Generally speaking, I figure if the guys who’ve spent ungodly amounts of money to buy off politicians in return for tax cuts and deregulation that helps their businesses are mad about something, then it’s could very well be a good thing
So, when I read a Daily Beast story about some billionaires’ anger over President Joe Biden’s proposed budget, I figured he must be on the right track.
Biden’s $7.3 trillion plan includes about $5 trillion in new taxes on corporations and the wealthy over a decade. Did you expect an attaboy from the private jet set on that one?
Add to that the recent report of billionaires who had moved away from four-time indicted/twice impeached/sexual assaulter/tax fraudster/former president Donald Trump but are now coming back into the fold at the thought of their taxes going up, and you know the buying season on politicians is still going strong.
The Daily Beast’s story is titled, “Billionaires Rage About Biden’s State of the Union Tax Proposals.” Here are some of Biden’s ideas for increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations:
*Establishing a 25-percent minimum tax on people with a net worth of over $100 million. This would include their appreciated assets, which are not currently taxed.
*Increasing the corporate income tax rate from 21 to 28 percent. (The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cut it from 35 to 21 percent.)
*Increasing the minimum tax rate on billion-dollar corporations from 15 to 21 percent.
*Quadrupling the tax on stock buybacks. (Remember how corporations used a lot of their tax windfall to do stock buybacks instead of allowing it to “trickle down” to their workers.)
*Taxing capital gains at the same rate as wage income for those earning more than $1 million a year.
*Reducing incentives for multinational businesses to book profits in low-tax jurisdictions and raising the tax rate on foreign earnings from 10.5 percent to 21 percent.
*Preventing some corporations from taking deductions for compensation over $1 million paid to any employee. This is an attempt to discourage companies from giving their executives massive pay packages.
*Restoring the full $80 billion in Internal Revenue Service funding in the Inflation Reduction Act to modernize and ramp up enforcement efforts on the wealthy. Last June, a deal to address the debt ceiling rescinded $20 billion of that money.
That all seems okay to me, but not to some people who have a lot more zeros on their bottom line than most of us could ever dream of.
“I don’t agree with the idea of singling out people because of how much they have or don’t have,” said Jeff Greene, a real estate tycoon with an estimated net worth of $7.5 billion. “You have to leave incentives for people who are the ones who are going to create jobs for all those people trying to climb the ladder.”
What he seems to be saying is people will be hesitate to add to their already enormous wealth because of Biden’s proposed taxes? I don’t see it.
As for his job creators bullshit, he’s referring to the disproven theory of trickle-down economics that became famous under former pro-business president Ronald Reagan.
Let’s touch on that for a second. A 2020 study by two London economists found that “per capita gross domestic product and unemployment rates were nearly identical after five years in countries that slashed taxes on the rich and in those that didn’t.”
The report said the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts “have lifted the fortunes of the ultra-rich. For the first time in a century, the 400 richest American families paid lower taxes in 2018 than people in the middle class.”
“The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered,” the study concluded. “Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates.”
The researchers also found that after the tax bill became law wages for average Americans didn’t keep up with the cost of living, and that “even before the pandemic, income inequality had reached its highest point in 50 years,” according to U.S. census data.
In a 2022 update of their report, the two experts wrote that there’s “strong evidence that cutting taxes on the rich increases income inequality but has no effect on growth or unemployment.”
So much for that lie.
Grocery billionaire John Catsimatidis isn’t happy, either.
“It sounds like President Biden doesn’t want a capitalist government,” he said. “He wants a government for socialism.”
Let’s give Catsimatidis an A for effort for his GOP “capitalism vs. socialism” false narrative. For the record, few Democrats are advocating for socialism, which is a label the Right tags on anything that helps people and uses money that could instead be applied to cut the taxes of wealthy political donors and corporations.
“You’re trying to take away the incentives for people to work hard,” he said, a thinly veiled reference to the Republican claim that people who receive government assistance are lazy takers who don’t want to work.
Johnny, if you see our social safety net as a hand up, instead of as a hand out, then maybe you’d understand that when you invest in people and help them fulfill their promise, you’re actually helping our economy grow. If you did that then maybe you wouldn’t be falling back on tired old GOP bullshit.
You know, John Boy, that better life has trouble taking root on the unlevel playing field your system has cultivated. Maybe if you saw yourself as a part of society instead of a superior subsection floating above the rabble, you wouldn’t come across as such a pathetic, selfish idiot.
Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman called Biden’s proposal “a version of tax and spend where they don’t tackle the real problem. The real problem is excess spending.”
Of course, we should always monitor our spending, but if we have to cut let’s start with the military industrial complex and work our way through the various tax loopholes the rich and corporations take advantage of, because in reality money lost through a loophole is just like spending that same amount, with the benefit going to the wealthy people who get to keep it instead of it going for the greater good of the country.
And if spending is such a problem, why are so many rich folks supporting Trump, who in just one term spent enough to add almost $8 trillion to our deficit, including a tax cut for mainly the wealthy and corporations that will cost $2 trillion.
Did somebody say tax cut? Okay, now we get it.
These guys make it too easy.
You can read the Daily Beast story here.
***
Speaking of Trump and selling out our country for tax cuts, the Washington Post reports that some elite donors are again flocking to Trump, despite his very real threat to our democracy and rule of law, not to mention the 88 felony charges sitting on his combined police docket.
“The shift reflects many conservative billionaires’ fears of President Biden’s tax agenda, which if approved would drastically reduce their fortunes,” the Post said. “In some case, it also points to their discomfort with the Biden administration’s foreign and domestic policy decisions. Some of these billionaires have been assiduously courted by Trump and his advisors in recent months.”
Trust me, forget the other stuff. It’s all about the money.
As Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, the top lobbying group for major corporations in New York, has said: “If it starts to look like Trump may win, despite his legal troubles, it is inevitable that Republican business people who have not been fans will open their wallets in self-defense.”
Self-defense? There is no defense for this and the damage these rich bastards are willing to see Trump do just to make sure their already gigantic nests remained feathered to their standards.
“The billionaire class is really threatened by Biden: These guys are about creating a dynasty of wealth for themselves, and hoarding it for their posterity, at the expense of everyone else in society,” said Steve Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. “That’s the striking story at the moment.”
You can find the Post’s story on these selfish, groveling, bottom-feeders here.
***
Yes, it really is the rich against the rest of us. Of course, there are also millions among the white working class ready to cast their vote for fascism as well.
But here’s the thing about those in high positions who back Trump – not just the filthy rich but Republican sycophant politicians also – they think Trump’s return to power is good for them, not bad. They think they’re up there, above the fray, safe from the chaos, suffering, disruptions, and their aftermaths that will result from Trump being back in the White House.
This would be a good time to remind them that revolutions are started by the poor and oppressed, not the rich and influential, and that efforts to hurt their businesses with things like consumer boycotts certainly are a possibility.
And it could be worse because no matter what a person’s predisposition is, if his back is against the wall and you keep pushing, the recoil can be swift and devastating.
I don’t know how much good their money will do them at that point.
***
Thank you for reading my post. You can see my other writings on my blog: Musings of a Nobody. Please share and subscribe for free via email on its home page.