Cut taxes for the wealthy or else, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is warning Congress:
“There is no question that the rally in the stock market has baked into it reasonably high expectations of us getting tax cuts and tax reform done,” Mnuchin said in the interview. “To the extent we get the tax deal done, the stock market will go up higher. But there’s no question in my mind that if we don’t get it done you’re going to see a reversal of a significant amount of these gains.”
Let’s be clear: When Mnuchin says the stock market relies on “tax cuts and tax reform,” he means rich people.
“The top 20 percent of the people pay 95 percent of the taxes. The top 10 percent of the people pay 81 percent of the taxes,” he said. “So when you’re cutting taxes across the board, it’s very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class. The math, given how much you are collecting, is just hard to do.”
And what percent of the wealth do the top 20 percent of the people have? Around 89 percent as of a couple years ago, and growing. Seems like they have it to spare. It’s almost like when he says “it’s very hard not to give taxes to the wealthy,” he means “I have spent so much time enriching the already rich that I have trouble not coming up with more ways to do it.” Or “it’s very hard not to give tax cuts to myself and my friends.” The reality is that if you want to give out tax cuts that will be big in people’s lives, it’s a lot easier to do with middle- and lower-income people, because they’re already stretching every dollar.
Mnuchin also defended eliminating the estate tax even though estates of up to $11 million per couple are already shielded from the levy. “The estate tax is somewhat of an economic issue and somewhat of a philosophical issue,” he said. “People pay taxes once. Why should people have to pay taxes again when they die?”
Deep breath. The estate tax applies to two out of 1,000 people, the very wealthiest people. It often applies to capital gains that have not been taxed during the life of the person leaving the estate. And in addition to the $5.49 million per person that is exempted from the estate tax, a person can leave an unlimited amount to a spouse or to charity, tax-free. It’s not a tax on death, it's a tax on the transfer of massive amounts of wealth to anyone but your spouse or a charity.
Mnuchin is telling us what to expect: tax cuts for the wealthy or angry rich people having stock market-rattling temper tantrums. And Donald Trump’s will be the first and loudest angry rich person tantrum.