Under Eisenhower, the last good Republican President, the top tax rate was in the neighborhood of 92%. In those days, anyone who had graduated from college could support a family, a mortgage and a car loan on a single income. Kids could pay their state university tuition with the income from a summer job, and there were NO university coaches making six-and-seven-figure incomes, and NO CEOs making hundreds of times the salaries of their lowest-paid employees without paying taxes on the surplus. If we do not remedy the omnivorous appetite of the oligarchy with leveling taxes, there will surely be a class war before this century is over.
6
“Republican men” is a code word for entrepreneurs who start businesses and create jobs. Yes, most of them are white and male. Is that the only problem?
2
Well count me among the “college educated” white, Democratic-ish males who think the “wealth tax” scheme is a horrible, populist, punitive idea. (But since I don’t answer robi-calls I don’t get polled. )
1
I don't understand! Surveys are supposed to bet random yet the article printed, " In both cases, SurveyMonkey selected respondents at random from the nearly three million people who take surveys on its platform each day." The "random" selection was from a group of 3M people who love to take surveys. Seems biased to me! Any thoughts??
1
No plan is perfect, and so is Warren's. But I support her, and at least her tax & healthcare plans will help the bottom 90%. I really don't care about the top 10%. America is big enough that even after Warren's tax, they, the top 10%, should have more than enough to cheer about for their life.
And I also like her to be a female candidate. She should have her unique perspective which should be different from the traditional male dominance point of view. And I think it is time for change.
18
@Usok Lumping the top 10% with the top.1% is ridiculous. Certainly someone that makes 120k per year can afford to pay a little more. But telling that person they're rich and on par with someone who makes 3 million in income is why democrats lose elections.
12
When I talk with my republican/fiscal conservative friends I find this is generally where they stand:
They oppose:
1) a significant increase in minimum wage
2) they oppose shoring up Social Security by increased taxes
3) they oppose assuring that all US citizens have health insurance
4) they oppose laws that would require all employers to provide actual retirement plans like pensions (401K are largely simply based on the employees paying in, with some participation by employer)
5) They oppose simple federal government 1-2% student loans
6) They oppose requiring employers to provide health insurance
7) They oppose making it easier for workers to unionize
When I ask how they envision life for our citizens 20-50 years ago they typically shrug and look away. Few have the intestinal fortitude to speak their truth: “I have mine. They can have theirs. It is their fault. Too bad, so sad”.
I say “only in America” the riches land in the know history of the world.
65
That pretty much says it all.
8
@Mark O RN
Sure you do. These types of post are not believable.
I think you should find other friends.
3
As Americans we have become so accustomed to ill conceived notions that we will fight like tigers to maintain the status quo. No paid vacation for too many workers, no paid time off for too many. No affordable healthcare for many of our Citizens. The list goes on and on.
Yet, I notice that many commenters see a more equitably constructed tax system as a kind of "theft."
What about the men, women and children whose quality of life is impacted by these "made for the wealthy" tax structures?
The United States of America is behind the times when it comes to ensuring the well being of the many who work to house, feed and care for their families.
What about all that has been stolen from them?
Look around at all the other developed countries. Are they "communist" or oppressive regimes?
21
@Curious
If taxes are "theft" thievery is sometimes good.
3
@Curious
The US has the most progressive tax system in place--what is enough for you folks? Everyone equal? Not going to happen.
1
The 64 dollar question being if "inequality" was addressed by forcing rich people to relinquish some of their wealth for the greater good of society would that America a nicer and more congenial place to live in?
If some big hedge fund managers or private equity billionaires could ever admit the actual suffering in the lower classes seems a bit too much to ask in such a free open market-driven economy based on success making money like Trump living in ivory towers.
The rich treasure their incredible wealth is beyond doubt as if it gives them a free-ticket to heaven. How many castles and private jets do you need? How many wives? How many poor people out of sight to support this rigid class structure? Even in Britain a true socialist politician like Jeremy Corbyn treated like vermin by the media for campaigning in the election to tax the top five per cent given the state of the country; the free national health service on its last legs. Mind you he has deeply upset the British-Jewish community for his critical views on Israel which got Trump to call him a "bad man". You can't please everyone?
2
It wouldn't affect me an iota but this goes beyond progressivism. Europe has shown it didn't work so well either.
True, it is a vexing problem but everyone has to give something. People want bleeding edge health care but think those gene therapies are cheap. Instead, they need to bulk up the middle segment. People will die one day; it is the quality of life that matters.
Healthcare and education are fungible, of course. Who doesn't want free for all but when you examine the scenarios, both the right and the left will use cases to substantiate their claims. People should have the basics covered. Even for medicare now, it is not free, in case people don't know it. My neighbors, both in the late 60s, former teachers, still pay $800 per person, for a very good package, Plan A, B, D and supplementals, while I am on Obamacare at $450 for a bare bone package. But education is even more maddening. Kids need to make some choices. What if you know they use part of the student loans for care free living? Versus kids working a part time job or two to pay for the education? Prestigious university's tuition versus state school's?
When you drill down, maybe the poll shows a different picture
2
So, wealth tax, double taxation since they already paid taxes on the money . Here a clue we will all be taxed under her and bernie's plan. Medicaid for all going to see to that.We paying 620 billion on 13% of the population on it. Now add the whole population of the country, and might as well say the world. Since both plans allow anyone to join.
One question I have is, why should we try to get ahead d enjoy wealth when all democrats do is cry about people who actually made it.
If this poll is accurate, then most Americans agree with Warren's plan and we don't have to live under the tyranny of the minority.
7
In other news, water is wet.
3
Republican men with college degrees? Oh poor guys. Imagine how much better ofc the world would be without this greedy, irresponsible, short-sighted, uncreative, sexist, bigoted group.
3
When you want the votes to snitch,
just announce you'll tax the rich.
Voters love the siren call
that makes billionaires all bawl.
Once you're in the catbird seat,
voters become obsolete.
Then the plutocrats will thank
you with money in the bank.
How does the Times feel about wealth tax?
Sulzberger family?
Carlos Slim?
Dean Baquet?
Legitimate questions, no?
2
You know what would be interesting?
An OpEd by Sulzberger telling us what he thinks about wealth tax.
I will push my luck and ask for another by Carlos Slim. Significant share holder in the NYT Corporation and former “richest man in the world.”
2
It's easy to vote for higher taxes when you don't have to pay the higher rates.
I'm curious on how many people who would for a wealth tax or a 90% income tax if they also had to pay that.
2
Overlooked is the fact that while the majority of Republican college-educated men do not support a wealth tax, a substantial minority of them (greater than 40%) do.
2
I often read this, but it's not true:
"... tax cut after tax cut for the already well-heeled ... "
According to the White House (pre-Trump), the top 1% of federal taxpayers paid 40% of total federal taxes, the top 5% paid 60%, and the bottom half (50%) paid 2.75%. State taxes obviously affect these numbers, but not much.
2
It bothers me to read others make arguments based on "facts" that aren't
facts at all. Several commenters argue, incorrectly, that the US previously taxed wealth until recently, but stopped. This is NOT correct: the US does NOT tax wealth. It's taxed estates, to be sure, which means it taxes dead people, but the estate tax obviously doesn't apply to wealthy people who are still alive (for example: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg.
It's useful to support arguments with "facts" that aren't really true, but let's keep in mind that many readers are doing just that. To be more specific here, contrary to what many readers have written, the US has NOT previously taxed wealth. A wealth tax would be something new.
2
Trump is indeed the worst president in American history, so the 2020 election is the Democrat's to lose.
I wish I could be enthusiastic about either Sanders or Warren, but it is difficult since their plans look unrealistic.
France tried a wealth tax of 1.8%, then abandoned it because it was not generating the expected revenues.
Warren proposes a wealth tax of 8%, Warren of 6%, in order to pay for universal health care.
But neither talks about the necessity to control illegal immigration so that we can actually train the doctors to deliver the needed health care.
We need to increase the number of doctors per capita to make universal health care work. Illegal immigration increase the need for health care but does not increase the supply of doctors.
And illegal immigration does not address the cause of illegal immigration, which is unconstrained population growth in countries like Guatemala.
Sanders at times talks about extending aid to Central American countries. That might work over the long term if it includes family planning.
But that part of his program, if it exists, is not publicized.
The result is that Americans are voting for expansion of health care with no realistic plan to achieve it.
Even confiscating the wealth of billionaires will not achieve adequate funding.
Maybe politicians are themselves deluded. I've looked at the numbers thousands of times.
I don't believe these health care plans can be achieved without controlling illegal immigration.
5
Not surprisingly, her wealth tax exempts her own 8 figure fortune, which puts her comfortably in the top 1 percent...
34
@Southwest 1965
And Trump's massive tax giveaways benefit real estate developers hugely.
11
"... a vast majority of Republican men with college degrees [oppose a wealth tax even though they) would have a net worth below the tax threshold."
This shows that it is NOT always the case that Americans support taxes that they will never have to pay. Americans often oppose taxes because either (1) they "delude" themselves to believe that they may some day have to pay the tax; or (2) they consider the tax to be unfair even if they believe it will never be payable by them.
1
It's important to note that those who say the US until recently taxed wealth are not correct. The US has never taxed wealth, other than through the federal estate tax and local real estate taxes. I agree with most of the "policy proposal" arguments, but it doesn't move the ball down the field to misstate real life.
1
Incorrect.
"The US did tax wealth, and only recently stopped taxing it."
Localities and states levy property taxes. Other than that, unless you're referring to the estate tax -- which, obviously, doesn't apply to people who are still living (for example: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg). Even if you are referring to the estate tax, keep in mind that many wealthy people will look for ways to minimize that tax.
1
As a Democrat, when your life’s philosophy is predicated on theft, usury, and redistribution, you are bound to fail.
The party of JFK is dead and it has been dead since the 1960s.
3
I'm a college educated professional, very progressive but definitely NOT a Democrat. And I don't support a wealth tax. Polls these days seem to he people willing to accept cold calls from restricted numbers. Warren nomination = Trump reelection.
3
A most informative poll. Complainants of wealth tax and Medicare for all neglect to mention the structural changes over the past 35 years that a have granted an outsized portion of worker productivity gains to the 1% and .01%. Repeal of Glass-Steagall in late 1990s, tax cut after tax cut for the already well-heeled based on bogus trickle-down economics, stripping the CFTC of its roles in regulating derivatives such that wanton risk-taking in the derivatives market drove the Great Recession, a health-care industry whose costs are wildly out of control, diminishing life spans for those whose employment & health care have been constantly disrupted, two generations of college students, now adults who are indentured to a lifetime of outsized college debt. The shift towards vast chasms in income and wealth inequality in this country was architected to benefit the very few.
2
"Time and again Americans tell pollsters they support Democratic policy proposals, sometimes by large margins."
But when Americans are told: YOU will pay higher taxes because of this policy, they tend NOT to support Democratic proposals.
In other words, if a benefit appears to have no cost, people like it. When they're told about the cost, they tend not to like it.
Of course, when the proponent tells Americans that only a few people (rich people, for example) will pay for the benefit, the benefit appears to be cost-free. That's the secret, then: insist that all of the benefits will go to a group to which your target belongs, but explain that someone else will bear the cost.
Sound too good to be true? Usually it is, but Elizabeth Warren insists it's not. We can't afford to have taxpayer-funded health care and taxpayer-funded offensive armies. We must choose one or the other, though I've never heard a politician -- Warren, included -- who acknowledges that a choice is necessary. Taxpayer-funded offensive armies are the bee's knees, but some people who don't get health care may feel otherwise.
So we’re focused on this segment being the least supportive of the tax, but what’s interesting is 40 percent of Republicans with a degree SUPPORT this wealth tax. That in itself is amazing.
4
It would be interesting to see what percent of the country’s wealth is controlled by this opposing group. Thanks to citizens united they will be directing it to PACs to defeat warren.
2
This reminds me of George McGovern:
"The same delusional logic applies to those who oppose the estate tax, which only affects a handful of [people]. The problem is, everyone ... assumes that untold riches are waiting just around the corner, and they don't want to shortchange themselves when they hit the inevitable jackpot."
There's a widely held belief -- incorrect, but widely held -- that a taxpayer will approve any tax that he'll never have to pay. George McGovern proved that's not true when he ran against Richard Nixon in 1972. McGovern probably never had a chance against Nixon, who won every state except Massachusetts (and the District of Columbia) (though Nixon later had other problems -- Watergate). But what little movement there was in McGovern's favor ended abruptly when he championed an estate-tax proposal that would have charged 100% (i.e., confiscation) on estates over $500,000 (much bigger back then). Though very few Americans would have died with estates that large, almost all Americans opposed McGovern's proposal, and his campaign effectively ended.
The reason was just what this commenter speculates: Though most people wouldn't die with a $500,000 estate, and everyone knew that, the typical American wanted to believe that some day he might. He was not interested in "equality;" he wanted to do better than others.
1
Virtually any citizen can be a candidate for president and advocate a 2% tax on wealth, but that hardly qualifies one to be an effective president and commander and chief. There is more to the job than advocating new taxes. Hopefully.
1
Time and again Americans tell pollsters they support Democratic policy proposals, sometimes by large margins. They like the wealth tax, they like universal medical coverage, they like clean air and water regulations, they like public help with education.
What they don’t tell pollsters -- because for some inexplicable reason the pollsters don’t ask -- is that they would be willing to forgo all of the above for the chance to “stick it to the libs.”
Which renders all the other stuff meaningless.
3
This incessant attention in the press to the policies desired by Americans is unseemly, and frankly very suspicious, given its irrelevance. It serves no good reminding the populace of their powerlessness and does little more than advance the narrow parochial interests of the media who care only for profit. The people deserve better.
1
The US did tax wealth, and only recently stopped taxing it. Since then, it has piled us so high that the accumulation has distorted the entire economy. The fundamentals of aggregate demand driving economic activity have been altered by the loss of the money squirreled away by the super-rich.
The idea of a wealth tax is an attempt to fix what was broken by loss of the huge tax cuts over the last decades.
However, we need to get back those taxes too, to stop the accumulation that led to this. Warren proposes to fix the symptom, and we need to do that, but we need to fix the problem behind it too.
3
You and the others who share your view are welcome to send extra money to the US Treasury if you think you are being under-taxed. My guess us that most if you so far haven’t.
1
That’s a popular, phony, argument. Nobody chooses to pay more taxes than they are required to. The position is that a class of income, those in a certain level of income, should be required to pay X. Everyone in that class-level should be required to pay it. One person’s over-payments (above requirements) would be fiscally, infinitesimally, irrelevant. Not doing so does not contradict the idea that a certain level should be required,
1
Excellent point. We’ll need to fix our Constitution as well, as Trump and McConnel et al have shown us the many holes than need repairing.
1
Imagine many, many real estate portfolios heavy with over-leveraged holdings. Introduce a new annual liability of 2-percent CASH.
America's lending institutions make money using access to government credit. They will not become geniuses at spinning gold from borrowers' straw. The Kings of Debt are the geniuses who don't have the 2-percent; and a sell-off is a non-starter because the sale won't cover the note.
So, what's going to happen? Is the government going to become the enabler of further leveraging? ..because the lenders' are going to refinance straw in order to pony-up the annual gold.
The government cannot become the backer of worse investments, so implementation of tougher banking regulations must accompany this proposed mining of Kings of Debt.
"College-educated Republican men, though, disapprove of it by a 15-point margin — though a vast majority of Republican men with college degrees would have a net worth below the tax threshold."
The same delusional logic applies to those who oppose the estate tax, which only affects a handful of families at this point. The problem is, everyone in this group assumes that untold riches are waiting just around the corner, and they don't want to shortchange themselves when they hit the inevitable jackpot. They'd be much better served planning for a more equitable society where neither they, nor most anyone else strikes it rich.
290
Meaning a communist state built on Marxist principals? The idea that we should punish the capitalist mentality shows me why we will get 4 more years of this clown. And, I don’t know which Democratic “white guys” this poll spoke with because I don’t know a single one, middle or upper middle class, who supports either the Warren or Sanders tax or Medicare for all plans.
7
@stan continop. Assuming that opposition is based on being affected by it is a narrow mindset. I will never have $50MM but I am uncomfortable granting the government the power of wealth confiscation. They are already more comfortable raising taxes than trying to spending more conservatively as if the American tax payer has an unlimited supply of money they can provide the government. It would also be expensive and complicated to implement. It is a bad idea that will create more problems than it solves.
12
Opposing it not because it affects me but because it is morally wrong. There is no moral justification to support a wealth tax. It may make economic sense, as many other scientific ideas, but Science must be subjugated to Ethics.
2
Simple solution: vote out all Republicans, no matter what. (It may not be that simple, though).
1
Is there a sadder demo than Republican men with a college degree? That's every contractor in the country.
The polls seem to indicate that the more you know about the economy, the more you want Warren in charge of it.
@Graham Hackett
I think what you meant to say was, “the more you think you know about the economy, based on academic studies and theories that have no basis in reality, and without ever having worked in the real world, the more you want Warren in charge of it.”
Because people who actually understand the economy know that the President is not “in charge of it.”
All the progressive Democrats always try to minimize their tax burdens.
Does this make them greedy?
Does wanting to make money make someone greedy?
1
Is a wealth tax constitutional?
Yes.
If not get rid of the constitution not wealth tax.
Is it constitutional for Trump to kill someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it as long as he is president?
Yes.
So get rid of the idiotic constitution written by slave owners.
As a progressive liberal of the center, not wealthy at all, I view Elizabeth Warren as a property-confiscationist, disguised in the skin of an income and wealth equalizer. Most Unamerican.
It is Warren, Sanders, and their political likes that lay the eggs, from which hatch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes and the joining her, for lack of better options, Islamo-socialist judeophobic women Democrats, elected as US Representatives in 2018.
Can you say “Not grounded in reality”. As a liberal elitist, I have no particular objection to a “wealth tax”. Know what? It won’t play in Peoria — or Iowa. Warren is a brilliant woman, but toss in single payer health care and her candidacy looks McGovernesque.
Democracy: You have money, I don't, so I will take it from you. That is fair.
Good news on the wealth tax.
I am from Massachusetts which is also called Taxachusetts,, the capital Boston, and Massachusetts has some of the worst income inequality in the nation. The elite liberals are crazy rich and spout all sorts of "socialist" dogma and regularly elect Republican (RINO) governors who are fiscal conservatives, because the Libs talk a good game but when push comes to shove they know its not thier policies that make them powerful it is their m-o-n-e-y. Dont beilve the "hype" about Warren she is a former free market Republican who helped corporations avoid their debts, and a congenial liar, and opportunist.
2
First they come for your neighbor, next its you. It must be fun to take other peoples money. The meek and somewhat lazy will not inherit the earth. Oh, and as for passing through the eye of the needle, not on a camel but in a '73 Carrera RS. OH, yeah I earned it. You taxed me enough on the way up. Enough already. The peasants are grabbing the pitchforks, I will call my congressman and say I am moving out, to another country. I have paid my dues for this one. Hoc Phong in 1968 as a door gunner and everyday thereafter.
1
The country's real elitist the privileged while Republican males And the Conservative media they buy protest too much.
Every progressive Democrat I know tries to minimize his/her tax burden.
Is this greedy?
1
Why do we continue to accept these idiotic analyses that compare the views of voters with respect to democratic and republican party affiliations when nearly half of all voters are neither Democrat nor Republican? As long as our political and media establishments are out of touch with average Americans unconventional phenomena, like Donald Trump, will happen... like crazy weather with global warming.
1
Forgive me for being snarky so early on but are there really that many Republican men with a college degree...that their dad didn't buy them for the holidays?
1
@tom harrison
Why don’t you ask one of your customers (try one with a tie) tomorrow at the drive-through?
2
@RP from NY (who talks about France and wealth tax forgetting about Piketty and Saez :-))
And what exactly that supposed to mean?
Thomas Piketty, future Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science wrote a whole book arguing for a wealth tax.
Emmanuel Saez, his co-author and UC Berkeley Economics professor and advisor to the Warren campaign (alongside with Gabriel Zucman), another Frenchman did all the relevant calculations to show why it is a good idea and how it can work.
And here a bunch of amateurs arguing why it is a bad idea and that “even in France” it didn’t work.
Pure propaganda. I asked a simple question the Times should answer: what does Sulzberger think about the wealth tax. He owns The NY Times (with some other family members and Carlos Slim of course). So far silence!
2
@Blunt
The study you site has been discredited.
