Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
Clio Chang at Vice writes—The Case for a Wealth Tax. All throughout the coronavirus crisis, the rich have been accidentally making the argument that they need less money as soon as possible:
Should the United States have a wealth tax? It’s hard to say—one could really make a case either way. On one hand, we’re a country where the richest 400 people own more wealth than the bottom 60 percent. On the other hand, we’re a country where during the coronavirus pandemic, the rich have stepped up to buy special medical treatment for themselves, hoard groceries, and spread out to vacation houses across the country.
But really no need to ask us. Over the past three weeks the rich have made a strong case for a wealth tax —one that would actually seize their hoarded sums—all on their own. Here are a few of the things they’ve been saying and doing:
Rich people on whether or not we should make people go back to work:
“We’ll gradually bring those people back and see what happens. Some of them will get sick, some may even die, I don’t know,” said [former Wells Fargo CEO Dick] Kovacevich, who was also the bank’s chairman until 2009. “Do you want to suffer more economically or take some risk that you’ll get flu-like symptoms and a flu-like experience? Do you want to take an economic risk or a health risk? You get to choose.” [...]
And people say America has no ruling class.
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“For comparison, tap out a single grain of salt from a shaker. You could line up about ten skin cells along one side of it. You could line up about a hundred bacteria. Compared to viruses, however, bacteria are giants. You could line up a thousand viruses alongside that same grain of salt.”
~~Carl Zimmer, A Planet of Viruses, 2011
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Ryan budget ignores CBO, reality, says health care repeal will reduce deficit:
The non-partisan, number crunching CBO has long since become a major nuisance for the GOP, since many of its conclusions about the realities of the budget run counter to GOP budget truthiness. That's the case again in the so-called "Path to Prosperity," Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to weed the nation of the elderly, the sick, and the disabled so the rich people can get even more stuff.
In the case of this budget proposal, Ryan conveniently ignores the fact that the CBO says repealing the Affordable Care Act won't reduce the deficit.