Given the news conveyed to The Washington Post by leftist economist Emmanuel Saez that Sen. Elizabeth Warren plans to introduce a wealth tax of 2 percent on Americans with more than $50 million in assets and a 3 percent tax on those with more than a billion, the screaming of opponents against the very concept has already begun even though the tax would only affect less than a tenth of a percent of households, which Saez estimates at about 75,000. Over a decade, the tax would raise about $2.75 trillion. Some critics say the tax would harm the economy and clash with the Constitution.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, with $137.1 billion in assets would owe $4.1 billion under the proposal, and all together, the 175 Americans on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s richest 500 people, would owe $61 billion.
Saez and another economist, his Berkeley colleague Gabriel Zucman, have been helping Warren with the details:
"The Warren wealth tax is pretty big. We think it could have a significant effect on wealth concentration in the long run," Saez said in an interview. "This is a very interesting development with deep root causes: the fact inequality has been increasing so much, particularly in wealth, and the feeling our current tax system doesn't do a very good job taxing the very richest people."
Doktor Zoom at Wonkette suggests a slogan for this concept: "Two Percent From the One Percent," though he notes that it would really only be the 0.1 percent.
Here are a couple of charts showing what’s sparked the proposal, which Warren and her team have yet to announce:
From the Economic Policy Institute:
While top 1 percent earnings took a dive following the Great Recession, by 2017 those earnings had risen to their highest level ever, and the annual earnings of the top 1 percent had risen 157 percent cumulatively since 1979. For the top 0.1 percent, earnings have grown a whopping 343.2 percent since 1979. In contrast, earnings of the bottom 90 percent of workers rose just 22.2 percent over the same period.
The dynamic of large but temporary earnings declines for the highest earners during the Great Recession reflects the composition of their pay packages. For CEOs and other executives in the top 1 and 0.1 percent, earnings include stock options and other compensation measures linked strongly to firms’ stock market performance. As the stock market fell rapidly during the recession, this led to a sharp decline in earnings. But as stock prices went back up, so did the earnings of the top 1 and 0.1 percent—and so did inequality.
TOP COMMENTS
QUOTATION
“Poor people of all colors are getting poorer and our communities are getting more toxic. There is a misconception that to grow our economy we will have to do business as usual, because cleaning up the environment, mitigating climate change is just too costly. Well, I say the business of poverty is just too expensive a bill for humanity to pay any longer.”
~~Majora Carter, “Sustainable South Bronx: A Model for Environmental Justice” (2007)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2007—Obama vs. Fox Noise Channel:
Over at what Keith Olbermann now calls Fox Noise Channel, they just can't back away from their attempt to slime Barack Obama. Not only did John Gibson repeat the lies long after they'd been debunked, he also repeated the bogus "it came from Hillary" assertion.
And since Fox follows the Bush administration's golden rule "when you're in a hole, dig faster," they've also gone after CNN's Anderson Cooper for calling them on their lies. Hilariously, Fox spokesperson Irena Briganti demeaned Cooper's reporting ability and called his correction of Fox's errors "a cry for help." Coming from a network whose sole purpose is whining, Cooper should take this as unvarnished praise.
The Obama lies are a model for the off-key moaning of the right's media machine. Fox ran the lies on two shows, and plastered it on Papa Murdoch's king of yellow journalism, the New York Post. From there it was picked up by right wingnut talk show hosts who pitched in to keep the swift boats sailing. This included Dan Caplis, who not only repeating Fox's false accusations about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but adding his own dash of nuttery by calling Obama's elementary school a "Muslim seminary."
As usual, no one on the right seems to be interested in facts when they've got a good character assassination underway, especially if they can sling mud at Obama and Hillary at the same time. Stopping now would be slander interruptus.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: SOTU crisis averted. Greg Dworkin notes that Trump’s polling at his lowest, with no shutdown end in sight. Wilbur Ross says get a bridge loan. Union prez suggests general strike. Why Trump keeps losing in court. Oh, BTW, we had another mass shooting.