1
The other debate which is at least as equally important as the one of Capitalism v Socialism is role of Federal, State and Local government.
People need to understand that many of their concerns pertaining to domestic issues are better resolved at State and Local level. That if these issues are easier to maneuver at State level than convincing 320 million people to make changes.
If some states are small, they could get together with bigger like minded states to implement the programs they wish to implement.
Some may point to the ability of federal government to print money for programs they want. But that is precisely the reason the Dollar purchasing power has decreased and contributes hugely to what manifests as inequality. Trying to fix it by increasing taxation is incorrect approach.
It also important to consider the fact that even if an issue has majority support country wide, and has very little support in some states, then, if such issue is a State issue as defined, then it is not correct to enforce this on such states at a federal level.
It is very important not to ignore the role of federal and state govt. Those structures are important underlying factors in successful implementation of programs.
A reasonable compromise on the tax everything and tax nothing debate , is to eliminate "qualified" and "ordinary" dividends, using a time based system instead of an income based system. Extending the time before you can claim a lower tax rate for dividends from 60 days to a progressive rate of 1 % for each 60/90/365 days. For instance the rate is similar to your earned income at 60 days and then each month, quarter or year it reduces until a determined bottom rate, of say 50% of your earned income rate. This will also jive with personal 401Ks etc. when your earned income is less in retirement. Wall St is gaming the system and this needs to stop but singling out the ultra wealthy, or even the rich is just class division Marxism, and we all know how that ends.
My concern with Bernie's and Warren's wealth taxes is with the politics of them, primarily outside the democratic party. Americans are generally resistant to proposals which would take 'hard earned' (in theory) money from person A and just give it to person B, who presumably didn't 'lift a finger'. So, maybe it would make more sense to avoid significant wealth taxes in lieu of HIGHLY progressive income taxes - or maybe even flat taxes that could possibly do the same thing without the administrative overhead and corruption potential. And a highly progressive tax code should not START with billionaires or even multi-millionaires. It needs to start with the upper class - the TRUE upper class, i.e. the upper 1/3 income bracket, which would be household annual incomes above about $100K.
2
On a state and local level, home owners are subject to property tax based on the market value of the property. Other states have excise taxes on personal property, especially automobiles. For non millionaires, their primary assets are their homes and cars. In most cases, the tax is on the market value of the unencumbered property, not the equity free of debt owned by the property owner.
Therefore, America already has wealth taxes, applied in the least progressive manner imaginable.
6
@RM
Thanks. A great, simple description for novices, like myself.
3
@RM
Warren’s wealth tax would be imposed by the federal government which, unlike the states that impose the taxes you mention, lacks the constitutional authority to impose such a tax.
@RM
Warren’s wealth tax would be imposed by the federal government which, unlike the states that impose the taxes you mention, lacks the constitutional authority to impose such a tax. Also, real estate taxes are NOT based on market value.
Apparently, 65% nationwide support the imposition of a wealth as proposed by Senator Warren. Reading the posted comments most are persuaded by the contention that the top richest "control the government" pay little or no tax at all at the expense of the middle class. This emotional response ignores a crucial flaw in the Warren plan. It is barely enforceable and will never raise close to the revenue Warren claims. It can easily be avoided through creation of trusts, gifts to children and other maneuvers yet to be devised by tax advisers. The most costly and litigious part of the plan will involve disputes between the IRS and experts hired by taxpayers submitted to courts or mediators over the value of property such as estates, art, yachts, jewelry and other rare and unique assets owned by the wealthy. The 65% who favor a fairer and higher imposition of tax on the wealthiest among us should focus not so much on the justification of such a tax but more on the, admittedly, more difficult way of structuring a tax that the IRS can collect. Warren's plan doesn't do it.
2
Wealth tax is just politically lame. The tax cuts initiated by Reagan nearly forty years ago were a big mistake and lead to the inequities and erosion of our ability to cope with common challenges that he assured would not happen. Restoring higher rates will be a tough sell. Adding to it a stated intention to take wealth away from people just makes it a harder sell. People like fairness. Raising taxes to meet common needs can be sold as morally justified. Punishing people for being prosperous does not.
Stop taxing work/labor more than capital. Only the supremely greedy believe leisure should be taxed far less than working for a living. It’s really simple. Jesus’ golden rule not those with the gold make the rules. Evangelicals are lost in the desert of self-deception.
1
I’d love to see Warren focus more on root causes and less on symptoms. Wealth tax, harsh regulation of tech, and college debt forgiveness seem to be the latter. If we’re going to throw our tax dollars into a big bet, why not make it education where it’s needed most and the US is horribly unequal and way behind the developed world — k-12.
4
I want to know how Warren will make up the funding shortfalls for her programs. The WSJ has a graph showing Warren's taxes, including wealth tax, tax on asset appreciations even when not sold and increase in corporate taxes, will not cover the costs of her programs by about $16 trillion. In Europe, to pay for the vast social programs, income taxes are supplemented by additional payroll taxes, VATs, excise taxes, fuel taxes (remember the yellow-vest protesters in France).
And compare the tax rates on the middle class between Europe and the U.S. Germany taxes income of around $125,000 at their highest marginal rate of 42%, versus U.S. tax rate of 22%. Sweden’s top marginal income tax rate of about 55% applies to earnings as low as $47,000, and in the U.K. the second-highest rate of 40% hits taxpayers earning $64,000. The U.S. top marginal rate applies only to taxpayers whose wages are 9.3 times the average wage. In Belgium the top marginal rate ensnares workers earning 1.1 times the average, and in the Netherlands 1.4 times. The middle class always pays and pays.
4
The WSJ relies on analysis and facts in their news coverage, not diatribe. I’d abandon hope for reason in the comments here.
@Chatte Cannelle The tax rate is higher but they receive something tangible, such as accessible health care, lower cost education. USA for some reason justifies and promotes our lower tax rate as some economic god send, which it is not. What we fail to acknowledge of the downside, where pay high a little lower taxes, we then turn around and give money to a private entity such as a health care or health insurance or a private college thinking that's better. America out of all western countries the u.s. has the most expensive and least health care. Our capitalist system has only worked for the 1 percent no one else. P.S.Keying on a cell sucks.
"... her proposed wealth tax is almost certainly unconstitutional at present."
I very seriously doubt that a wealth tax will ever become law, but keep in mind two key points if it ever does:
1. The Supreme Court might distinguish wealth tax from an income tax (which it held to be unconstitutional in the 1895 Pollock case, only to be overruled by the people (with respect to the "income tax," at least) with the 16th Amendment.
OR
2. The Supreme Court might conclude that no valid distinction can really be drawn (I don't think one can, though numerous legal scholars have argued that it can), but may simply overrule (i.e., reverse) the Pollock case. The Supreme Court can do that at any time -- that's why they call it "Supreme" -- though it tries hard not to overturn earlier cases (preferring instead to "distinguish" the present case from any precedent that appears to be inconsistent with it).
Bottom line: If (a very big if) the wealth tax ever becomes law, the Supreme Court (if it is then composed of a majority of "liberal" Justices) will have at least two ways of upholding that tax.
1
I'd put the odds of a wealth tax ever becoming law at slim to none, and Slim just left town. Nevertheless, if it ever happens,
"her proposed wealth tax is almost certainly unconstitutional at present."
I very seriously doubt that US voters will entrust their fate to the US Supreme Court. More likely, a Constitutional amendment -- equivalent to the 16th Amendment but applicable to a wealth tax rather than to an income tax -- will simply be adopted first, so that the US Supreme Court has no choice except to approve the tax.
Again, though, this is somewhat like arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, since a wealth tax just isn't going to happen.
Nice to see the wheels coming off the Warren bandwagon as Americans capable of basic reasoning see the impracticality and divisive intentions of her proposals. Warren is a textbook ideologue - less concerned about the feasibility and/or impact of her proposals than their ability to stir up emotions and hatred.
With every debate, this becomes more apparent. Other candidates are on to her. So, increasingly, is the American public.
Thank god.
2
As numerous taxation law experts, many of them progressive, have observed, her proposed wealth tax is almost certainly unconstitutional at present. So, in addition to being an administrative nightmare (and that’s putting it charitably), it’d take a constitutional amendment to get this thing enacted in a way that would survive judicial challenge. In an era where we can’t even pass major statutory initiatives into law? Dream on.
Wish folks would call her out on this more regularly. Either she has a Trumpian ignorance of how our system works (odd for a former Harvard law professor, right?) or (even worse) she simply doesn’t care that her signature ‘plan’ is infeasible if it keeps her in the headlines. Gross.
2
A wealth tax will simply reduce the presence of taxable wealth in the USA. In favor of non-taxable wealth and keeping wealth permanently offshore, respectively. The Warren scheme is unbelievably naive. She is well enough informed to know it is a scheme that will harm workers by making the US a less attractive place to do business. It will not raise significant revenue. Record-high tax revenues are occurring now, under Trump. Interesting fact. Besides, why would increased government expenditures - above today’s preposterously high levels - be good for the median voter? It will scare swing voters to death, as well it should.
3
I am surprised at how often older people cite 1957 (the year "Leave It To Beaver" first appeared on TV) as the year in which the United States was at some sort of economic peak for an emergent American middle class. (I know, I know, there needs to be a boatload of qualifiers to that last claim of "an emergent American middle class") but go ahead and Google "Tax Rates 1957". It's all about income inequality. Warren's "Wealth Tax" seems positively benign by comparison with the 1957 rates.
1
@Dale
1950s prosperity has nothing to do with tax rates. Google manufacturing monopoly.
@Daphne
"Google manufacturing monopoly"? Huh? It is easy to look up many different sites that list 1957 tax rates. They are a matter of historic record.
>>>1950s prosperity has nothing to do with tax rates.<<< I made no such claim. I said "It's all about income inequality".
55% of Independents support the 2 per cent tax on wealth, even less support than form Republicans. This suggests it would be unlikely a presidential candidate advocating a 2% tax would be win a majority of the electoral college, or pass the Senate and the House. However, Warren's advocacy of the 2% tax may not the main reason many people would not vote for Warren. Most people evaluate the personality, character, training, and proven experience to be the Commander in Chief of the USA, and Warren would have difficulty passing that test for many voters.
1
It's not relevant who is in favor of a wealth tax. It is a bad idea. 12 nations have tried it, including Denmark, Germany, Norway, Finland and Sweden. All of them got rid of the tax because people just left the country or hid their assets and it did not raise the money leftists projected. Warren seems to think she can somehow stop this, but all it takes is a certified letter renouncing citizenship and the click of a mouse to move assets overseas, especially if you are rich. If Warren were elected, there would be a 2 month lag between election and taking office and probably a year until such a bill could be passed. By that time, all the billionaires would be gone. Then what? Then, nothing.
3
@Roy P - If Jeff Bezos wants to leave Seattle (and take his company with him), I will be the first in line to help him pack. The fight to be first in line would be worse than any Black Friday fight over a television. Speaking of which, I'm surprised I don't see an article in the Times yet about workers at Amazon in Berlin walking off of their jobs for Black Friday. They don't plan on returning till at least Tuesday.
Most everyone favors a tax they are quite sure they personally would never pay.
Now can she dream up a practical scheme like the increase in taxes on everyone that would be required for all of her plans.
5
I favor one of the several healthcare systems found in universal care countries. However, the W/S plans go far beyond what any other country in the world has. W/S pays for everything from dollar one. Other countries with universal care pay about 80% of all healthcare costs publicly, with the remainder paid by the patient and/or a supplemental insurance policy. Commenters may write that it isn't true, but one has to only use the Google machine to see that it is. For instance, Canada's public system pays about 70% or all healthcare costs. The Canadian public system does not pay for all dental care, vision care, limb prostheses, wheelchairs, prescription medication, podiatry and chiropractics and ambulances. Canada’s provincial and federal health insurance covers a standard ward accommodation (four beds to a room) through Canada’s Medicare program. A private room or semi-private room will cost you or your insurer $200 to $300 a day. All personal and nursing care provided by long-term care homes in Ontario for instance are funded by the government, but you must pay for accommodation charges such as room and board, with charges varying from $1,900 for basic, to $2,700 for private rooms. The W/S plan covers all of everything above. Beyond that, the W/S plans have no chance of becoming law any time soon, and they give Republicans and the entrenched opposition a lot of material to hammer Democrats with in 2020.
3
This article is framed as if the educated male Republican antipathy towards taxes is the noteworthy part of it. This is wrong; Republican men hating taxes is stale news. The interesting part of this article, to me, is that men seem to be generally more in favor of a wealth tax than women of equal education and political persuasion, Republicans aside.
I would have guessed the opposite. I'm more interested in hearing the reasoning behind that gap than the Republican one.
3
I know life isn't fair, capitalism isn't fair and life in America isn't fair. But our history has shown we can make things less inhumane by limiting the amount of wealth a person can accumulate to merely astronomical, instead of going all the way to obscene.
If previous administrations had done this, we wouldn't have to deal with the perception that socialists are trying to rob the ultra-wealthy.
3
I can assure you, first-hand, that few US lawyers have a clue what is meant by "direct tax" in the Constitution, but the Supreme Court has opined on the matter. In 1895 (Pollock v. Farmers Trust), it held that the then-fairly-recent income tax was a "direct tax" and thus was unconstitutional because it didn't observe the constitutional limits on "direct taxes." Congress and the US people responded with the 16th Amendment, but it covers only income taxes, not wealth taxes.
In the highly unlikely event that a wealth tax becomes law, if the Supreme Court rules that a wealth tax is constitutional, it will have to do so on one of two bases:
1. Overrule Pollock.
OR
2. Conclude that a wealth tax is not a "direct tax," even though an income tax is.
Will the Supreme Court do either? Frankly, I doubt it, though I doubt even more that a wealth tax will become law in the first place. We're all discussing something that's never going to really happen.
2
To my fellow Democrats, Warren's and Sander's plans for funding America's wellbeing is smart and progressive. Medicare for All is the key to our wellbeing.
Let's face facts. National Healthcare is the most inelastic market in the world. "Buy or Die!". It does not respond to outrageous monopolistic pricing, other than providing luxurious business facilities (overhead) astute advertising, and millionaire income for CEOs and staff.
Reputable conservative elites believe competition makes private medicine work. So do economists who apply serious rivalry in their research. I agree. But that is not the system we have today.
We now have a CARTEL-like system that can dictate terms and conditions. The outcome thereof is negotiated transactions for maximized profits. Yes, we can all be beneficiaries of that CARTEL as informed and capable investors, or by not becoming sick or seriously injured.
A best friend recently died from cancer. I helped her best I could for six months. She was fearless and tolerant. She courageously dealt with private medicine, hospitals, and care facilities, sans negotiation! It was made more difficult for her than necessary because of a provider's need to guarantee payment! I was there daily! It disgusted me.
A Monopsony (single-payer) can make Private Medicine work as its ideologues claim. It will be optimized by saying, "Here's what America is willing to pay. Bid on it."
.
6
@John Kominitsky
What do you think would happen to prices if there was no health insurance?
Good questions:
"What if someone’s wealth is all in land but they have no cash? Do they have to sell the land?"
Even better questions: What if someone’s wealth is all in paintings, but they have no cash? Do they have to sell the paintings?
Warren, Sanders and Steyer say they don't care how a wealthy person pays the wealth tax, and I believe that. All say a wealthy person should be able to borrow against the value of his or her assets to generate cash to pay the tax -- whether their assets are mostly paintings, stock, real estate or whatever.
5
Leaving aside the fact that a wealth tax is unconstitutional and would require an amendment to the constitution, it's also utterly unnecessary. All that is needed is a simple set of reforms to the tax system First, and foremost is the elimination of all deductions. Second, is reduction in and a restructuring of the income tax rates to neutralize the lack of deductions for the poorest (say) third of American taxpayers. Third, eliminate the ability of people to reap huge capital gains through stock options and insider stock that never gets taxed. The reason the Bezos has 50 billion dollars is not because someone gave him the cash. It's because he holds that much Amazon stock which will only get taxed when it is sold and the capital gains are realized. A simple rule about how much unrealized gain can be held by a taxpayer in ONE STOCK would cure that problem. So, just three perfectly legal changes that punish no one but make everyone pay a far rate on their income is all that is needed. Warren is kidding herself and her frankly naïve supporters. Nothing to see here, time to move on.
5
@Ross Salinger
This sounds pretty compelling. I would like to see Bernie's response to this approach. (Warren's doesn't matter much because she would likely change anyway once she got in.)
1
A few things to note:
1. This is nothing short of governmental theft.
2. The rich will find ways not to pay thier taxes (offshore banking, loopholes, deductibles, moving out of the U.S.), thus leaving the middle class holding the bag.
3. This come directly from a place of greed and envy.
4. This will bankrupt the middle class. Thus evening the playing filed... we'll all be poor.
5. It is unconstitutional.
6. Even France rescinded their wealth tax after it was a complete failure.
5
It is very easy to approve of a tax that does not affect oneself. What a warmth of resources to figure this out.
4
You hit the nail on the head. My otherwise progressive friends oppose the “Medicare for All” notion once they figure out that they will lose their big, beautiful union health care plans and be in with everyone else.
3
Many Americans seem unaware that the Democratic candidates' wealth-tax proposals vary quite a bit.
For example, Elizabeth Warren recently increased her top bracket from 3% to 6%, still well below Bernie Sanders' top bracket of 8%. In sharp contrast, Tom Steyer's wealth tax is fairly timid: 1% across the board -- i.e., 1/8 of Sanders' top rate, 1/6 of Warren's top rate.
Though it matters less, quantitatively, the Democratic candidates' wealth-tax proposals also vary considerably on when they kick in: some at $32 million, others at $50 million.
The Democratic candidates' wealth-tax proposals would apply to only a very small portion of the candidates themselves -- specifically, only to Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg. The tax each would pay obviously would vary dramatically from plan to plan.
3
I am at a loss over the wealth tax. A federal tax on wealth is not in the constitution! There is an income tax and estate tax (that is income for the beneficiaries).
How does anyone propose this to take place. Not by a presidential order.
Does anyone think this can pass the house and senate and the get ratified by the states. This will never happen.
Let the candidates get real an come up with a health plan that can work for all.
A budget that our great grandchildren will not be stuck with.
An immigration policy that allow people into our country to follow the American dream as our forefathers had.
We need a strong military and a great educational system.
These should be the candidate’s talking points. Not an unachievable dream that can not and will not happen.
5
@Jim
Sounds pretty reasonable. But what is "a strong military"? Don't we spend more than the top ten countries under us, combined? Isn't this way beyond "strong"?
1
The issue here is not the answers but the poorly worded questions. “Do you want Medicare for all?”, what does this really mean? People interpret it as free and comprehensive care, so they will obviously say yes. They have no idea how it works or the devastating consequences for hospitals. Conversely, those who oppose it are hearing “would you like your taxes raised?”. While you’re at it why not ask “would you prefer to travel economy or first class? “ . of course people “prefer “ first, especially if it’s free. People favoring a wealth tax are basically saying the ultra rich should pay more . That’s the real question they’re answering.
1
Aside from being likely unconstitutional, the wealth tax has been shown to be a failure numerous times. Even socialist nations like France have abandoned it.
10
No need to misinform while making a valid point. France is NOT a socialist country, if by that you mean that the government runs the economy. They have a wider safety net that requires more funding. Workers have more protections and everyone is guaranteed health care and time off. They also believe in public education at every level. Every nation has problems to tackle. Their quality of life is immeasurably higher that in this country.
3
I support Warren because her background in law and expertise in bankruptcy, not to mention her time in the current Senate, have made her uniquely qualified among candidates.
I also support her because she's a woman, and is focused on creating a fair and just society. If we want to see real change, we need more (well-qualified) women in positions of power.
For those worried about whether M4A is a good policy, remember that Warren won't achieve drastic change her first week in office. She will work with, and compromise with, others in government.
I often think about NYT articles about Iceland. Women in government began to achieve positive change without being talked over and dismissed by their male colleagues when they filled about 50% of the seats.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/16/opinion/politics/johanna-sigurdardottir-give-women-a-chance.html?searchResultPosition=3
I realize Iceland is a much smaller country, but the issue isn't about population size -- it's the balance of power. Voters need to stop talking about likeability and consider qualifications for our presidents. Many American men will never be ready for a woman president; that's why every woman must vote this election.
6
wonder how many people who comment here even pay federal taxes. Since only 10 percent pay 90 percent, I bet not many..
6
I am self-employed and have to pay plenty of Federal taxes, paid 4 times a year not just once a year.
