They are wealthy enough to leave and go somewhere where they are not threatened.
Ask the state of connecticut how it has worked out for them trying to get the rich to pay for everything?
Conn., NY, Illinois, California....
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class pay for it.
I guess no one in the demoncrats saw what happened to France when they tried to do this.
I think the Bezos, Gates and Zuckerbergs should pay some more because they already have dozens of tax loopholes the middle class do not have. Maybe an other 10-15% and maybe closing some loopholes.
We live in strange times. The minimum wage I earned in 1978 is almost $15 hr today according to the CPI calculator. I drove across 3 states last year for a wedding. Saw bunch of signs every few miles help wanted $10-12.00 and no benefits. That does not even match the minimum wage I had in 1978.
The middle and lower classes are on a race towards the bottom and the 55-60% of the population who are barely getting by will continue to vote democrats and more socialism.
Wait until automation and self driving cars and trucks really kicks in and 1/2 the population who are uneducated lose their job.
Peter Thiele of Google knows what up when he said every billionaire he knows has a bolt home to escape to when the masses rise up.
I don’t have the answers but we cannot continue on the path we are heading.
Massive personal wealth accumulation is a mental illness and a category of mind that has no problem with the creation of a police state. You become a member of the zillionair’s club, you become a globalist oligarch. Who needs more than $10 million in their bank account? What else do you need beyond financial security for life for you and your family? Google “obsessive compulsive disorder”. The war against the central banks and the Wall St. financial oligarchy is a war against insanity.
I still think liberals believe in the money tree.
I think the top 10% pay half the taxes already, correct?
Shaking Down the Rich Is Bad for Democracy
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...unless the Rich became rich through crony capitalism, government largess, and corporate bribes to begin with.
I can’t believe I’m reading your comment here in Free Republic. In whose hands rests the power to determine how much anyone “needs” in their bank account. President Trump has owned corporations that, as of 2016, had created jobs for 34,000+ people.
Based on your comment, what should happen to every dollar past the $10 million you believe should be the limit? Hand it to the government?
You shake down the rich because many are hardcore socialists.
Capitalism does NOT need their money. They just buy up good companies and turn them evil.
JarJar Fatberg weighs in...
But he wanted Hillary to win in 2016.
When have the super rich ever supported anyone but the democrats unless they are for cheap illegal alien workers.
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