I support Elizabeth Warren because paying taxes is the right thing to do, the legal thing, the patriotic thing to do.
Unlike Trump, I am an ethical businessperson...
3
There is a similar problem with the Warren HC idea:
Regardless of who ends up running in the 2020 race for the GOP, a Dem platform plank calling the Universal government run health care will be a deal breaker for most if not all of the moderate voters in both parties. Running a national health care system is FAR beyond the capabilities of a government that struggles to keep itself open for business. What happens n in the next Gov. shutdown....do we close all the hospitals? Sorry folks but this is a really bad idea.
4
If it runs like Medicare the government doesn’t run the system, it just pays the bills. A shutdown would not close anything.
I recall all the government shutdowns I still received my social security.
America already has the poison pill of Medicare for those who are even as a group uninsurable. Medicare for seniors is logically insane for all but the recipients of the entitlement and the insurance and medical industry.
The only way obtain the sanity of a single all inclusive system is Medicare for none. Exclusion and inclusion only ensure that there will be push back on something that is universally acceptable and desirable except in America.
1
The problem with a wealth tax is that it’s proven to lead to capital flight such as in France, and has issues with accurately valuing an estates assets. However, the biggest impediment to a wealth tax, is that the right wing leaning Supreme Court will find it unconstitutional. Both Sanders and Warren are populists who are making big promises that political realities will prevent them from keeping.
1
It would be no more unconstitutional than estate taxes, and no more difficult to value.
So let the billionaires leave for some island tax shelter. Most of us will be better off without them here.
The wealthiest among us enjoy all the benefits of taxation, like paved roads, police and fire departments, and national parks, they just don’t want to pay any of the taxes. And for far too long they haven’t contributed their fair share.
Warren has the potential to be a transformative President and a fighter for the little guy in the mold of FDR but only if we as a nation hang up our hang-ups about electing a female president. By all indications she’s harder working, smarter and tougher than any of her primary competitors. Let’s make history with her and save our nation from the death grip of the Trump Republican Party strangling our democracy.
5
@Dabney
Only the wealthy get the benefit of highways? I think you should look up who pays the taxes in this country.
2
With all due respect, that’s not what I said. I said that the wealthy enjoy taxpayer funded paved roads (among many other infrastructure projects like bridges). I did not say that ONLY the wealthy enjoy them. The problem is, the wealthiest among us have fancy tax lawyers and complicated investment vehicles that afford them access to loopholes in our current tax laws. They end up paying a much lower percentage of their income in taxes than average Americans.
2
@Dabney L - Speaking of police and fire departments, check out this article about the little town where Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos live. Between the two men, they sit on almost half of the country's wealth yet their town is struggling because of taxes.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/politics/city-of-medina-facing-financial-woes-amid-private-wealth-of-residents/281-94fa4dfe-ce25-49c6-b766-387aea9a476d
It's almost not necessary to say that rich white men oppose this tax.
What I don't understand is the reluctance of the poor white Republicans to see that they are being misled by the rich white men they keep voting for.
4
“Not surprisingly, that is also the profile of many who’d be hit by Ms. Warren’s so-called wealth tax”
Just what you’d expect.
2
Even France rescinded its wealth tax.
2
And what exactly that supposed to mean?
Thomas Piketty, future Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science wrote a whole book arguing for a wealth tax.
Emmanuel Saez, his co-author and UC Berkeley Economics professor and advisor to the Warren campaign (alongside with Gabriel Zucman), another Frenchman did all the relevant calculations to show why it is a good idea and how it can work.
And here a bunch of amateurs arguing why it is a bad idea and that “even in France” it didn’t work.
Pure propaganda. I asked a simple question the Times should answer: what does Sulzberger think about the wealth tax. He owns The NY Times (with some other family members and Carlos Slim of course). So far silence!
Anything a Republican male is against, I am most definitely for. Thoughts and prayers Republicans and billionaires. Thoughts and prayers.
4
The lack of support of college educated Republican men isn’t surprising. I would like to see what percent of them have business degrees. I’m guessing that it’s pretty high compared to other degrees.
We already know through the election of Donald Trump that most Republican men worship at the alter of the all mighty dollar and nothing else. Though I like her brains and policies better than anyone else’s, I believe Trump would win handily against her, on the strength of this demographic alone. It’s too bad that all people ever think about in this world, and this nation especially, is money.
3
@Dave Yes, it's too bad that all people like Elizabeth Warren think about is money...other people's money, that is.
Except among people who know any law (it's unconstitutional).
2
How is it that so many regular folks are more about concerned about a person possessing $50 million paying $1 million in additional taxes than they are about millions and millions of Americans not having affordable health care? Ah yes, the drivel of Fox Propaganda, which has convinced them that if they continue to be selfish and uncaring while watching Sean Hannity and voting Republican, they too will have $50 million some day.
4
In short, those who attended college and learned actual economics while they were there oppose profoundly foolish ideas. Those who know nothing about economics - or simply those for whom envy is policy - support them. Why should this surprise you?
There is one absolutely certain way to get overwhelming support on a poll; it involves framing the question thus:
do you support increasing taxes on people who have more than you do and giving the money to you?
To get overwhelming opposition, just frame the question like this:
do you support any program if you will actually have to pay for it?
When Americans increasingly come to support policies which are so silly that even Euro-socialists reject them as poison, you know that something is seriously wrong with American education, to say nothing of the American spirit.
Folks in Hong Kong are now better Americans than most Americans, and far better than American leftists.
2
Of course it has wide support others will always want free stuff and handouts when someone else is paying but God forbid you ask them to pay or perhaps do something to better themselves or make a sacrifice it’s protests
5
She has no chance of winning exactly because of ideas like these.
2
Of course, any proposal that is perceived to tax people besides yourself is going to have majority support. It’s called envy - I deserve part of your success.
4
Yes, the Republican white men aspire to be part of the $50 million plus club and don't want that exclusive club taxed, even if they aren't members.
Just another example of Republicans voting against their own interests.
Face it Republicans, you aren't part of that club and never will be! So stop voting to hurt yourselves.
2
News flash, rich people who have no moral code oppose giving money to help others.
3
Warren's wealth tax is just stealing. Its no different that stealing a well dressed woman's purse: she probably has more money than she deserves. And no-one will blame us.
1
But seriously, when you have $50 million, do you really want any more money ? That certainly won't make you happier
2
Warren does not have a prayer of winning! Time for all to step away from the fictional narrative of their respective campaigns ! Time to
rally around Biden, the only one who can defeat this gorilla in the White House, imp! It is a shame to go backwards in order to go forward, however, the country at large, and the world itself will need a steady guiding hand to bring us back to civility, tolerance, rule of law and environmental responsibility..
1
As much as the mainstream media and Democrat elites are pushing socialism, the mainstream of Americans are pushing back. Leave us alone, we say, and don't try to take away our private healthcare. Warren is finished as a candidate, no matter how much the MSM tries to save her.
1
The main thing to remember about all this is two sentences,
"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" amd "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan", words spoken by the architypical leftist Democrat, Barack Obama, during his campaign.
Those two sentences epitomize all campaigns by Democrats.
They are, and were at the time, outright bald lies, and everybody with any sense, or at least enough sense to watch Fox News or read Breitbart, knew they were lies and knew exactly why they had to be lies.
The same applies to most Democrat policies this time around. One MUST assume that any statements by
Democrats about what a policy will do, who it will effect, are lies.
You can, of course, in some cases be sure a wealth tax won't hurt you. But even if you do that, you can't be sure that a sepcific tax would not hury the country ... badly.
Wealth taxes in Europe have proben to be very very bad ideas.
"Only one slice of the electorate opposes it staunchly: Republican men with college degrees."
You forgot the adjective "white." But then again, it can be inferred since it is a known fact that it is the party of racism.
1
Really wide spread support? Please explain her tanking pole numbers then.
The Bloomberg and Leon Cooperman types
Add Sulzberger and Slim to the list.
The responses reflect the current laziness and hypocrisy in American society today... and really since the end of WW2.
Look around you - so many of the reasons you want the Government to pay for you are because of your own laziness and self-entitlement.
For most of you, your sickness and disease comes from your own choices - but you now expect the Government to bail you out.
For most of you, your lack of financial assets comes from your addiction to consumption at the expense of saving - but now you expect the Government to bail you out.
For many of you, your foreign policy choices (supporting Israel, invading Iraq and Afghanistan, holding Iran accountable for its foreign policy but not Saudi Arabia) come from your addition to oil and ignorance - but now you expect the Government to support a continuance of this absurdity.
For most of you, your lack of attention to the state of the environment comes from greed and self-entitlement that you should should have anything you want (irrespective of ability to pay) at the lowest price - but now you expect the Government to fund the increasing cost your behaviors have on the environment.
A wealth tax, demanded by the same people who demand responsibility for self for the rest of the world, is just another example of what a deceitful, hypocritical and undeserving society the United States really is.
Almost all of you brought all your problems on yourself. At least have the personal self-respect to fix them yourself.
2
College educated and republican sounds strange together.
1
Plenty of colleges in this country which won’t qualify as Middle School in the civilized world. And plenty of college graduates from good schools who wouldn’t graduate from high schools in the civilized world (they are called legacy candidates at times).
1
Reading most of these comments feeds my concern that the Country is too mis-educated and brainwashed to fix itself.
3
It comes as no surprise that the white male conservative is highly skeptical of Big Gummint Redistribution from the makers to the takers. After all, they’re the ones making most of the wealth in America. The rest of the people are your typical envious Socialist Redistributionists: women, minorities, and beta males.
2
So you're saying nearly 60 percent of Republican men without a college degree - also known as "the only group of Americans of which a significant majority supports Trump" - supports a a wealth tax? and yet there is still talk about about how we need to "appeal to moderates" by nominating a garbage candidate like Biden instead of a "polarizing" Democrat with an actual progressive platform?
gotta love the stupid sometimes.
2
Is a sample set of ~5K truly representative of the ~200M voters?What is the margin of error of the survey?
Figures do not lie, but lies figure. All polling surveys are not “representative”.
It reminds me of the style of forgone conclusion news reporters who state “studies will show.” Easy to find data to fit your pre established conclusion.
I am voting for the Comprehensive Affordable Care Act (CACA), the only fair choice.
Print critical comments and questions.
Your invitation for civil comments and contributions is fake it seems.
I asked a simple question: what does NY Times think about the wealth tax?
1
Where is my comment though??
About the "wealth tax" and its associated notions about direct redistribution of money. The list of why this is a bad idea can start and end with: it will NEVER happen. What we need to do is raise the cost of profit. Force employers to PAY more for the production of their goods, in many cases much more. Intercept the flow of dollars into the coffers of the very rich and the excessively profitable and force that money into the hands of those of us who work for a living. There are many ways to get that done that could actually get through a sane congress and past a sane president. First things first, get our government back: 1. Dump Trump. 2. TERM LIMITS.
2
This is one of the few Warren positions with which I agree.
Without strongly progressive inheritance and income taxes, eventually, all the wealth ends up in the hands of a few extremely rich people. ala the middle ages, when only a few owned all the land and the rest were peons.
This is the case in much of the non-western world. We are regressing under Republican low tax, low regulation policies, which evidently are designed to make the very rich even richer (another yacht? another extra home?).
9
In our so-called free enterprise system, wealthy people are wealthy because they employ poor workers in their factories or offices or warehouses, etc., who are paid less by the wealthy person than the value they produce for him. This difference--between the value they produce and the wages the capitalist pays them--is called the "surplus" value. It is the source of all profit . . . . When a McDonald's employee, for example, makes $35 to $50 an hour for the company, while getting paid the Federal minimum wage of less than $8 per hour, this surplus is why McDonald's makes billions of dollars in profits. The system is intrinsically evil, because it is based on the fullest possible exploitation of the labor of the working people . . . . To expropriate wealth gained by such means is not only morally right, it is morally necessary--it is only "expropriating the expropriators."
8
I'm for a properly graduated income tax, at pre-Reagan levels (greed is not good and tax cuts for the rich don't work). Or we could go back to Eisenhower. The thresholds would obviously have to change, but people loved this country and their work back then. Vietnam war corruption was a problem, but jobs were decent and workers and consumers guided our culture. Now it's greedsters removing value from the economy and buying government.
There's lots of evidence that just a wealth tax, as appealing and pain-free as it is (who needs more than many millions, really?), is hard to administer and runs up against things like the value of largely useless luxury goods and offshoring of wealth.
Also, a teensy little tax on the casino on Wall Street would stop those microsecond transactions which also remove value for all but a very small number of clever profiteers.
We could lower Social Security by assessing it on all income, not just the part people need to get by. Currently it's regressive.
And the default: sales and value-added taxes? Those, again, are highly regressive. We could stop entertaining themselves and being driven by marketing and sales and entertainment long enough to think about how to pay for things. We're willing to pay much more at the counter rather than having to share and help each other solve problems.
Yes, I know, hopeless. We have imbedded our bad habits and magic thinking.
Remember the planet is real and lies cannot last. The truth matters.
4
@Susan Anderson
I'm a full on Warren supporter. But the wealth tax is too gimmicky for me, and life is complicated.
Since I know she's smart and good at finance, I'm sure in the end she will be able to figure out wealth taxes and health care for all. But I'm not fond of the easy solutions she has to use to explain to audiences in short sound bytes.
Speaking of short, the Democratic "debates" are a disastrous format. Can we please please get rid of all the extras who aren't going to make it? And the billionaire ego add-ons would do better to support honest candidates as they did before they went all in on advertising.
It's pretty obvious both Bloomberg and Deval Patrick are picks from wealthy power brokers who don't like that we have to do something and that "something" should include a fairer economy and more knowledge-based government (climate change is real).
2
I keep hoping that all the hoopla about wealth taxes will cause Americans to dig a little deeper into their personal moral codes but judging from these comments - not so much. Reducing a wealth tax on the uber rich to a form of theft seems a pretty shallow imagining of all the moral & ethical transgressions going on in order to accumulate 50 miilion dollars; it simply is not credible that one person independently produces so much value in any way, shape, or form in any medium or human endeavor. Orders of magnitude separate the effort from the reward in extraordinarily twisted and delusional trajectories. Not to mention the enormous amount of the public trust and commonwealth which makes every wealth adventure possible - infrastructure, mineral rights, public funding of basic research, legal systems - the list is long and unending of necessary social and Nature-funded precursors.
It is time we stopped drinking the neoliberal capitalist kool-aid when it comes to the morality of becoming a billionaire.
3
Many hard pressed RETIREES Living on their IRA and 401-k withdrawals would benefit from a partial tax exclusion such as in NYS and thirteen other states. Why is this not part of Warren’s tax plan?
1
For all those believing the ultra wealthy are deserving of everything they have made have you considered the fact that companies like Amazon & Walmart have made their money off the backs of people who are not even paid a livable wage. People who have to apply for food stamps to survive, meaning these companies are subsidized by the taxpayers.
Time for the wealthy to pay up for their good old American greed.
9
I have long supported higher taxes for greater earners (the last Republican tax cut was a disaster for America but great for the stock market and short-term economy) BUT: 1) labeling a fairer tax system a "wealth tax" is a terrible choice (how about "equity tax") and won't fly no matter what survey monkey says (I don't believe it) or ever pass the current senate (Dems are dreadful sales and marketing people; they should learn from Republicans); 2) the national debt is worse than ever--no thanks to current admin--but throwing more money into a broken system ain't the answer until we fix our government's financial mismanagement.
2
Yet another promotional article for Warren.
If everyone overwhelmingly support her proposals, then why are her polling numbers tanking?
7
@Kevin Good question. I agree that wealthy people should pay more taxes. I recognize this is a threatening concept. I don't think Warren is necessarily the best communicator of this message.
Forget the ultra high net worth individuals for a second. Why are we not discussing the other part of Warrens tax plan which will affect middle and upper middle class taxpayers?
7
The most interesting aspect here is the difference between college degrees male Republicans and the same demographic Democrats on both a wealth tax and Medicare for All. Presumably, Democratic and Republican men with degrees are equally likely to have risen the corporate ladder or started a company and become wealthy. But one party has a conscience and concern for others, the other remains infatuated with themselves and unmoved by the plight of others. The latter are the real deplorable. I think it might be interesting to see the same question and pool subdivided into just a bachelors degree and those with a post-graduate degree. I’m guessing that the more education they have, the more both camps find a conscience.
2
Any survey on a matter of taxes and " Medicare for all" at this point is sure to be unreliable. Something underlies Warren's precipitous drop (28% to 14% in a reliable Quinnipiac poll). Probably " Medicare for all, Pete, the discovery that she had been a Republican until age 47 and represented huge corporations for vast sums of money (fact check all this). My hunch is that it is Medicare for All and the rise of Mayor Pete. When you first hear of Medicare for all it sounds great. Most people are not yet tuned in to the details. When they hear they must give up their own insurance ( for which their employer may pay all or most) and pay Medicare premiums and when Medicare patients hear warnings that their benefits must be reduced to accommodate 180 million more covered that proposal will be more than an albatross around her neck, more like a python. The wealth tax is not her problem. It's her lack of a viable healthcare plan. The candidate with plans for everything gets sunk on a plan she didn't really have but latched onto. Irony. Very few people find her likable (admittedly anecdotal). There are constitutional issues on a wealth taxes well.
2
I am a Warren leaner with a BA and a JD.
The take away I received from this article was how different a country we would be if we had a better education system that encouraged higher learning.
I was stunned (but perhaps not surprised) that when it came to 'which of 2020 candidates would you trust to handle the economy', it took a postgraduate degree for for folks to trust Warren to handle over than the other front runners.
7
@Jaco - Let them eat cake, right?
So who are these Republican men and women with degrees who care so little that they don’t think universal healthcare is necessary? What is their expectation and point of view?
And note that men with degrees vary greatly in their view of both wealth tax and healthcare - almost opposite ends of spectrum. The gulf is huge ideologically then
3
Wealth tax and medicare for all.? Moderate post college graduate Democrat PCO.
Opposing both. I like - really like - my current health care. Think Congress would ever take it away? Not happening. Wealth tax same - never be enacted. And if it was would only be increased for both lower and upper brackets.
Joe Biden is my candidate. He can win the 6 States that will decide whether Trump stays . Warren orBernie . Not .
1
Sadly, but correctly, this reveals the extreme ignorance of the electorate about most candidates, their actual accomplishments, and their true views about health care and economic issues. How many outside of NYC really know what Michael Bloomberg stands for or how he governed? These opinions are based oh shoddy media coverage and third hand quarterbacking by talking heads with their own agenda.
3
Similar to Medicare for all, a wealth tax is another Warren plan that will become less popular over time.
There is a fundamental fairness issue that will ultimately rub Americans the wrong way.
How would I like it if I had to pay a two percent, or six percent tax, on my grandmother’s diamond ring every year?
If it would not be fair for me, is it fair for someone else?
If the Democratic nominee adopts a wealth tax, it will only help a Trump victory in 2020.
3
@Tigerina Would it be fair for someone else? Yes, yes, and yes!
"Warren Wealth Tax Has Wide Support, Except Among One Group
"Most college-educated Republican men oppose Elizabeth Warren’s plan..."
This seems to be an exceptionally narrow view of what constitutes a "group."
Capitalism is the name of the game, baby, and money is how we keep score. Board rooms have become our churches and synagogues where making more money is the objective of making any money, wealth for the sake of wealth. Far past the point where security, status, and comfort have been achieved, we now have a class (oxymoron there) of people who see the stockpiling of money as an end in itself. A entire army of little Gordon Gekkos, and "Billions" families who strive eternally to be richer than thou but, somehow, never seem to be happy.
6
According to the National Taxpayer Union the top 10% of taxable wage earners pay 70% of all federal income taxes not including State income taxes. Democrats and progressives can advocate for and sing the praises all they wish for Medicare for all, free college tuition and the Green New Deal but the smarter part of the electorate ( note the emotionally blinded) know that these programs, though sounding wonderfully altruistic, would crush our economy while turning the US into a third world socialistic country.
Yes, let's further tax assets and investment income that have already been taxed once at high rates or better yet, let pure unadulterated greed by the Democratic Party take over everything they deem entitled to. What's next, take all of our individual rights and liberty in the name of "we know better ?" Why not ? Shanghai looks fantastic from the air
5
I have two college degrees, a resume I struggle to fit on two pages and I work in a hardware store. For me and millions like me the economy is already crushed. It works only for a few, not the many. You’re going to have to convince me that what could be isn’t as good as what is, and brother, lectures about hard work ain’t going to cut it in my case.
6
@Will - Hear, hear. The economy works quite well for those who have rigged it. The rest of us are still waiting for the trickle-down.
@Will
Sorry dude. But if you have two college degrees and still work in a hardware store, the problem isn’t the tax system or the economy. Start with that two page resume.
Why do people think government can spend money efficiently and fairly? Everyday you see examples of poor government spending and the conclusion is to give them more money to spend? Are you serious?
9
I am a 74 year old retired physician.
I have paid huge amounts of tax - without protest - for 50 years (since making $600 for a summer's work in1963).
I am not worth 12 million dollars like Warren, nor is my money sheltered in the most lawyerly fashions possible (which I'm sure her's is).
I do not want to be taxed even more because I was successful in my work, in my savings for decades, and because of my education.
Enough is enough.
16
No, that it is a wealth tax is crucial. Inequality has been building using the existing tax structure even in 1979. The venue can't be put back in the bottle. Time to skate the genie.
2
As a member of the one group who supposedly oppose Warren's "wealth tax", I can say that I do not share that belief. After all, I've long been well aware that the middle and lower middle class homeowners have been paying an, often radically regressive, wealth tax for many years. Local property taxes, most of it for public schools, is often the largest single annual tax they pay. And, for most of these same people, their homes make up the greatest part of personal assets. On top of that, those who have only partial (or no) equity in that home still pay tax based on it's total value. And finally, as if all that is not enough, in middle American communities, where existing home prices generally increase at or below inflation, if at all, effectively lose their principal faster than most pay it off.
But even given that, I am well aware that investments of the 1% are extremely mobile and fungible as opposed to personal real estate. I'm certain that using a linear, additive calculation for estimating real revenues is wrong and is ably illustrated by the use of the tax elsewhere.
So, I have no problem with such a tax. I just believe enacting it would be problematical with real unknown levels of revenues.
1
Wealthy people will find loopholes and safe places to park their money. They always do. This may also hurt our economy because it may slow production. Those making a lot of money may decide to work less which could affect job growth. This is not a good idea and will backfire.
3
If we don’t institute some form of Wealth Tax, we will find ourselves in a Russian style Oligarchy some day. Inequality is a huge problem and only government oversight can make a dent.
I am NOT against anyone making a fortune. Just share with those less fortunate. We have tried voluntary giving but selfish motivations seem to kick in with our conservative cousins.
6
Inequality is only a “problem” for those who feel an outsized sense of entitlement. As far as the successful sharing their gains, as far as I know, voluntary charity is not prohibited. But using the power of government to force it is at best unacceptable. I didn’t have the idea to start an online book seller. I don’t have the business acumen to raise capital to expand such an effort. I do not possess the confidence nor education necessary to evolve into an economic titan. I’ll never have the ambition to “play elbows out” to use a spirts metaphor. I’ve never helped Jeff nor MacKenzie Bezos drive boxes of product to the Post Office for shipping. Therefore, I have absolutely no claim on a penny of his wealth. And neither does anyone else.
6
@From Where I Sit Really? How about the people who work for these companies that aren't even paid a livable wage and have to apply for food stamps to survive. Meaning the taxpayers are also picking up part of the tab so they can accumulate vast amounts of wealth.
1
@From Where I Sit - “Inequality is only a ‘problem’ for those who have an outsized sense of entitlement[?]” Isn’t that a lot like saying that all pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than others?
1
I honestly believe there is something wrong with this polling. The cost of Warrens various proposals were reported in this newspaper as beyond $30 Trillion (mainly $20.5 Trillion for her single payer healthcare) and after that number was published, it was picked up by Democrats in Iowa and Warrens numbers have fallen and Buttiegieg’s numbers have risen to the point where he is likely to win the caucuses in Iowa. Even Biden has been rebounded. I don’t understand what would have changed that momentum toward more moderate candidates.
1
@James
There’s no evidence the momentum toward moderates has changed. This poll, after asking a series of priming questions, to get people thinking about their personal finances, asked if they would favor a 2 percent tax on people with wealth over $50 million. It didn’t even call it a wealth tax, and certainly didn’t spell out all the implementation issues and other criticisms, or that the tax would increase to up to 6 percent. It also didn’t offer as choices other solutions.
Maybe instead of calling it a tax, we should call it an investment. The investment of 2% over $50m buys the wealthy a civil society with working infrastructure that creates jobs and supports a sustainable economy. Of course, this investment will be a requirement for those who want to live here, make money here, or enjoy the benefits of a US passport.
5
@Wayne Cunningham
I think it’s cute when people who can’t pay for their own college and healthcare tell the rest of us how to invest.
A wealth tax is a nice idea but is totally impractical. How exactly do you go about determining what someone's wealth is. Sure its fine if you are just talking about money held in stocks and bonds, but how do you measure what is held in businesses or properties? You might as well be throwing darts.
I am in favor of a government run single payer healthcare insurance like Medicare, because over time it will be more efficient and save a lot of money. But the question is how do you get there? Trying to make the jump in one giant step does not seem like a good idea. How about you start by offering Medicare at cost as a healthcare insurance option to everyone who wants it?
Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution enumerates Congress's powers.
It begins, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises . . ."
Who knew our Founding Fathers were thieves?
3
Gender has nothing to do with it. Practically everyone I know working & raising a family is against her wealth tax. I would get out of the coastal bubble and actually listen to real people.
7
@JOSEPH
Real people aren't wealthy and won't be affected by this tax. It's called a WEALTH tax for a reason.
7
I am far from wealthy but I oppose every Warren policy since I did not begrudge others what I do not have. My parents couldn’t afford college so I didn’t belong there. My Army recruiter didn’t care what field I wanted to enter because it didn’t matter - I was there to serve my county, not the other way around. No everyone is a snowflake with their hands out.
2
You speak of personal inequality, divorced from the reality that is institutional, purposeful, policy driven inequality.
Inequality, writ large, is both of these, and more.
1
Genuine question here. Under Warren's wealth tax proposal, would even non-wealthy Americans need to demonstrate yearly to the IRS that they are not subject to the tax, i.e., that they don't own $50 million in assets of any kind? And, if so, will that require an unprecedented disclosure to the government of everyone's total assets? This, it seems to me, would represent a major power transfer to the federal government to investigate all our finances. That would concern me, greatly.
6
@Tim C.
Are you kidding? The government SHOULD know all about your finances. That's how your taxes get levied. That's how schools and roads and public utilities get built. Don't you want to pay your fair share?
Sounds as though you think you should be able to hide your wealth from the IRS, and I'm guessing that's a crime in the US, just as it would be in most countries.
1
@LauraF Here in the United States, the federal government taxes income, but not accumulated wealth, except for estate taxes for the very wealthy. Consequently, US law requires that we disclose all income, including income generated from assets. But, no, US residents are not required to estimate annually and prove up the value of all assets held — real properties, art, coin collections, business partnerships, stocks, bonds, private investments, etc. And, I say, thank goodness.
2
@LauraF
The government does not and should not know all about you possessions.
Society needs wealthy people for economic growth. Wealthy people become wealthy because they participate in the capitalist market of supply and demand, they correctly identify a product and sell it well. Taxing the wealthy for the benefit of the poor isn't real capitalism, the government has no place in the economy. These so called wealthy "republicans" create jobs and commercial activity that is beneficial for society, that's why they have money in the first place: they create economic value. Don't grind down the problem to being partisan, a wealth tax or any major taxation by the government interferes with entrepreneurship and economic growth. It incentives people to hire less, expand less, and take less risks creating their own business. All for what, so the government can artificially pump in money in hope the poor and unprivileged will break the cycle of poverty? This isn't real capitalism. This is more like socialism, control of commerce by government.
5
@MJ Song. Big business vs small business. For example, Is it better to have Starbucks in every neighborhood with Schultz making all the money, or an independent coffee shop in every neighborhood with a middle class wage for each owner.
Big business gets zoning and tax concessions that small businesses do not. Municipalities should do more to help small business owners.
1
@MJ Song
Who do you think paid for the roads you drive on? Society is all about shared resources.
@LauraF Fair point.
"Support for a wealth tax cuts across many of the demographic dividing lines ...College-educated Republican men, though, disapprove of it by a 15-point margin — though a vast majority of Republican men with college degrees would have a net worth below the tax threshold."
This makes clear that the Republican party has ALWAYS been about getting and retaining power and wealth for white men. Who are the wealthiest and most powerful people in America? Overwhelmingly white men. The Republican Party is THEIR party, and they make sure that the party priorities always favor them. Oh sure, they may throw a few crumbs to the "little people" with their supposed support of anti-abortion, gun ownership, immigration, and so on, but they don't really care about those things except to help them get elected. No, they pour their money and resources into making sure that rich white men stay in charge.
The reality is that unless you're a white, male, billionaire, the Republicans aren't going to do much to help you, especially with the economy. They "won the war" when they got "trickle down" embedded into the economy and have been gorging themselves on the rest of us ever since.
As to why black/brown people don't support Warren more, not belong to either group I won't try to guess, but I would urge them to ask themselves if they really think they'll do better with Biden's half-measures, more of the same approach, or whether dismantling the "trickle down" system we've had for decades is better?
1
I'm sure free beer at work would also have wide support, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
12
I've read all the ReaderPicked comments, and only @Erol seems to get the picture. I've copied it below for posterity. 2,000+ years of modern human history have repeatedly proven this to be true.
Democrats seem to believe that offering free stuff will secure enough support to beat Trump it 2020. This is fundamentally incorrect, and should I prove to be wrong, I suspect you will see a mass exodus of financial and intellectual capital in 2021.
"The greatest evil of a wealth tax is the discouragement of ambition that it causes. It is literally a punishment for success.
An income tax, even a progressive one with relatively high top brackets, still allows one (to) reap some benefit from more effort. But a wealth tax relentlessly, year after year after year, simply takes and takes and takes from you. To merely keep what you already have, you must work more and more and more.
Discouraging ambition will have disastrous consequences for the nation, reducing the total output of the economy and the amount available to be redistributed to those who cannot provide for their own needs. A wealth tax will cause many more people to have attitudes toward work like those of government employees."
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
8
@Ron
People who have 50 million dollars shouldn't pay less tax than a middle class family struggling to survive.
4
@Ron: Ambition of whom? The ones born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trumputin? It’s more likely that the excessive wealth disparity we see now, inhibits the ambitions of everyone but the 1% that Warren targets.
@LauraF
More utter nonsense.
Show me a program that Republicans support that doesn't have to do with guns, controlling a woman's right to abortion or taxes and I'll show you a fake Republican. One cannot keep saying government doesn't work and then refuse to fund government through taxes without being a total fraud - i.e. Trump. Trump is dismantling the government, supported by the GOP, because the government functions for all citizens and all of the country so why should they show any compassion for the elderly, the sick, the poor, the young, etc. And anyone who believes that without government programs the rich could rake in wealth (try building airports, national highways, bridges, pay for national defense, etc.) and see how rich one really can get. Doesn't compute. Wealth is amassed on the backs of every member of society and we have hit a tipping point where the infrastructure of our country and climate change will change the meaning of life in America. Pay up or move out if this country is too aggressive in demanding a surtax on wealth.
5
It's not surprising that so many people are enthusiastic to have a tax that will be paid by somebody else. But the problem with a wealth tax is that it's probably unconstitutional. A constitutional amendment was passed to allow the income tax, but we'd probably need another for a wealth tax, which would be practically impossible.
More important, getting rid of the Trump tax cuts and the Bush tax cuts would solve the same inequality problems, but in a way that's completely legal. We should stop trying to solve our problems with fantasies and stick things that can actually be done.
6
@Chris NYC
Taxes are based on income. And that's how it should be
@Laura “Great White Way”
Why should taxes be based on income? That only places an unfair burden on ordinary citizens. A wealth tax makes much more sense.
@LauraF
The wealth tax is not based on income.
From the onset, EW taxing the wealthy more sounds like a good deal...except there are not enough billionaire's to bring in enough tax revenue to cover the 3-4 trillion/yr. it would take to make Medicare for all a reality...therefore, the middle class will be hit with a tax increase. You say so what?...if you are a person in good health and rarely go to the Dr. you will be paying far more in taxes than the health insurance cost you right now because you will be paying for the millions of people that are poor, drug or alcohol addicts, or mentally unable to work and are living off the government, and will be using their healthcare more often than the rest of us that are healthy...so the middle class might expect their taxes to rise 10-20% from what they are now paying...that's the part of the deal that EW is not telling you...so beware of what looks like a good deal now, may really be a bad deal in the future...
9
I once read that if you know love, connection and community, this will give you a kind of security in life that nothing else can provide. If you do not know love, connection and community and the security it brings, then you will strive endlessly for substitute, such as fame and fortune, which will always be inadequate. When people live personally impoverished lives, striving for fame and fortune is never enough to provide the security that love community and connection freely brings, so they want more and more, which only further isolates them. It is ultimately destructive to let these people have power and influence.
I am all for the wealth tax.
4
Let’s call it a freedom tax.
3
A wealth tax has been tried in other countries. It failed. It's poor economics, unconstitutional, and immoral. The government will end up owning chunks of companies as people are forced to sell off their stakes to meet tax bills.
12
The IRS would not be able to determine wealth, they only know taxation. A wealth tax would hurt companies because many wealthy people's wealth is in stocks not owned items or salary. So stocks will fall and 401's will get hurt and the average person will lose money. it is a administrative nightmare.
5
@Tom: You forgot to mention that in other countries the bar for “wealth” was set much lower than what Elizabeth Warren proposes.
This, if accurate, inspires a few thoughts:
1. Women are less likely than men to support Med4All. This would seem counter-intuitive because it would free women from depending upon a man to get healthcare. However I suspect that many women, like me, don't think it is a good idea to allow only one plan and then have to face a rightwing religious or any male centered government bound and determined that we not be able to control our own bodies.
2. It is more evidence of the fact that people are afraid of losing what they have more than they are willing to risk change for something better. So people, especially minorities, who think their financial status is uncertain are more concerned to stay where they are than they are willing to trust that something better will happen. They have historical reason to fear that racist governments and businesses will impoverish them.
3. Among Democrats, the more education one has, the more likely one is to support Elizabeth Warren as best on the economy.( But, if you are a Warren supporter as I am, you probably think that this should be the easiest to fix because nobody is better at explaining how the economy works, where it is going wrong and how to fix it than Liz. Just see to it that she gets her chance to do this!)
5
We ought to be clear and honest about this: Vast majority of Americans do NOT make $50mln/year. And those who do, won't miss that 2 cents. It won't change the millionaire's lifestyle, but poorest of the poor will get a chance to attend college and healthcare, which is the moral thing to do.
The other issue is that, had we taxed income properly over the past 30 years we wouldn't have to slam a wealth-tax to address the absurd income inequality.
13
The problem with taxation in America is what you get in return. Our infrastructure ressembles the one of a thirld world nation. Our public schools produce more illeterate young adults than well rounded ones. The only thing it does well is fully fund the military so we can fight corporate wars. And to top it all off the ones that benifit the most contribute the less. This compact between the citizen and the state has been broken, when the politicians decided to sacrifice all the safety nets for the poor to sooth the greed of the rich and the corporations. And since our politicians do not represent our society, we have returned to a state of taxation without representation.
6
Well, the Federal Government is in massive debt, the average American is in debt, the money can only be in one place. And since the rich like to remind us that the government can't just print money, I guess they'll have to raise taxes. I can think of no better reason for a steep increase in estate taxes than the current occupants of the WH. A bunch of amateurs at best pretending to know success.
4
@Chris: Well, print (new) currency is exactly what the Dutch government did after WWII. People who could not show how they acquired their assets, did not get reimbursed in the new currency, since they were assumed to have profiteered from the war. Everyone else got at least 10 guilders. That was a good “reset” button. May be a good idea here too.
It’s not yours to take. Foolish.
This will all be long dead before it even passes the Congress to go out for approval by two thirds of the States. Never gonna happen, should not happen. Way to much power to the Federal Governemnt. Tax my income all you want and deal with the consequences head on. Making up fantasy taxes on Billionaires displays clearly the dishonesty of the whole proposal.
8
This will all be long dead before it even passes the Congress to go out for approval by two thirds of the States. Never gonna happen, should not happen. Way to much power to the Federal Governemnt. Tax my income all you want and deal with the consequences head on. Making up fantasy taxes on Billionaires displays clearly the dishonesty of the whole proposal.
3
A wealth tax is pretty complicated because so many assets would have to be appraised for value. Property taxes are based on assessments by local government sbut who is going to assess art collections, jewelry, etc? Two obvious ways to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes are to raise the tax rate on capital gains and raise the highest tax brackets. But generally no matter what is done the rich are able to hire tax lawyers to find loopholes and many never do pay their fair share of taxes. Medicare for All seems too controversial to run on in a general election. Pushing the present system toward universal coverage appears to be better political choice. Anything to move the country forward while reducing polarization should be the goal. Polarization is making democratic government dysfunctional and the parties are viewing each other as enemies rather than just political adversaries. The Republicans have poisoned the system by moving so far right and Democrats moving far to the left will only make things worse. The problem is not how to morph into another Sweden but to find a way to make our system of democratic government work again for the good of the country, a goal which almost seems out of reach.
3
The wealth tax is a step to fix a problem without addressing the root causes of the problem. The US had a marginal tax rate of 90 percent during the 1950s economic boom, and capital gain were taxed at a slighter rate, as well. Although, capital gains should be taxed as income, otherwise the effect is penalize wage earners. Unions were substantially stronger in the 1950s. A substantial chnage is the greater globalization, allowing various tax haven. Thus, without attempting to address all these issue on a global scale, then any policy is likely to fail. Remember the hated TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership? The TPP attempted to address some of these issues, workers rights, environment, and isolate China; yet, it was despised by all, go figure.
5
One wonders why the Zuck had dinner with the Trumpster...I believe it was to discuss how much the Zuck and other (now not so) Progressive billionaires will send to protect their fortunes. Wealth taxes are unenforceable: Zuck and friends either find loopholes (they have smarter and more devious CPA's and attorneys than Uncle Sam does.) or they leave the country. I know Elizabeth has a plan for that latter stretegy, but that won't work either.
3
Trump stiffed us with his tax relief for the rich, so it's only turnabout that we hit em up when Liz becomes President
6
Taxes are too high.
2
@Rachelle Lane
Well, the government had to somehow make up the difference from the regular tax cuts that went primarily to the wealthy and corporations and all those TRILLIONS fighting never ending wars around the world.
After all, I gather you still wish to drive on paved roads, have social security, medicare and medicaid, police depts., fire depts. and an armed forces.
4
... for everyone but billionaires.
Someone tell me, am I the only one to notice that Warren has lifted Trump’s 2016 strategy and replaced “immigrant” with “millionaire”? It’s the same concept really. Convince the working class that they are no good, very bad leeches on society and my first act as president will be to give them the punishment they so richly deserve.
Then everyone asks themselves, do I know any (immigrants/millionaires)? Probably not but what he/she’s saying sounds accurate. Well, wait I do know that one guy and he’s not bad...but he/she probably isn’t talking about them.
Hello, Democrats, you’re falling into the same boogie man trap. Replace “border wall” with “wealth tax”. We’ll keep them out = We’ll tax them out of existence. Here’s how else they’re similar - neither one of them are ever going to happen.
Funny how else immigrants and millionaires are similar, you need them both whether you like them or not.
Let’s not go down this path for another four years looking for the ne’er do wells that have been a plague on society. Change starts from within. Set your own life in order and let the government fix the roads and fund the schools without legalized theft of wealth.
7
So now can we finally put a stop to the endless stream of hand-wringing op-eds by Republicans and centrists who think Elizabeth Warren is so obviously unelectable? It looks like they're the only ones who do.
9
@L. Marie
This same group thought Obama and Trump weren't electable either.
5
Republican men run the state of Texas and they have been a disaster for everyone but themselves. Among themselves, they pat themselves on the back, congratulate each other on their successes, denigrate their opponents, and continue to concoct schemes to enrich themselves and each other on the backs of taxpayers, while inequality increases by leaps and bounds.
13
One can hope her Senate position is next to unravel.
3
so the most productive, smartest and largest contributors to the US economy oppose democratic party policy. What a surprise.
8
@sh
When Oligarchs can buy politicians that set the agenda that strictly serves their interests, they don;t want to give it up and they will do or say anything to keep it.
@SteveRR
That’s YOUR definition of Capitalism, and it’s an unhealthy and unsustainable one. Businesses run by people within societies — the gentle commerce and services that benefit the people — are part of what makes a healthy nation and people. Corporate Capitalism, on the other hand, benefits only a very few (usually men) individuals; it is greedy, insidious, sociopathic and operates as a malignancy in the nation body. Capitalism should be regulated and limited.
5
My concern with the wealth tax is the way(s) it would be implemented.
A person's earnings -- salary, wages, interest income, capital gains, etc. -- are tracked and calculated by the IRS, with little disagreement from the taxpayers.
Beyond strictly financial holdings that are more or less easily counted, how is wealth going to be determined?
And what will it take for the IRS to be convinced that you and I do not have wealth in excess of $50 billion?
Most of us in the lower 98% can breathe easily at the prospect of a wealth tax, but aren't we practicing a form of Schadenfreude -- better them than us -- and being at least slightly hypocritical?
What if the wealth tax took its aim at anyone's nest egg or real estate assessed with $1 million dollars, which is plenty wealthy from the perspective of the median American family. Would all those Democrats currently in favor of Warren's proposal still jump at the chance to contribute?
9
Please Times, fewer articles like this on the political horse race, many more on whether the various proposals of the candidates would be beneficial for the country. As far as I can see, the Times has published only one article on the effects of Warren's wealth tax, and that one was terrible.
It had a headline "Warren Wealth Tax Could Slow Economy, Early Analysis Finds" It was based on one study that made the absolutely idiotic false assumption that Warren would use the revenue from the tax to pay down the national debt.
First of all that is not what she proposed. She wants to spend the money on student debt, child care healthcare, etc. Secondly, history shows that EVERYTIME we significantly paid down the debt (>10%), the country fell into a terrible depression. This has happened 6 times and accounts for ALL of our depressions.
Why did this happen?
When the federal gov spends it sends money TO the private sector; when it taxes, it takes money OUT. Thus a surplus which pays down the debt, sucks money out of the economy, net. If enough money flows out, it becomes difficult to buy or sell stuff, so people turn to banks to borrow money. As the federal debt decreases, private debt explodes. Banks become overleveraged, & the banking system fails. The result is disaster.
A similar thing happened in 2008, In the mid '90's our trade deficit vastly increased, sucking money out. From 1996 to 2008, it was larger than the federal deficit which put money in. Money flowed out net.
4
We already have a wealth tax.
The majority of my wealth resides in my house. My house, my wealth is taxed year after year. And there is all hell to pay if I don't pay my tax.
My wealth tax is just has a different name: it is called my property tax.
Make it fair. Make it equal. I am tired of carrying the burden while the wealth of the 1% and corporations gets a free ride.
14
@RPM
I didn't realize that the wealthy are exempt from property taxes and excise taxes (which are imposed by the State by the way). I better up my game.
1
I found this article confusing. The charts don’t seem to agree with the text in terms of how much support Warren’s economic proposals. Am I missing something?
Also, the authors minimize that polls show “support has dipped slightly” when it has dipped by several percentage points even by Democrats, for the wealth tax and “Medicare for All”.
2
Maybe we should just have people that make more pay more for everything. Cars, dinners, movie tickets, clothing, products. Sure let’s punish the folks contributing the most. Why not that’s fair right? A flat tax is the only fair system.
4
remarkable is that the support for both, the wealth tax and Medicare for all your waning. apparently the opposition is doing something right.
Medicare for all is one way to get equitable health benefits to all, i.e., health insurance payments that are commensurate with what people can pay, and protections are sufficient to allow people to seek health care without going bankrupt. given the political history of the US, that idea is already contentious and Warren should be careful not to complicate the issue by a dogma of Medicare for All.
1
Basically people are in favor of others financing their lives. Can work for a generation or so but after that...
6
Our current tax code punishes those who work for a living while rewarding those who do not work and just make money off their money - which is really the labor of other people. The American oligarchy must be eliminated and democracy restored.
9
@Tempest Portland, ME
How do we know what we’re ready for until we try? The rest of the advanced nations in the world are far more socially progressive than Sander and Warren — and they’re thriving! Imagine if we had let the the “be cautious” sentiment prevail when the founders created the Constitution of our Republic or FDR created his social programs...
Don’t be afraid — Be bold!
10
I will happily vote for Sanders or Warren. I think we need extensive reform on multiple fronts, the most critical in my opinion being healthcare.
However I am a realist regarding a non-trivial population of voters for whom their policies are not palatable, and recognizing that, I fear 4 more years of Trump if Sanders or Warren push too far should either become the nominee.
5
The data do not support that fear. Sanders is handily beating Trump. Centrism resulted in Hilary and Obama. Let’s catch up to the rest of the 21st century world and demand that OUR tax dollars actually support US (not the billionaires!) with the services, protections, and regulations that all other advanced nations have. This is our one and only shot and saving our Republic! Fight from a place of certainty not fear!
6
@Misplaced Modifier Polling data? I wouldn't be so certain until Nov 2020. 2016 is a testament to the science of polling data. Let's not take comfort it in.
I'm not afraid so enough with the word "fear." I'm frustrated with the last 3 years. I'm a realist and I, unlike many other democrats, am not forgetting about the millions of Americans who are not like minded - who are not part of the "tribe."
Ignoring or neglecting the political preferences of a large population of american voters is what got Trump elected in the first place. Yes let's be bold - but not brazen.
2
Widespread support except one group the wealthy. :)
Honestly the way federal reserve a private bank control money supply to the US of A. We should abolish it. Print as much as money to support economy. No tax.
3
Though I will vote for anyone running against trump, democrats should be cautious. The progressives are pushing policies that will alienate both republicans and some democrats.
A lot of what sanders and warren want to accomplish will require enormous fiscal reform that I do not believe our collective culture as Americans is ready for, even if it is needed. Such propositions will be to trump’s benefit next November.
3
The criticisms of the "medicare for all" type plans continues to perplex me.
I've watched my elderly parents attempting to get simple compensations from their current health care insurance providers, and it's a nightmare. I have several times truly believed that the insurance providers are INTENTIONALLY trying to make it difficult. At one point, my mother threatened after several months of run around that she'd join an ongoing class action suit. The NEXT day she was called by a supervisor who set it all straight. By contrast, dealing with the social security administration, etc has been MUCH easier and more reliable. So it's difficult to accept arguments about complexity of a new system being a problem. Let's at least be dealing with people who are NOT trying to simply confuse us.
Regarding expense, it seems this simple: We're paying already - so we DO have enough money. It makes little difference to me whether the care providers are paid through taxes or direct premiums paid by me or my employer.
13
The criticism is that countries who have it cause people to wait several months or years to see physicians.
3
@StatBoy
This is what happens when Americans have 75 years of lobbying, disinformation and scare tactics thrown at you by an industry that wishes to maintain the "status quo" at all costs. There is reason why the healthcare industry is now the NUMBER ONE lobbyist in D. C.
All the other "civilized" democracies in the world recognized this along time ago that an "American type system healthcare" does not work and never will, it is unsustainable and I guess it will take more and more uncontrollable price increases, several thousand more needless deaths and bankruptcies before Americans start to "maybe" realize it. For the vast majority of those worried about their present coverage, it only exists because of your job and your employer and if you lose that job and were to to develop a chronic health issue in the meantime, what will you do then?
Add to that, if Trump is re-elected, him and the Republicans first order of business is to introduce a budget that will almost immediately cut funding to social security, medicare and medicaid all for the excuse of reducing the deficit, a deficit they created in the first place with their tax cuts for the wealthy.
8
@Tyler
Perhaps, but, if it was true, scare tactics and Republican talking points don't make it so.
2
If we simply put the capital gains tax back to 35%, and get rid of the reinvestment loophole, we wouldn't need a wealth tax, and much simpler.
6
I’m a college educated white male and I support both Elizabeth Warren and her wealth tax plan. The wealthy no longer pay their fair share of what it takes to have a country that provides them with all the people, talent and infrastructure they need to make their fortunes. They think that everything they need to be wealthy just manifests itself out of thin air because they asked for it. It’s time to end their fantasy.
12
I support increasing taxes on the wealthy but not a wealth tax.
A wealth tax would require creating a huge new agency ( or division of the IRS ) that would be rife with fraud. How would private corporations be valued? Real estate? Art?
Instead fix the current tax code to make it more progressive. . Raise the estate tax back to prior levels and stop generation skipping loopholes. Close the many loopholes in the current tax code.
2
To compare Medicare opt-in for all costs per person, with current private insurance, cost out private insurance if there would be no deductibles, exclusions, or co-pays.
1
@BacktoBasicsRob
You are already paying almost double than anywhere else in the "civilized" world under the current system with all the conditions. How much more would that be adding in all those extra "bells and whistles"?
1
A tax on wealth would be un-American. This country was founded on the idea of freedom. Freedom to earn your own money and spend it as you like. We don't take people money, just because they have it.
8
Funny what you call freedom. There's no constitutional protection on wealth while the wealthy are steadily infringing on the rights of others. typical.
5
Restore everyone's income taxes, except for those making less than a specific multiplier of the federal poverty level, to President Clinton-era levels, and give the IRS some real teeth in enforcing them, and you will have all the money for new social programs that you want. The George W. Bush and Donald Trump tax cuts were passed to boost the economy, and now that it is plently boosted enough, it's time to show courage and let taxes go back up.
3
Certainly those who didn't study hard in school, work long hours in their careers, and save their money earned to build wealth over their lifetime are thrilled about transferring the wealth of those who did to themselves. Not surprising at all. What did Communism teach us about this defunct economic system?
13
Lets drop the "wealth tax"and get to a more tolerable, fair taxes for all. Progressive taxes is what we are supposed to be about. This has been kidnapped over the years to not be the method. Lets go back to the future and do taxes we had in 1979. Top HM tax (above $300,000) 50%.Yes, that was then tax and it worked. The top tax below this 36% for corps and 30% families.
If we wanted to add a small tax for certain stock transfers then fine.
Words like "wealth tax"are certain to create opposition,
Bottomline no doubt we need a different tax system but lets try not to create a opposition with poor choice of words,
2
There are superior tax policy options. The first would be a stiff AMT on all income over $500K, but that doesn't have the campaign sizzle that a "millionaire surtax" of 10 percent on all income over $1 million (and a progressive 5% rate on those over $500K, and 15% over $2 million). The latter is simply for ordinary voters to understand.
All income (except muni bonds) would include cap gains, dividends, carried interest, commodity/futures trading profits, real estate depreciation recapture, etc. No loopholes.
I'm completely amazed and puzzled that the "moderates" on the campaign circuit have not latched on to this alternative. It pushes back on the insanity of Warren's proposal, and provides Democrats with a viable strategy, and a big ticket revenue source.
Add revenue enforcement to collect from the shell companies and tax evaders (see Meryl Streeps' new movie "Laundromat" which is the fiscal equivalent of Gore's Inconvenient Truth flick). We can get 500-1000% return on US taxpayers' expenditures with a beefed up audit program for the 1 Percenters. The GOP has deliberately stripped IRS of enforcement power, to serve the interests of their masters. And it doesn't require the Gestapo tactics that a Wealth tax would invoke.
My new book, Enlightened Public Finance, explains policy options.
3
I support higher taxes on the rich, but a wealth tax would drop sharply in popularity if the Times was more realistic about how impossible it will be to measure the wealth of every private business, farm, inherited art, coin or stamp collection.
If the wealth tax is all about fairness, what is the fairness of taxing a stock, house or business which has risen in value, but not giving you a refund if the the same exact asset drops in value without your ever making a profit on it?
3
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the modesty of Warren's proposed wealth tax, which at least in one incarnation has a split rate of 2% for large fortunes and 3% for really large fortunes, assessed only on the funds above the 2% level. There is actually a measure for what such a rate means: the expected rate of return on capital (a central issue discussed in Piketty and Saez's marvelous book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century").
As long as the expected rate of return on capital, currently about 5%, exceeds the tax rate, the wealthy will still get wealthier, just not as rapidly. So their opposition to the wealth tax is just greed
8
Medicare for all? Which Medicare? Anyone watching the ads on TV knows that there are many Medicare plans to choose from. We can also choose from several Obamacare plans. Or maybe the Medicare choice will be made for us.
1
@John Bowman You´re seeing ads for Medicare supplements, not for Medicare itself. One of the best things about single payer would be relief from having to sign up again every year, making impossible choices between plays with different copays for this, or deductibles in that case but not this one, or different formularies for prescription coverage, different networks -- all while gambling that your health will remain unchanged during the coming year. And no more commercials!
3
@John Bowman There is only one Medicare: part A which covers hospitalization and Part B which covers doctor appt, lab work, office visits, etc. (with some restrictions).
The ads you’re seeing is for Medigap, or Medicare Supplemental plans, which is private insurance that helps offset what Medicare doesn’t cover. It’s optional coverage.
Optional and a necessity.
I suspect that Bloomberg will win, and under him the wholesale buyout of democracy will continue unabated.
2
Of course most people think it's a great idea to raise someone else's taxes to pay for benefits for themselves. But I'm on the fence about this one. My reservations are two: 1. the effect on the overall economy, which have not been thoroughly thought out imo; and 2. the likelihood that the $50 million barrier will be lowered significantly as costs of all these programs prove much more than expected. Eventually, it will be a tax on far more people than the 1%. The trend is for the upper middle class (say those with a modest $100-150,000 income) to get hit for the really big $.
6
A person’s health should have never been part of a profit making machine — I mean think about it!
6
Apparently we have a lot more billionaires in the USA, based on the comments I am reading. Why are people so against leveling the playing field? Why are Americans so convinced that they will each be the next Bill Gates? This country seems to be filled with some very selfish people.
11
@Chris from PA
I don't think it is selfishness. I believe that most people want to take care of those they love and wish those they don't well. The country is not a commune.
1
Student loans need to be reclassified as a tax.
1
Not surprising that all the imaginary future billionaires oppose a wealth tax. Rather like the select white men with negative net wealth who regard "death taxes" as an offense against all that's good and decent. I mean, I earned my debts!
4
Add support for free preschool and elderly with less income than 27K
Warren’s and Sanders’ brand of government is not for the people but rather for the 💰 money and soon after they drain the wealthy, guess who’s next?
Basically their handouts are their hands reaching in our wallets, bank accounts and our retirement accounts.
Their main goal in solving income inequality is to make everyone poor to rely on government.
Learn from history, do not go back to Lenin.
8
@MDCooks8
I think you have this backwards. The republicans, after passing a tax package a couple of years ago, took money from the middle class ( in terms of allowable deductions) and lowered taxes on wealthy people. It was basically a redistribution of “wealth” from the less wealthy to the ultra wealthy and it contributed to huge deficits - which no Republican complained about, surprise! Now they’re starting to be a little concerned and the plans that have been floated take more money away from those who are not wealthy ( by cutting Medicaid, Social Security, etc.) to lower the deficit the republicans created in the first place by their tax give away to the wealthiest people.
So what’s wrong with trying to level the playing field a bit? Much of the wealth in this country is based on inheritance, investments and tax protections - a type of welfare one could argue.
2
The tax reduction you mention that the Republicans passed in a sense is a form of redistribution of wealth, which people from states with higher property tax rates were complaining their property taxes were capped and
received less of a refund or had to pay. Oddly happen to be many Democrats.
How many of your readers know that Nancy Pelosi's net worth is $120 Million. She has cautioned the extreme left candidates about the wealth tax. She would qualify for Warren's wealth tax. Elizabeth Warren's net worth is estimated to be $12 Million. She would not qualify for her own wealth tax plan. Joe Biden's net worth prior to 2016 was nearly $0. After he left the office in 2016 his tax returns show his net work increased to about $15 Million. Barack Obama's net worth is now estimated to be about $40 million. What do all these people have in common? They're not venture capitalists or CEOs of drug companies - they are Democrat Politicians.
7
Had you played both sides of the aisle on this comment I’d be with you.
@math365
Tax returns don’t show anybody’s net worth
The mega rich play all governments against each other globally, having learned how to pit US states against each other.
4
The folks that think we could just "provide" for the populace by taking from the successful dont understand business, risk, and investment.
Well, heres a start......
“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
Dr. Adrian Rogers
7
You re right, we don’t understand business,
risk and investment. Take your president for example, with a reported (b)billion dollar loss, not one but multiple bankruptcies and still remains Or claims,at least, to be a billionaire. There are countless thousands of small businesses folks that lost their life savings through business, investment and it’s correlated risk and never recovered financially. Care to explain?
1
@David Brown Trump has never filed personal bankruptcy, just some SPE deals that went south
1
In other words, men who actually work for a living rather than living off other people’s money.
2
Getting ill shouldn’t wipe out your life savings and or everything you’ve ever worked for .
5
@Jack
Only taxes should do that.
Hopefully our country is smart enough to vote for a candidate that will reverse the destructive trends put into full motion under Reagan. We do not need to spend more than half of our money subsidizing the war profiteers through the pentagon, and continue cutting taxes for the wealthy. Traditional economic indicators only benefit the wealthy and have very little to do with most peoples lives. Only her and Sanders dare to suggest pinching a small bit from the pentagon, but it is a start. Over the long term changing this trajectory will be more sustainable for all.
2
Firstly, no millionaire or billionaire made it on their own. They would be penniless without the workers that work for them and the consumers that buy their products.
Secondly, Warren's 'Medicare for All' approach will be tempered down, as are most if not all political promises. 'Medicare for All' will start with a program that is optional. Just like Obamacare it will be a move in the right direction but not a complete and immediate transformation. Biden is basically saying the same thing. However, the issue at hand that must be emphatically stated is the direction to an eventual single payer system with an optional supplementary system. What is failed to happen is the reality of the evolution that lies ahead. The system found throughout the provinces of Canada started in 1960 and province by province has changed and been amended at the request of the voters. That is the big difference between the true democracy found in Canada and the present oligarchy under which Americans live. There is nothing democratic about the US system of government. The health care and health care insurance industry run the system, pay for the political campaigns, and wield legal battles to maintain a system that ranks 35th in the world per capita as far as quality goes but costs twice what better systems cost. The US ranks 99th in efficiency of dollars spent for services received, just ahead of Algeria. It is the direction that must be elected, not the status quo.
4
Take 2% from the wealthy and they still are wealthy. Many of them are wealthy beyond what anyone could possibly be worth.
So, I think it would be better to repeal ' the trickle down economic theory' that has helped them become wealthy. Eliminate the the subsidies and tax breaks they get, which are tremendous, and also eliminate the cronyism that exists with government.
Their excess worth belongs to someone else. If the crony capitalist system were gone that money might naturally find the deserved.
6
At the heart of Warren's very good plans is the fundamental contest of unbridled capitalism and the common good. I recall a more fair nation, in the post WW II decades, when we had a solid middle class, income taxes were in the 80-90% range for the wealthiest of us and families could be supported on the wages of the lowest paid unskilled worker. I just wonder how many people today have any idea of how wonderful it was to live in the more equal society that was America.
I'm encouraged that a wealth tax, best thought through by Warren, is taking hold. There is a fairness and rightness about it that strikes a common cord.
I am encouraged that Warren is responding to the backlash to her supporting Sanders' Medicare for All proposal. She has since modified her plan to have a three year phase in to provide time to strengthen ACA, Medicare and Medicaid. After this phase in, she will put it to a vote, whether to continue with private health insurance or adopt medicare for all. By increasing efficiency, limiting corporate lobbyists, providing additional funding from the wealth tax and bringing drug costs down to 110% of global norms, medicare for all will be able to provide more services for less money and, therefore, win people over from private health insurance. Much of her reforms can be accomplished with executive action, just as Trump used executive actions to weaken ACA. That sounds like a plan to me.
6
@citizen vox
Well, we disagree here, a person’s health should not be part of any money making machine.
1
@jaco
Our health should have never become another’s lucrative career.
1
@jaco
Of course not. Don't you know that they are supposed to love all their patients and do it for free.
I continue to shake my head at all this political malarkey. Our tax laws are a meaningless jumble of regulations designed to coddle one special interest after another. So one more tax, why not. That will solve everything, right?
The whole structure needs a rework not by politicians who know nothing about economics and taxes but by nonpartisan professionals directed to create a balanced and fair system. Moreover, we are never going to tax our way out of the hole we’re in; meaningful budget reform is a must.
2
In other words, it enjoys broad-based support among nearly the entire US population, those who delude themselves into thinking they will someday be oligarchs excepted.
3
@Multimodalmama
Everyone with a brain knows that tax loopholes are made to legalize the looting of the nation by our so-called elite, people like Donald Trump and family. His new tax cuts did not include closing a single loophole either if anything it opened just some more.
1
The Root-Cause is inequality amplified by the underlying problems in our nation that give more, much more, to the wealthy among us. American now has its own Oligarchs who, thanks to legislation and court decisions, essentially own elected officials, can manipulate the media, make unilateral decisions that the government ignores.
Beyond that, the very people who own the companies that we work for, make decisions about investments in the company, products to be made, et cetera. When these decisions are found to be wrong, the decision makers get bonus payments for making the "hard-decisions" to layoff workers, close plants, move production to other nations and essentially blame the workers for their failures.
Finally, these companies find ways to avoid paying taxes on their income, thereby shifting the costs of government onto the citizens without the means to avoid paying taxes.
We need a comprehensive overhaul of our tax codes along with legislation that takes the levers of power away from the wealthy few Oligarchs.
No more PAC's, funds, and the like - all campaign materials paid for by the government as well as fact-checked for validity of claims. Americans should not have to be wealthy to run for office at any level.
4
@George N. Wells
the Constitution was written by wealthy landowners for wealthy landowners, we now have a government by the wealthy for the wealthy, no election will change that.
1
She has so much potential, but her reputation for treating staff poorly goes way back to her time in the city of San Francisco. It was well known here. Always amazes me when politicians are able to rise so far in spite of their lackluster people skills.
@Stacey: When was Elizabeth Warren in San Francisco? What did she do there?
2
Democrats and Republicans alike got us into this mess. Congress created a system with enough loopholes so the very rich can legally avoid taxes. Most people just want everyone to pay their fair share. That does not mean overtaxing people that make more money. Raise the top rate to 50% but stop demonizing wealth. The ability to accumulate wealth is a positive aspect of our country. Congress sets the ground rules and they rules need to changed a bit. A bit. The rush to punish the wealthy is a rush to destroy the engine that makes America a promised land for new ideas.
2
@dudley thompson
Who is punishing the wealthy? The salary and wage earners hare the prey of the predatory capitalists. Stagnating wages and salaries and taxes are part of it feeding the greed of the wealthy.
I am a Democrat, female and have a post graduate degree.
You need to measure not only WHO likes Warren, but the numbers of people (like me!) who despise Warren's angry demagoguery and ignorance of finances and the economy.
I have voted straight Democrat in the last 30 years, and can give up my private insurance for Medicare for all. Partly that's because I am healthy though.
I will vote for any other candidate (even Sanders), but would stay home on election day if Warren is selected.
Why? Because I think the economy would tank under Warren's "plans" , and Republicans would use that to win MANY future elections.
4
Ignorance of finances? You mean the lawyer specializing in bankruptcy law, champion of consumer protection, creator of the CFPB? I think she knows plenty about the economy.
If someone who earns over $50 million per year can’t spare a couple cents on each dollar OVER $50 million, we have a serious problem. People make that money do so thanks to a economic system that benefits them over and over. Look how many companies enjoy massive subsidies and don’t pay a dime in federal income tax.
The problem is the Uber wealthy don’t acknowledge all the benefits and props available to them that help them amass more wealth and grow it.
13
@Pat: Can you explain why the economy would tank under Warren's plans and not because of the Trillion dollar deficit that Trump is creating with his tax giveaway to the weatlthy?
8
@Pat
There is no guaranty that you will stay healthy. Next, our huge military budget and the active wars are more likely to tank the nation's economy. It was Reagans tax cuts and his military spending that made the nation a debtor nation and the trillion $$ Trump deficit does not make it better. So far the current wars have cost the nation some $6 trillion. The shareholders of Haliburton and Boeing and GE and all the other big corporations are the war profiteers, the average people pay with reduced standards of living as shown in the poor quality of public education, millions of people without health insurance, below decent housing standards, lack of affordable child care, rundown infrastructure, and boarded up and wrecked buildings all over the country, even unsafe drinking water and more.
During and after Vietnam standards of living went down and kept going down with stagnating wages and salaries, nothing has changed.
1
The fact that republican educated men are against the tax on the wealthy, is easily explained. Given the perverse nature of a party that once stood for the Constitution, anyone who is educated and still aligns themselves with a decadent corrupted party is completely self absorbed and not too bright. They are steeped in the illusion that they will all join the ranks of the wealthy.
The Warren't tax on the super wealthy is quite reasonable. The wealthy have used the power that they wield to take over government and tip the economic scales, funneling vast sums into their gaping financial maws. We have to act to undo some of that damage. The wealthy are too wealthy. Much of their out sized wealth has been obtained by gaming the system in their favor and against us. The reduction in spending has contributed to our economic malaise. Don't be fooled by a stock market that is artificially buoyed by the huge windfall that the wealthy have reaped at our expense.
And the tax isn't that high. At 2% per year, a billion dollars that was doing nothing would take almost 40 years to become half a billion dollars. Of course no one with a billion dollars would simply let it sit idle. A 2% return isn't that hard to get.
5
Thought experiment: Imagine that Mary is the scion of a very wealthy family. She is actually not very focused on wealth and she only inherits a single item of sentimental value - but it happens to be a Van Gogh, valued at $100M, that hung in her childhood home. Mary works as a pediatrician in a middle class community and makes a very solid but not spectacular $200k/yr - but under the new tax system she owes approx $2M in "wealth tax" year in year out. Pretty clearly, this system verges on "confiscation" rather than "taxation" since essentially Mary is now _compelled_ to sell the Van Gogh to get liquidity to pay her annual tax. Instead of having what she wanted (an upper middle class lifestyle and a cherished family heirloom on the wall) she instead is compelled to have $100 million in invested assets since the central govt has decided that she ought not be allowed to set that priority for herself. Wealth taxes fail everwhere they are tried, and they fail for both moral reasons (Mary is not simply a tool of the state) and practical reasons (the richest find ways to avoid them). This stuff is silly and is mostly aimed at mobilizing inexperienced and low information voters. I wish NYT wouldn't cover it as if it were a serious proposal. Candidates (except Sanders) know better.
8
I think you're wrong. As the polls suggest it's the lower educated, probably less informed voters that oppose these plans. So stating that it's there to lure exactly those voters seems inaccurate. Moreover, your fictional example of a median earner with a 100 million painting is so far of any realistic example that it can only be mentioned as to support a predetermined outcome. Give me something better please.
Waren rules and should tax those upper-class rich even more. But that's just my opninion, no fake examples necessary.
4
@Rex Nemorensis
she has enough income and does not have to sell her cherished Van Gogh to pay her annual income tax, taxes on the sale of the painting would be a one-time affair. What is the big deal, she does not want to sell the painting, the painting is not yearly income either.
1
POOR Mary!! I'm going to presume, given her family, that she's not in debt for her undergraduate or medical education, and she avails herself of the family vacation properties when she needs a break from her busy life. Also that her children have been included in a family trust. forced to sell the family artwork?! Quelle tragic...
3
What the statistics in this article really point out is that educated Republican men really have little interest in seeing that everyone in this country is treated fairly. No concern that lower & middle class people and their families that have the misfortune to have a serious illness don't lose their homes or their lives as a consequence.
I would have thought that Republican women would have a little more compassion than the men but apparently not.
I was under the impression that this was a Christian nation but apparently not. Obviously Christian in name only, not accepting the teachings of Jesus Christ to give help to the poor. Some how that got lost in the collective "wants".
5
@uras: This nation’s claims of divine creation are its biggest insults to intelligence.
My comments always end up somewhere at the bottom, so here is giving credit where credit is due.
"Reorganize the tax system to favor labor over capital", complements of Frank from Boston in this comments section. That should be a progressive dem's soundbite slogan for the too-busy or too-simple to think.
Mark the RN, it would seem, should be just as harried and busy as any capitalist, yet he has time to make very thoughtful, nuanced solutions in his comments. Perhaps another simple slogan: "US needs New Deal 2.0 and Eisenhower era tax rates to make US great again."
The biggest swindle ever perpetrated on my family was a life insurance policy to cover estate tax. The only year estate tax would have been applicable was in the year the policy originated. The estate tax for that one year would NEVER have amounted to the OVER $110,000+ in premiums paid over 20 years. The kicker: my mother is still alive at 85 and my brother was told that the premiums would now have to increase to $20,000/year to extend the policy to her age of 100, because if she would have deceased before the end of the original 20-year term, there wasn't $250,000 available to pay out as originally promised, because "interest rates have been lower than predicted".
The Finance/Insurance/Real Estate industries are too busy capitalizing on the debt of wage/salary stagnant W-2 filers and overpriced securities speculation. There is no consumer demand for over-saturation of small businesses.
3
I am wondering what would happen in the following scenario. A person owns a small business, which they think is worth about $10 million. They operate this business for many years. They finally decide to sell it, and unexpectedly, a bidding war results, and it sells for $70 million. Do they owe retroactive wealth tax? For how many years? And how much? Would there be a penalty added on?
This is one of the main problems with this wealth tax proposal. No one knows what something is worth until it is sold.
The fact is, there is no way to reliably tell what a person's net worth is. It's all speculation.
3
Your questions only point out that, yes, the subject is difficult to tackle and will involve a complex set of rules. The conclusion that a social injustice should not be attacked and the situation be mended, just of its problematic nature, is wrong. If anything, it should remind you of someone who once said, that it should be done because it is easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.
2
@Marty:serious wealth is organized into trusts and hidden in networks of LLCs.
@Marty
Wealth is in the eye of the beholder, a few million $$$ like 10 or 70 million are nothing in the eyes of really rich people. that is upper middle class. The real taxpayers are the middle-class people, wage and salary earners. There are no loopholes for them, if they sell a piece of property they will be taxed at the earned income tax rates, including the SS as taxable income, then the IRS will collect late fees and interests if the payment is delayed for just a few weeks.
The system is made by wealthy legislators for the wealthy. They are not about to change anything.
In 2018, Amazon paid $0 in U.S. federal income tax on more than $11 billion in profits. It also received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government.
That is not fair to the rest of Americans who are filing their income taxes each year, is it?
12
@Jacquie: US tax law leaves reinvested corporate profits untaxed.
2
@Steve Bolger
Not true
Federal, State or City, where do you see your tax money go to good use. In NY City, we have the highest taxes in the nation when you combine property tax, sales tax 8.875%and both City Income tax 3.87 and State Income tax 8.82%, for a combined marginal rate of 12.69%. Yet despite the high tax burden, our city schools are a failure only 45% read at grade level. Our roads are full of potholes, mass transit overcrowded and chronically late.
Sadly higher taxes on either the federal state or city level will not lead to improved services. Yes, Govt workers will get raises and better pensions and contractors who get construction projects will have fat profits.
5
@Sugi Tabero: But we have a military funded to conquer the world!
@Sugi Tabero
Maybe demonstrations would help, like in HK? Would the legislators support the NY people the way they did the violent HK demonstrators? Your grievances are real.
Yes, and Donald Trump is a Republican man with a college degree. And White at that. Look where that is getting us. We can go back a bit farther to George W. Bush, another Rep who held a degree, yet brought on two wars and the Great Recession. Elizabeth Warren is on the right track. For heaven's sake, how long do we have to wait for equal distribution of assets and wealth? A degree is a piece of paper. It means zilch for anyone no matter their gender or politics if it leads one toward greed and complete self-service. And I do not buy that old worn out excuse: "I am not a free-loader. I deserved what I worked hard for." The majority of Americans works hard, some their fingers to the bone, and still struggle for roofs over their heads, a decent education for themselves and their kids, and affordable health care. They deserve, too. You go for it, Elizabeth. I am behind you 100%.
5
"Among Democrats, education has emerged as a key dividing line on economic policy."
That should be "education" not education. Graduate degrees in what? Getting a college education doesn't mean you have any more insight than a high school dropout on economic policy.
2
Of course it does. I wouldn't want a HS dropout to do much more than noww my lawn. I am distressed that a handful of them in a handful states have more political clout than I do.
4
@Dave
Supposedly we have excellent trade policies in place, negotiated over a long period between major businesses with the input of economists. A lot of education went into those negotiations, and they failed.
Finding economic efficiency requires some education, but balancing it with other needs of diverse cultures and a preference for democracy is much harder. Nobody has an education in that subject. It requires a lot of input and honest decision makers.
Everyone should have an input to economic policy. Even uneduated people.
Warren could win the general election if she can redefine her health coverage approach as a gradual process to achieve universal coverage. Today, Medicare for All is her brand. She is trying to layout an incremental approach that starts with a public option, more coverage of kids, greater subsidies for those paying full freight under Obamacare, etc. But, making the gradual approach her health coverage brand will be a challenge.
@B
Medicare for all working-class wage and salary earners, let the wealthy buy all the private insurance they can afford.
@ARL
The wealthy can and will purchase whatever coverage and care they want.
But, many workers with employer sponsored coverage will want to stay with " the devil they know". That is why Medicare for All is probably a losing political strategy. And it has no hope of becoming law unless Voters replace Trump and enough Republican Senators to ensure we can count on 60 votes in the Senate.
Warren's transition plan - public option, cover kids, increase subsidies - will be a much more successful political strategy to win the general election.
Let's win the election decisively, then pursue universal coverage.
I'm glad to see these plans enjoy such broad support.
The bottom 90% of households have only 22.8% of the wealth in the U.S. today. Meanwhile, 68% of the U.S. economy consists of consumer spending. A little redistribution would go a long way economically, because unlike supply-side economics, demand-side economics actually works.
5
I find that Warren has more opposition to her wealth tax than is outlined here. While income inequality is indeed running rampant in America and I agree with the discussion that the rich should be paying their fair share, the wealth tax has been repealed in essentially all European countries.
Instead, these progressive countries have opted for the implementation of VAT, a value-added tax, which when scaled proportionally to the class of good taxes the wealthiest individuals that consume the most (luxury cars, yachts etc.).
Interestingly enough, Andrew Yang is the only candidate to point out that the wealth tax has failed in countries that have already implemented it, and that VAT would be a more effective way to collect tax from the heaviest consumers (including Amazon and other trillion dollar companies that pay VAT in their production and transactions).
If America is to succeed in providing more opportunities for its citizens without directly interfering with personal wealth, Yang's proposal for a progressive VAT is a widely-tested, successful alternative.
6
@Alex -- I find it hard to believe that billionaires consume proportionately the same or more than people with average incomes. You can only buy so many luxury cars, yachts, etc. If the VAT is very highly progressive on purchases that average people cannot afford, won't the argument be that it effectively shuts down the market in such luxury items and puts a lot of workers out of jobs? I can see that a VAT is much easier to administer, but I fail to see that it results in the rich paying what most of us would deem to be their fair share.
2
Our for-profit health care system eats up some 18% of GDP and leaves millions uninsured. As long as the nation does not face up to that simple fact nothing will change.
What are the solution the other candidates have to change that, to reduce the costs of health care to say 10% of GDP as other wealthy nations do while covering all their people?
I want to hear solutions, better and cheaper than what we now have. The pundits don't ask the questions, all they do is demonize Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Campaign talk is cheap, we still wait for the Trump solution, not a peep from the Republicans either.
3
"That support has dipped slightly since July"
Support dropped 11 points among independents. It dropped more than "slightly" and it will continue to drop.
5
@Dave
The establishment is afraid of her and the voters, so they are ganging up on her as they did on Sanders last time around.
One of the biggest problems with a wealth tax is that the wealthy people who have to pay the tax will have to raise the cash to pay it, and that means selling stocks, bonds, and real estate. That amount of selling with inevitably cause the price of those asset classes to go down, and that will impact the net worth of anyone who owns stock in a 401k plan, or owns a house.
Another big problem with the wealth tax is measuring people's wealth. That could be very complicated, with annual appraisals for art, for small businesses, for a lot of assets that have no comparable item that has recently sold. There will be constant court fights with wealthy people hiring armies of lawyers and appraisers to fight the IRS.
Another big problem with the wealth tax is that it may not be constitutional, and the current Supreme Court is probably going to come down against it. And that will be after a years long fight through the courts.
There are a lot of other problems, but those are a few.
Why not just increase the income tax and the estate tax?
8
These polling results seem a little at odds with other facts. Warren's MFA plan does not seem to be particularly popular. I suspect most Democrats support universal health insurance in theory but her version of artfully avoiding telling anyone they will have to pay for their health care while returning to the wealth tax well yet again seems disingenuous.
The wealth tax also seems problematic to me. It is sort of "free money" taken from those who most believe have too much. The problem is that it is money that has already been taxed and that presents a problem. It is seen as a "piggy bank" and, once the precedent is set, the temptation will be to keep going back and lowering the threshold or increasing the amount (as Warren has already done) whenever new government spending is needed. And "it's your money not mine so who cares". A better way is to raise marginal tax rates on income and increase capital gains rates- that gives everyone notice before the money is pocketed and invested about what their obligation is and establishes more economic certainty- once taxed the money can be employed in the most economically efficient manner without worrying about future taxation on capital. Altogether too much of what Warren proposes suggests economic class warfare. (And no, I wouldn't be taxed under her present plan and I'm not republican).
4
A wealth tax would be unconstitutional. There are no two ways about that. Warren’s support is plummeting for a variety of reasons. In one poll she went from 28 to 4 in a month.
3
@Lefthalfbach
WS fears her, so they reported, that would be a more likely explanation why she went down in the polls and all the more reason to vote for her.
4
Wealth Tax is very poor idea.There are many other ways to bring in help and equality to needy and deserving people.Wealth of a person represents his hard work,intelligence and being a careful spender and many other attributes,which should not be punished but should be exemplary for others to follow.I have noticed the life of Walton,jobs ,Buffet,Gate and many others as how they use and raised their wealth.People running for offices are millionaires if not billionaires and should have understood the defect in their thinking to just get votes .The idea will hurt the country for its future growth and goals.p
1
Congresscritters deal with people who earn many times their own pay every day. It humiliates them.
The world is broken. It has always been broken, but historically, realatively few people knew how broken it was. Most people were relegated to pure speculation of the causes of major world upheavals such as the World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, 9/11, the world financial collapse of 2007, etc...
Today most people with internet access can become well informed with some effort. We're all smart enough as humans to find new solutions to problems given the much more broadly disseminated information available today. We should have an open system where anyone is welcome to weigh in so we can have as many heads in the decisioin processes as possible.
Almost every truely informed person that believes in morality and fairness, and who does not carry around some sort of extremist agenda, and who accepts that all people who can work should work to support themselves, believes that Medicare for all is an absolute inevitability.
Informed people also know that extreme wealth undermines democracy.
Warren is the only presidential candidate I can see that understands all of this and believes we need plans to overcome these problems.
Beyond these things, world trade has to be completeliy overhauled. The concerns under which GAAT and the WTO were created were 100% geared towards economic efficiency. Everyone should realize that a system geared that way is profoundly unethical, immoral and unsustainable.
Economists should have only an equal seat among many others at the table on trade.
1
Why don’t they call it a Success Tax? Because that’s what it is?
6
We all participate in Capitalism. We should all benefit and not the few at the top who control our government. The American Family Unit s the foundation of civilization and our system.
When our government, substantially owned by the private sector, neglects excellence in parenting, nutrition, healthcare and education we get what we've got.
128
@HoodooVoodooBlood We should benefit from the wealth that has been accumulated by virtue of our consent to be governed. The wealthy love to think that they are self made. That is a mythology concocted to feed the egotistical nature of the wealthy.
There is no such thing in a civilized society as being self made. All wealth has reaped the benefits of a lawful society that abides by the rule of law.
We, as a people, recognize the benefit that our consent to be governed has contributed to the common good. As payback for our consent to be governed, we must share in the bounty of the wealthy that we have enabled. Especially now that the system has been gamed by corruption, we need to tip the scales in our favor to compensate for the damage that corruption has done to our economy.
27
@HoodooVoodooBlood
You may need to review what 'participation' entails and what 'Capitalism' actually is defined as.
Hint: it will usually contain the phrase "controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."
5
@HoodooVoodooBlood The family no longer exists as we KNEW it. And the 60% that are for it are the 60% that can't pay for it. What happens when tht 60% becomes 80%?
60% of Households Now Receive More in Subsidized Income Than they Pay in Taxes -
http://taxfoundation.org/blog/60-percent-households-now-receive-more-transfer-income-they-pay-taxes
20,000,000 authorized will be added not to mention the daily apprehensions at the border which will be unencumbered.
Exceptional is now a dirty word and education has become REMEDIAL.
3
Warren Wealth Tax Has Wide Support, Except Among One Group:
Economist who know the history of fiscal policy
Those know that in a global economy, where wealth can move with the click of a mouse, the wealth tax is too difficult to collect
For that reason
1. Socialist Sweden eliminated the wealth tax in 2007
2. France, that spends a higher fraction of its GPD on socail services than in other country in Europe eliminated the wealth tax in 2016
Both France and Sweden practice social policies FAR left of what is considered left in the US.
A more effective approach to tax the rich would be to eliminate the tax loopholes that the anonymous registration of corporations offers the US State of Delaware
For how this works read The Guardian UK
"Trump and Clinton share Delaware tax 'loophole' address with 285,000 firms"
Subheading
"1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington is a nondescript two-storey building yet is home to Apple, American Airlines, Walmart and presidential candidates"
The Guardian, UK, 2016/apr/25/
Although it might upset a Senator from Delaware
9
@Woof
this nation too got rid of the wealth tax a long time ago, the wealthiest people pay barely any taxes, see Trump the corporations don't pay, see GE, wage earners pay the bulk of the nation's taxes. Their property taxes alone eat up a big chunk of income, regardless of owner or tenant.
3
@Woof - best comment on this thread. Bravo..
1
I think the best argument for a wealth tax is to ask how much billionaires have already paid in taxes on their net worth? It is almost certainly the case that most of their net worth has either never been taxed or taxed only at very favorable capital gains rates. Follow up by asking about their estate plans: How have they and their tax attorneys and accountants arranged their affairs to avoid or minimize taxes upon their deaths? I think we will find that they have done a remarkably good job. For me, the bottom line of a wealth tax is not only will it help to even out existing inequalities of wealth distribution and boost the economy by getting some of that wealth back into circulation, but it will help ensure that the wealthy have paid their fair share in a way that existing income and estate tax systems do not require.
4
Taxes always start by aiming at a group or class that gets very little sympathy, i.e., billionaires or the “wealthy”, but eventually they come to encompass the middle class, who always get stuck with the bill. Meanwhile, wealthy liberals have the masses whipped into a frenzy by the fiction that all their financial problems will be solved by soaking the rich. You would think people would have figured it out by now.
2
What is a wealth tax ? It appears as an idea to somehow reduce income inequality. These terrific surveys seem to suggest most Americans trust ‘other’ to do a better job with the economy, than of these people. This ceaseless ‘handicapping’ is truly becoming boring. How statistically valid is this info ? Not very.
1
Wealth taxes don't work .. they cost too much to implement. That's why countries who have tried various types have abandoned and gone to using other taxes
No other country spends as much as the USA does on tax collecting. Crazy .... my accountant gets 5k a year to file my paperwork ... Paperwork! Just think how many educated people who should be doing something positive for the country are working on taxes. This activity produces nothing for the country.
Warren wants to add to the problem? It's pure class warfare .. she is lying to the American people -- because she knows it will not do what she says.
5
Not as much as not collecting them. The US has a highest number of billionaires, it should use this asset to benefit all.
2
It seems the story is also in how the numbers in your graph have gone down for every group since july
and this is before the opposition gets started against it
1
Unfortunately, we can no longer afford our billionaire class. Sure, some of them are quite entertaining, and a few actually contribute to causes that don’t get much funding from the US, such as malaria mitigation in Africa. With those few notwithstanding, the old money billionaires are in the business of staying billionaires. From the murderous Blackwater gang to the pyramid scheme of Amway and including the Koch and Walton families little or no good comes from that class. Governments have little ability to change the economy save by taxing wealth and issuing subsidies. Market economics don’t work without competition, and our billionaires no longer have to compete. The market place is too easily manipulated to serve a tiny slice of America and that tiny slice is able to buy influence that serves their narrow purpose. The post WWII tax schedule was draconian but needed to pay off the debt racked up by that war. as they sang “We did it before and we can do it again”.
5
I pay a wealth tax annually, it's called "Property Taxes".
My house has a value, the town has assigned a value you to it, and a tax rate.
12
@Pat
and?
More men than women support Medicare For All??? Really?
1
@MIKEinNYC — you can create high tax brackets until you’re blue in the face; no 1%er is going to give away 90% or even 70% of their money to some government! They will use loop holes you or I never even thought of!
-that company business trip (first class) includes wives!
-90% of income in the form of stock options that vest when a Republican takes office, i.e. when fly-by-night tax breaks magically appear (check!—thanks Trump!)
-that company meeting at Times Square including B-Ball tickets for the team-building event with company top-customer prince of Zamunda! All inclusive!
-the company airplane, the company mascot (dog that stays at the CEO’s house) with a golden dog house. It just goes on and on.
The best solution is a 25% sales tax so then everyone could be miserable!
And that is better how? I haven't met many people who like to be miserable.
For the wealth tax to work the IRS would have to audit everyone non cash holdings every year and value them. Imagine having to value holdings in art, rare books, land anywhere in the world, housing, etc. Anyone who pays property tax knows the problems with assessments. Do the wealthy get to reduce future taxes when something they own loses value and how is that determined. It's an administrative nightmare. Just tax all income equally (no better rates for long term gains, unearned income, etc.) and have a progressive tax code. Secondly have an inheritance tax that prevents those who didn't earn the money from becoming the "idle rich". After all the children and grandchildren of wealth already have a head start, going to great schools and having the ability to tap into a network of contacts.
3
Not everybody but only who have 50 millions or more, that greatly decreases a number of people who needs audit. And assessment difficulties do not stop property tax, I wonder why. My guess is because the money from this tax is well worth of the difficulties.
3
Drop the term 'Medicare' and replace it with 'Americare'. Now doesn't that sound much less 'socialist' or threatening?
3
I have no trouble with a wealth tax. But, as much as I support it, Medicare for All, as Warren espouses, is a losing issue for her and for all Democrats who want to beat Trump. As a country, we are not yet ready for it. It’s acceptance will be accompanied in increments, not suddenly and all at once. As long as Warren digs in on this, her chances of winning are zero.
88
whatever, you think but M4A became much more popular since Bernie brought it to the table. More we will talk, more acceptance it will have. I think she is completely right to bring it up. If she didn't do it, she wouldn't be a high- tier candidate.
30
@R Stiegel
The nation is not ready to face the fact that a for-profit unregulated health care industry is not affordable. It eats up 18% of GDP and leaves millions uninsured. We should have Medicare for all below let us say $120K annual income, let the people who do earn more go with the private for-profit unregulated insurance sector with thousands of $$$ deductibles and co-payments and restrictions. They should be free to keep the choice of their private insurance.
32
@R Stiegel Right on target. Watch the UK election - Trump light vs a disorganised too-left opposition. It's a good lead to Nov 2020 and the result will demonstrate that the bulk of all Western electorates are centre-oriented won't go for the Warren-type policies yet, however sensible they may seem in abstract. Why can't the Dems see that and choose a centre candidate ? If he or she could read and write it would be enough to beat Trump.....
5
Takeaway: most Americans are getting fed up with an economy overwhelmingly benefitting the rich at the expense of everyone else. Republican men with a college background are either already rich enough to feel threatened by a wealth tax, or imagine they soon will be (most of them). Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most delusional of all? College educated Republican with less than $50 million.
222
@Pottree Yes, it's the imagine part of it. No, Joe Middle Class Investor who works for a paycheck and dabbles in stocks, you aren't going to be a multimillionaire anytime soon.
13
@C.P. That's true, most will never be rich.
But it's also true that if you look at the few European countries that still have a wealth tax, it applies at levels that are middle class. Maybe these Americans think we would end the same thing that's happened elsewhere rather than with what's being said to sell the idea in a campaign.
3
@Pottree
Takeaway part deux - Americans are always up for more 'free stuff' paid for by confiscating other people's hard-earned wealth.
3
One person, Amazon.com, Inc., reported net income of nearly $12 billion in 2018. Their income tax liability for 2018 was negative $129 million. On top of that, that corporate person went hat in hand to states extorting money to build their east coast headquarters, and Virginia ponied up $2.4 billion.
Those who oppose such welfare are called enemies of capitalism. But I must have missed the part in the definition of capitalism that talks about taxpayers putting up capital for corporate investment in plant and equipment.
449
@Kevin Brock
Taxpayers should NOT have put up that money in VA. Their elected officials should be voted out.
41
@Kevin Brock Is this true?
@John Lonergan while it's true and admirable that Jeff Bezos has worked hard as a visionary to revolutionize the way we buy products, it shouldn't excuse him or his company from paying for the infrastructure and government that has given him and all other people in this country the opportunity to succeed.
It also should be noted that almost every success story in America has a silver lining that is often glossed over. For Amazon that silver lining was massive amounts of investment capital earned through strategic relationships Jeff made while attending Princeton University and later working on Wall Street. He was in the right places for his ideas to become reality. Most people, no matter how visionary their ideas may be, will never have the opportunity to make the connections that allowed Amazon to succeed. The idea that anyone can succeed if they just put their nose to the grindstone is not a realistic notion.
26
Reality Check where does government think taxs come from with out jobs pay living wage? Plenty can be done to create jobs pay living wage arnt being done by present adminstration. Like manditory spending limits on all government purchasing of imports. This woudl send clear message to corperate america dont export jobs to countrys with zero haman rights an expect to sell those to our government here
A good way to lose an election in America is to tell people you’ll take away their hard earned money. You can take it stealthily through, say, tax cuts for the rich, but you can’t tell them you’re taking it.
The middle class outnumbers the wealthy class. If people voted in their own interests we could have a country like the USA of the 1950s when there was a 90 percent income tax rate on the richest Americans( in some cases).
But the Republicans are great at mixing in wedge issues like abortion, immigration, gay marriage, guns, etc. and they get poor white people to vote against their own interests. And if you are Trump you make fun of those people not the way Clinton did it by calling them “deplorables.”
You make fun of them by giving tax cuts to the rich and by telling them they would still vote for you if you shot someone on fifth avenue.
8
All I ever hear is how ‘this or that won’t work.’ Medicare for All will work, plain and simple.
It will work because either (1) the healthcare industry drastically lowers its prices on absolutely everything, or (2) the one-percent will fund it.
Does any think the healthcare industry will lower prices? Of course not. Healthcare is _the_ cash cow.
Does anyone think the one-percent will fund _anything_ except their own greed? Of course not.
That’s why it’s up to us, the ninety-nine percent! If you WANT it, you must FIGHT for it.
I want nationalized healthcare. I want to join the other first world countries. I want to know that healthcare will not bankrupt me, my children, or grandchildren.
And I want the corporations and the one-percent to fund it.
And I want Elizabeth Warren to lead this battle.
And I want Elizabeth Warren to trounce Trump in 2020.
And I want to bring our troops home, all of them.
And I want to restore America to greatness.
And I will FIGHT for it!
17
@PC And I want a 1973 600 short wheelbase in the right color. And I want a house in Nantucket. And I want a house in Vail. Oh wait, you have to work for all of this. No, other people have to give it to me. And i will fight for it, no, you mean work for it. Join the dark side, vote for Trump. I always heard darth vader was a bad guy, saw the movie and thought he was the hero.
Senator Warren's supporters absolutely refuse to learn from the mistakes of President Obama specific to ACA. While ACA was well intended and to date modestly successful, passage of the ACA resulted in loss of House and Senate to Republicans and 6 years of stagnation in our government. This lead to increased use by President Obama of 'executive acts'.
Populists are selling hope in a bottle, buckets of steam, and other self-destructive ideology. Senator Warren, while very well meaning, is little more than the mirror image of Trump. . .similar tactics of vilifying groups, but with far different goals. This approach is destroying our country, and there is no reason to believe the same vilification of opposition under a President Warren administration will provide any positive correction.
1
The Obama's mistake was not to include the public option in the ACA. That resulted in disappointment among progressive who saw it as betrayal. As result the Dems lost majority, and ACA failed to stop growth of the healthcare cost, leaving healthcare problems to fester.
1
just cut government spending and salaries . that will save money without the need raise more revenue.. It also cut the
deficit.
4
Every penny of public spending is somebody’s income.
6
The US is one of the richest countries in the world.
The US also has the highest level of income inequality.
In the US, the richest .1 percent take in in over 188 times the income of the bottom 90 percent.
https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/
Medicare for ALL, free/affordable QUALITY childcare for ALL, QUALITY education early childhood through grade twelve, with tuition free continuing public education would begin to create more equal opportunity and a more thriving society.
The economy will thrive with a healthier, better educated less stressed citizenry.
The US has the wealth to do this, but does it have the moral values to do this?
The US obliviously spends/borrows trillions to militarily force other countries to "be better"... ?
Will it spend trillions to make the US better?
9
The US drives the global arms race.
Wow - what is so surprising about this poll data.
The rich and wealth don’t want to pay taxes!
College educated republican men would probably not support any of the Democratic nominees.
Elizabeth Warren is a real person who will fight for all Americans.
She deserves your support.
Vote in 2020.
19
Funny! Many who have paid property tax all their lives believe that a wealth tax is unconstitutional.
Those who are against wealth tax are either incredulous and do not know the extent of wealth accumulated by millionaires and billionaires, or they hold to the believe that one day they will become one.
17
US tax law is supported by the widespread belief that every player will surely win a lottery eventually.
5
@DM The purpose of a wealth tax is to generate revenue from a cohort of less than 1% of Americans. The term 'wealth tax' stinks of hard left socialism and vilifies a group.
A more democratic approach would be to return to the tax policies and rates of the early 1960, including inheritance tax on assets exceeding $1-$2 million total.
1
How taxing income at high rate is not socialism and not 'vilifying' the wealthy?
1
That “one group” has traditionally generated the overwhelming amount of national wealth and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Zero wonder that it has a fundamental issue with a “wealth tax.”
1
@John D
Labor creates all wealth. That “one group” just gets to keep it all.
6
Money begets more money.
@Corbin In an InformationAge economy increasingly driven by AI and machine learning, the belief that “labor” generates the lion’s share of wealth is a little bit quaint and a whole lot misguided.
I’d like to see capital gains taxed at the same rate as wages, and the cap on the Social Security tax lifted.
14
I am a college educated male and oppose the wealth tax. I would not have to pay it, so you might ask why I would oppose it. People tend to support taxes they don’t have to pay, so no surprise that it is garnering broad support.
The problem is that it is morally wrong for a government or anyone else to steal someone else’s money. Income tax is one thing but walking into a bank and demanding a tax on the money sitting there is wrong. What if someone’s wealth is all in land but they have no cash? Do they have to sell the land? Etc etc. it is highly irresponsible and in my opinion immoral to propose such a policy because the average voter just sees a tax they don’t have to pay and it creates deep divides within society.
129
@DocMark If you read my comment above, you will see that I do not favor Sen. Warren's wealth tax because it is unconstitutional. That said, I take umbrage at characterizing any lawfully enacted tax as "stealing" or immoral. Lawfully enacted taxes cannot be theft as a legal matter, and they are an enactment of society's collective moral code, rather than a break from it. And note that we already have lots of taxes on illiquid assets (e.g., state property taxes, annual car registration taxes, personal property taxes, estate and gift taxes). There are many ways to deal with illiquidity, so your focus on this is just a blatant red herring.
128
@DocMark A "new social compact" is crying out to be born. "Social compact" sounds non-threatening and is a far cry from "redistribution" and "socialism." Confronting the problem with a wealth tax on the truly super-rich is step in the right direction. No one in their right mind needs a $1 billion net worth in today's dollars. Taxing that number at, say, 3% takes away $30 million. If you are worth $50 million, 2% takes away $1 million. Most likely, if well invested by the wealth holder, that $1 billion or $50 million level will likely be restored via after-tax income in the same year, so there is in effect an actual "break-even" on net worth (albeit not an increase). That posited, however, @DocMark has a good point about wealth held in the form of land vs. liquid assets. Maybe raise the floor level for the 2% wealth tax to $100 million? Again, the aim is to tax the truly super-rich.
34
Yes, preach, who will stick up for the plutocrats.
34
Thanks for this article.
Hopefully more Americans will learn to join Warren's call for major change in our system to make it fairer for all.
All our lives depend on it.
314
@louis v. lombardo
Just remember ... that 2% is on your house as well. The Wealth tax is talked about for the super rich. But there is not enough money in that pot .. look closer and you see how regressive it is.
What's 2% of your house each year ? how do you value it ? How can you dispute the value?
1
@GT
Are you serious? I love how defenders of plutocrats willfully misconstrue the tax to make it seem that regular or even slightly well-off people will have to pay it.
If you have assets greater than 50 million dollars, than you can afford to pay 2% on every dollar over 50 million. This is not some broad based tax; we're talking about a handful of people in the entire country.
23
@GT
Where did you get that? Warren is only talking about people with a net worth of over $50 million dollars. Is your house worth over $50 million dollars? If it is, you should darn well pay 2% of the value of that house! A sales tax is regressive because it hits the poorest the hardest, but a wealth tax is anything but regressive.
17
The Democratic party leadership and their supporters attack proposals for single payer health care coverage as too extreme for "the American people".
Yet it´s clear that an overwhelming majority of their party supports it. Obamacare had less support when it was being legislated but the Democrats didn´t back down then. It turned out to be a huge windfall for the health insurance industry; a very imperfect, at best, improvement for the rest of us, leaving far too many Americans uninsured or burdened with thousands of dollars in monthly premiums plus copays, deductibles and more.
We pay more, get less and live shorter, sicker lives than our counterparts in other developed nations. So why does the Democratic leadership oppose Medicare for All and stand in the way of even holding hearings? Could it be about money? Contributions? They´re sabotaging a winning campaign issue and a change that would not be radical -- New Zealand, Canada, France and so many other countries manage it but the United States cannot? In fact, it would be an economic boon, freeing small businesses (even large ones too!) and individuals from crushing financial burdens. The fear mongering should stop because no one would be "thrown off" their insurance, and the Party should get behind its membership. Enough people are dying, have died and will continue to suffer until we join the rest of the civilized world!
3
This is thoughtless, if not idiotic: " Only one slice of the electorate opposes it staunchly: Republican men with college degrees.
"Not surprisingly, that is also the profile of many who’d be hit by Ms. Warren’s so-called wealth tax."
Since Warren's tax only hits people with wealth over 50 million, it's unlikely that any in your survey will be hit by the tax. What the result shows is something else entirely and the NYTimes analysis fails again.
3
I am not a Republican man and I DO NOT support Ms. Warren's plan.
4
@Lyn Robins I'm a liberal Democrat for 50+ years, who doesn't support ANY of Ms Warren's plans and for kickers I'm a constituent of hers who voted for her. In MA we are usually only allowed to vote for Democrats unless they are running for Governor. Im kidding but its isnt far from the truth.
1
Why does Warren need the support of college “educated” Republicans?
They were going to vote Trump anyway.
The fact that they made it through 4 years of higher education and yet still believe in a discredited cult leader should be enough to make this demographic not worth anyone’s time.
13
@Corbin - Simply because so many Democrats and Independents don't like her!
2
On the face of it, I should love the idea of a wealth tax. I don’t have $50m, so it won’t affect me. And I’ll get tons of free stuff from the Warren government. All good, right?
Upon further review, it all falls apart. First, a wealth tax is almost certainly unconstitutional. So is Warren’s secondary plan of confiscating assets from wealthy people who “try to leave” the US.
But aside from that, this is a clear case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. All of the top tier of American billionaires got there by starting incredibly successful companies. Do we really think that the US economy would be better off if those companies were all based in some other country?
The bottom line is that a wealth tax comes with serious downsides, and won’t raise nearly as much revenue as Warren claims. That’s why most other countries that have tried it have abandoned it. If we want to increase tax revenue and add fairness to our tax system, there are more effective solutions, and they’re pretty obvious even if they don’t wow potential voters like giving free candy to children.
6
@Rick
I've read numerous times that a wealth tax would be unconstitutional but with no reasons why. Why?
2
@Phil Hansen
Thanks for asking. Article I has this to say: "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken." Also, the Fifth Amendment is relevant: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
Of course, this can all be overridden with a constitutional amendment. In fact, the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913 to allow Congress to tax "incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
Presumably, we'd need a similar amendment to allow for a wealth tax. But getting Constitutional Amendments ratified is quite difficult, even if the Democrats end up controlling the White House and both houses of Congress.
"SurveyMonkey selected respondents at random from the nearly three million people who take surveys on its platform each day". Is this supposed to be a representative sampling of Americans? I don't think so. Combine that with the fact that only people who chose to respond (0.1%?, 2%?) are included, and you have pretty questionable conclusions.
5
Sure, just like people "supported" her health care proposals. Until they understood the details. Rest assured there are a lot of Americans who are not in that group who don't like the idea of confiscating wealth.
4
Wealth tax discussions need to include more on how government spending and tax laws help the wealthy continue to earn. A relatively small percent increase provides for a better America for all.
Medicare for all needs to more directly include and link to cost controls with reasonableness variation among hospital costs - training, research, etc. — with end of life and long-term care relieving worthwhile debate. We are all headed there.
3
How about we start with reversing the 2017 tax cut that is adding $1 Trillion this year to our national debt.
20
@Charlie That's part of the plan. Read it.
2
Warren's wealth tax as stated will never make it through the House and Senate, I'm not part of that group, but sincerely believe it is unconstitutional. She also is spinning wheels pushing something she cannot get done even with Democratic majorities in both houses. That said, if they put a higher investment tax in on passive unearned income for windfalls over a certain percentage of the initial investment and tax that income. It then becomes fair and does not single out one group; at that point it makes sense. If she wants to take it a step further, she could demand the special deal Trump had put into the tax codes which favor property developers into the mix. Most Americans do not feel sorry for them.
5
@Bill
Watch how fast democrats throw all talk of the Constitution out the window once Trump leaves office. Right now, their newfound interest in the Constitution could be described as a "Trump Bump."
2
Having a great idea and finding the right people to bring it to reality are what American capitalism is all about. Warren wants to kill it by taxing it to death. We’ll then have income equality alright. We’ll all be equally poor.
7
@Edward: America now isn't less capitalist than in the 1950s, when the highest income tax rate was 90%. People weren't less inventive than they are now, I'd argue that now people are less inventive than in the 50s because they are tied up in low-paying jobs to pay their huge student loans, medical bills and everything else that's risen a manyfold of what their salaries did.
8
Wealth tax and M4A ARE the great ideas and Warren seems to be the right person to bring to reality.
3
Great comment, Anna. Exactly right.
2
Use the money to pay down the national debt like Republicans have been worried about for the last several decades
1
Maybe, if the Republicans would stop cutting taxes on the wealthy we wouldn't need to pay down the debt. The country did pretty well with much higher tax levels on upper bracket income years ago
9
Already the clarion calls for a slowed economy and loss of jobs resulting from the wealth tax rises from the ether. Americans, the gullible lot that they are, will succumb again.
5
Baby boomers need to wake up to the reality that, despite becoming the wealthiest generation in history, they've been wrong about many things these last 45 years.
"Asked in the interview why he (Pete Buttigieg)was having more trouble connecting with younger voters, he pointed to their “strong sense of impatience about the changes that need to come and the extent to which it feels like they’ve grown up in an America that just tolerates the intolerable.”
Boomers are defending the indefensible. This irresponsible narcissism is a major reason why Bernie Sanders is still the most popular (and necessary) politician in America.
8
Warren's plan is misleading. She keeps talking about chipping in two cents (or similar euphemisms). But she rarely mentions that her tax jumps to 6% PER YEAR on wealth over a billion dollars. I would give her much more credit if she was honest and consistent about her proposal. I don't like the idea of demonizing billionaires since I think it's a great goal to aspire towards. But if we're going to destroy their wealth let's be open and talk about it without using folksy language.
5
@Mike
Her wealth tax applies to wealth only above $50 billion. So when you say "her tax jumps to 6% PER YEAR on wealth over a billion dollars" that is 100% false.
4
@GMoog
You are severely mistaken; it's $50 million, NOT billion.
Warren's "Ultra-Millionaire Tax applies only to households with a net worth of $50 million or more—roughly the wealthiest 75,000 households, or the top 0.1%.
Households would pay an annual 2% tax on every dollar of net worth above $50 million and a 6% tax on every dollar of net worth above $1 billion.
Because wealth is so concentrated, this small tax on roughly 75,000 households will bring in $3.75 trillion in revenue over a ten-year period."
https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/ultra-millionaire-tax
In any case, the uber-rich would still be uber rich.
The sky will not fall; we'll just be able to pave the roads and pay for healthcare and a decent civilization.
America has record income inequality.
Enough with the modern feudalism already.
6
@Mike
Yes, the "2 cents" chant is so misleading. The idea that millions could be confiscated from Americans every single year -- regardless of their income/worth -- is anathema to many Americans.
2
It’s a double tax. The income that created the wealth was already taxed. In the case of capital gains it’s a triple tax.
How much is enough?
7
Yeah, and money that bought my house were also taxed, but their taxed again as the property tax that I pay every year.
4
@BC: Public education, food stamps, medicaid, infrastructure development and maintenance, are things that those "job creators" who made billions by underpaying their workers (Walmart comes to mind) profit from disproportionally. If they don't want to pay their workers decent salaries that can provide for a family upfront, they should pay it through taxation. The income that created the wealth was gained all too often by exploiting the labor of hard working Americans who weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump. Capital gains a triple tax? What was the labor that created those gains?
2
Apparently there is 'never enough' for America's uber wealthy, BC.
What about the non-rich tax the non-rich pay from not owning the government and the tax code the way the uber-greedy do ?
That's the biggest tax of all in America, and duped Americans have been paying it while mindlessly worshiping the rich since 1980.
Wake up from Trickle-Down Tax-Cut coma.
3
Give it up--it will many years before a wealth tax would ever come about. If you are waiting for the government to save you, be prepared to wait a very long time. Best to try to support yourself and stop trying to make other people responsible for your life.
8
@Driven
Correct. None of these billionaires actually work. Why are we supporting their lifestyle?
4
Great advice, but luck the specifics. With unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable childcare, unaffordable education, stagnate salaries, the options to 'support' yourself shrink rapidly.
1
@yulia
It is up to you to make your life better. Tailor your expectations to what you alone can afford. Stop looking at others to take care of your life.
I'd rather see a transaction tax on trades in the markets. It would raise a lot of money and not affect the average person at all. Also, it would slow down the high speed trading that has been making the markets go through these large and rapid flucuations we've been having the last few years. Taxing wealth is trickier as some people have assets worth a lot but little free cash.
5
@Hugh Robertson
She has proposed that and it would effect the average person. A lot. Think of those target date retirement accounts. How do they maintain the target? They trade. Individuals should also re-balance regularly to reduce risk. It used to be that trading fees ate up a significant portion of the little guy's (and gal's) earnings. That is the type of thing Warren would oppose. Now that those fees and been eliminated she wants to replace them with a new tax.
10
Warren has revealed that offering everyone money, money that is involuntarily obtained from a small and unpopular minority that she continually villifies, will buy her votes. What could go wrong.
15
Could it be less wrong than the unpopular minority buying politicians who wrong the majority?
3
@LTJ: And why would that minority be impopular? Could it have something to do with underpaying their workers like the Waltons (Walmart) do, so these workers become dependent on programs that we all pay taxes for (e.g., food stamps, medicaid)? All the while destroying the local economies and independence of so many communities? Shouldn't that super-rich minority be held responsible to pay their fair share of taxes - which they don't now?
2
@LJT: You have to ask yourself why this small minority of men have made themelves so unpopular. Arrogantly abusing their power to make the rest of the world a polluted and unhealthy place to live for the non-wealthy and non-powerful could have something to do with their unpopularity. It is long past time for them to start paying for the damage they've done to the planet and the their fellow human beings. Or, to put it more positively, they could invest some of their ill-gotten gains in restoring equality and health to society, by contributing more to the public coffers for education, healthcare, and less-polluting infrastructure.
2
2% is too low, anyone with over $50 million, can and should pay more.
8
@Marc A
Why are you entitled to their money?
2
Entitlement? One could ask why the very weathy indiciduals and businesses often pay a smaller percentage in taxes than the average middleclass American. Could be the sentiment is less about entitlement and more about fairness.
1
A wealth tax appeals to the same base instincts that Ms Warren’s promises of health care for all, money-growing trees, and lots of free stuff does. She is feeding the green-eyed monster in all of us that causes us to envy those who are doing a bit better, or a lot better, than we are. Perhaps college-educated men are a bit more insightful, a bit more like chess grandmasters, than most other Americans. And perhaps they can see that a wealth tax is another step on the road to the nightmarish economic scenarios we see in other countries where the green eyed monster is let loose.
13
@ehillesum
Agreed. I don't understand why so many people are so jealous. I will never have the wealth that some people have and i could care less. Some people just made better choices than i did--good for them.
5
Funny, how only Republican college educated man can see that, I guess they just too greedy, and don't understand that the high inequality makes society unstable and prone to revolution. Seems like they think that only them don't have money tree, but everybody does that's why everybody should be able to afford ever growing cost of healthcare, childcare, education while their salaries stagnate.
2
We don't want of wealth of other people, we just want the fair part of the wealth that was created by all members of our society.
2
It's shown that quality of education here started a steep decline around late early 1980s (Reagan era). Gradually "prestigious" degrees became a commodity, even in most public universities. Gradually it translated into increasing role of money & religion in both education & in public policy (start of crony capitalism) reversing a progressive trend that started mainly after 1926's Scopes Trial. People (even from abroad) with money, connection, & greed purchased prestigious degrees, able to manage "outstanding" recommendation letters from powerful people, and destined to occupy influential positions in both private & Govt organizations.
Talented people from less privileged families also had to fall in line to serve the "elites" to succeed. Once they succeeded, they also started behaving like those "elites". Most of them (mainly baby boomers) forgot it humble background & also the socially beneficial policies (like GI bill, low/free tuition, higher tax etc) that helped them so much- as described in the book, Tailspin.
These rich and influential people were increasingly started supporting "pro-business" (meaning pro-businessmen and crony capitalism.)
It's shown by credible research that both political and religious allegiance is mostly hereditary. Education was supposed to help changing that. But that opportunity also gradually vanished as our education system was deliberately & systematically ruined by the same people/ideology by the same vested interests.
2
These rich and influential people were increasingly started supporting "pro-business policies", actually meaning- pro-businessmen and crony capitalism. It infected both the parties but did more damage to the republicans, who also started increasingly appeasing Christian/Evangelical fundamentalism (and also racism resulting from religious fundamentalism.) to win vote by invoking raw emotion that comes with religion & race sentiment.
Wealth creation gradually converted into wealth management, which also gave rise to management education (degrees like MBA, mostly for rich kids) in USA with devastating impact on our ability to create wealth. All, yes all, of the historically top 100 American companies were not and can never be created by MBA guys or venture capitalists. Those are founded by engineers & scientists who were passionate about the product/technology they invented/developed. It was far more than money for them.
That trend also destroyed a large part of corporate and Govt leadership. People with least dedication (for public service) and actual leadership but armed by "prestigious" degrees (MBA degrees, "leadership" certificates) started climbing corporate & Govt career hierarchy.
Rise of Trump from GOP is not any coincidence. If unchecked, i far worse people would become our President in near future. Consequences are already very clear to ignore. Many economists & political scientists believe that USA is more like a 3rd world developing country.
2
I like Warren’s big ideas. Right now she is my favorite. You don’t run for President by being cautious. You run with big dreams. Trump knew he wouldn’t get a wall and his supporters and Republican lawmakers knew it too. But it was a big idea for them and it galvanized the base.
But make no mistake, Trump would have lost to the moderate Hillary Clinton if in a one man one vote election. Still, though, we have the Electoral College and swing states.
We Democrats are fond of voting our conscience but we aren’t totally naive. We know CA, NY and MA are in love with Warren and Sanders, but we know America isn’t there yet.
Yes we’ve nominated McGovern and Dukakis, but we are also very pragmatic voters when we want to be, and we’ve nominated Bill Clinton and Barack Obama while our progressive brethren wanted a Democratic Socialist.
So my heart tells me to vote for Warren’s big ideas and my head tells me America won’t buy her proposals. And to defeat Trump is the most important thing to me. Therein lies my dilemma.
11
It is a real dilemma especially if one considers the failure of moderates Dems to get elected even when faced weak candidate. Hillary Clinton is an example.
1
I am an educated Democrat and not a wealthy one at that. But I still could'nt vote for Warren or Sanders because their plans are too drastic. Much as I am attracted to Medicare for all and college for every student I don't think it's feasible to say the least. So forget about Trump losing he may win the popular vote for real in 2020 considering that the independents and Democrats will join the obnoxious Republicans. Listen to the "old" statesman, President Obama. Focus on beating Trump!
11
@NNI
I did not think the trillions of dollars in deficits was feasible either. The Republicans do and we have a great economy as a result.
1
eventually we we vote in a responsible POTUS who will raise taxes on everyone to pay for all the tax breaks that the Republicans keep giving to the wealthy and we will all complain, but hey the deficit high sure feels good at the moment
2
Other country did it, and brought their health cost down. The growth of the health cost is unsustainable, Obama himself saw the problem and tried to solve , but unsuccessfully.
2
There are several things wrong with the Warren tax plan, and Ms. Warren has tried as hard as possible to hide the details.
Sure, a high-level statement like "The rich will pay for it" is popular, but she knows if people really understood what she means, the plan will lose traction quite quickly.
For example:, the increase in social security tax will hit people making $250k of around $5k per year. Now $250k might sound like a lot in Peoria, but here in New York City or San Francisco, $250k doesn't buy a parking spot. Lots of middle class people are going to pay more. This reeks of the AMT, and while that was also popular in 1969, it was likely the most hated tax by the 1990s. The AMT was also supposed to hit a few hundred billionaires, but it ended up hitting millions of middle class taxpayers, particularly in high tax states.
You would think people would learn from the Obama promise of "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor". It is impossible to believe that Obama really believed that and that no one in his administration thought to tell him, "oh by the way Mr. President, that's not what the plan says".
When taxing the billionaires does not generate enough money to pay for all these goodies, Ms. Warren will start lowering the income threshold until she gets enough. And where it stops, nobody knows.
Ms. Warren asks us to trust that her promises on taxing the middle class will be kept,
Bad idea.
15
@G: That's scaremongering. Let's first rescind the Trump tax giveaway for the wealthy that also hits the same upper middle class you refer to, with the cap on SALT deduction. As for removing the income cap on social security taxes: some if not all of the extra tax will be offset in having to pay on average $3000 to$ 5000 less per year on medical insurance (whether in taxes or premiums, deductibles and copays, and yes, you can keep your doctor under Warren's plan because your doctor will have no choice under Medicare for all except moving to another country where s/he can earn more & good luck with that).
1
It is not the message. it is the presentation. Follow trumps examples. Terrible message. Great presentation. Effective. Warren is constantly being criticized by her own party. And her defense presentation is terrible, as well as the coverage of her defense. I am having a very hard time supporting the current Democratic Party. I am considering not voting and letting this party disintegrated. Hoping for a Phoenix Moment? Where is Al Franken when you need him? I will trade you 5 Chuck Schumer’s for 1 Al Franken.
3
@Robert Black, I hope you reconsider. Defeating Trump will take all of us.
think it naive that a wealth tax on the rich won't negatively impact the. rest of us. what do suppose will happen to the value of our 401s when massive amounts of stock are dumped? Or how the loss of capital to invest to keep the economy growing? not that I am positive of these and other perverse unintended bad outcomes but think an incremental application of this policy may avoid shock to the system and better guide us on implementation on how to avoid crashing the economy.
5
@Richard:
Please enlighten us as to the reason for your hypothesis. A two percent tax on wealth above $50 million will cause a "shock to the system"?
6
@Richard
The Editor of The Economist predicts Warren's plans will impact 50% of all businesses. The impact on our strong economy wouldn't just be a stall. It would be the equivalent of a 50-state pileup.
1
@JC
Example: Mr. Bezos (Amazon) wealth is in the shares of stock he owns in his company. If you start taxing that wealth he (and many others) will have to sell stock which will disrupt the market.
People don't keep a billion dollar in their checking accounts. That money is invested and when you start selling off investments (assets) to pay taxes you will "shock the system".
1
Most Americans aren't benefiting from the stock market boom [CNN Business]
The stock market's record-breaking ascent this year has become a favorite topic for President Donald Trump. "With the great vote on Cutting Taxes, this could be a big day for the Stock Market - and YOU!" he tweeted on Mondy morning.
It's true -- the S&P 500 is up 17.4% since the beginning of the year and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 22.2%, reflecting strong corporate earnings and the anticipation of a massive tax cut.
But just who benefits from those skyrocketing numbers?
The short answer: Wealthy people.
As measured by those who declare ordinary dividend income on their tax returns, stock ownership varies dramatically by income level. Among filers who make less than $25,000 a year, only about 8% own stocks. Meanwhile, 88% of those making more than $1 million are in the market, which explains why the rising stock market tracks with increasing levels of inequality.
How many people actually make more than $1 million a year… According to a Wall Street Journal article published on October 25th, 2011 called The Wild Ride of the 1%, in 2007, before the Great Recession, there were nearly 400,000 individuals earning $1,000,000 or more in the United States.
In the depths of the recession in 2009, there were still 236,883 individuals who earned more than $1,000,000 in the United States.
5
It shouldn’t be surprising that more people with post graduate education support Elizabeth Warren, because she puts out policies so often on different issues. Rich people are afraid that she will implement her wealth tax and eliminate freeloader billionaires. The polls seems to be accurate representation of the current pulse of the nation.
2
The college educated Republican men would have us believe they are 'Indoctrination' resistant.
But Occam's Razor tell us it is only more Republican 'Greed'.
9
There is disinformation about the 2017 tax cut benefitting the rich. In my part of the world ( yes, by popular definition,’rich’ white men who belong to private golf clubs), the cap on SALT deductions has resulted in broadly higher taxes for the top 10% of income and/ or asset wealth. Why is that ignored in every report about the 2017 “ tax cut” in the Times?
13
@jim m
The 2017 Trump-GOP tax cut specifically favored the uber-rich...the people who need help the LEAST.
The merely 'rich' or top 10% got sacked, but the 0.1% received another GOP Christmas gift.
"The tax bill soaks some of rich Americans — but it does not soak the richest.
If you’re a billionaire with your own company and are happy to use your private jet so you can “commute” from a low-tax state, the plan is a godsend. You can make an assortment of end-runs around the highest tax rates.
The two most popular games for the very wealthy will be running their income through pass-through companies, which pay a lower rate, or using a corporation to pay themselves a tiny salary and huge dividends, which will be taxed at the lower capital gains rates. (Watch for this headline in 2018: “Record Number of New Start-Ups.” But don’t necessarily take that as good news; many of those “new” start-ups will be individuals incorporating themselves.)
And private equity and real estate executives, as has been well documented, will make out like bandits under the new system.
According to the Tax Policy Center, 5 percent of taxpayers would pay more in taxes in 2018; 9 percent in 2025 and 53 percent in 2027, if the plan is signed into law.
That 5 percent paying more is not the top .01 of the 1 percent."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/business/dealbook/tax-bill-wealthy.html
2
@jim m
It is a myth that the tax cuts only helped the rich. The middle class did, in fact, get a tax cut. In all, 80% of taxpayers got a reduction in taxes.
The SALT cap affected only a small group. First, the average property taxes in the US are about $5K/year, so most Americans were not affected. Second, fewer taxpayers itemized. It is estimated that in 2019 only 13% will itemize.
Often ignored by democrats is the 20% QBID for small business owners. Estimates are that 15 million small business owners (11% of all taxpayers) availed themselves of this benefit in 2018.
1
Why doesn't Warren just seize power, arrest the wealthy and seize their assets. We can have show trials where the risk takers confess their guilt' We can do this on prime time but there will be no advertisers to pay for this spectacle. Then we can hand over the factories to the workers. The ones with drug problems and the ones that don't show up and then want to sue you. The majority of workers are great but what to do with the"enemies of the state"? We can have 5 year plans and collective farms. We can create a state monitoring system so that if your neighbor hordes food you can report them. We can model ourselves after the great successes of the former, why former I ask, Soviet Union and cuba, or Venezuela. Of course those loyal to the state with get a condo in Boca. Yeah, it's that easy. Its worked before. The Chinese learned and adapted, the Russians not so much. Warren, give me all of your money, that would be a start.
20
@one percenter You missed a few important pointed about Elizabeth Warren. She believes in capitalism... Not crony capitalism but competitive, fair capitalism... no investment dead zones, no too big to fail, no corporations setting government policy for their own benefit. A competitive capitalism based a living wage, money out of politics, a sustainable distribution of income and wealth, corporation paying taxes. You know that winning combination of strong democracy, strong capitalism that fosters innovation, growth, fairness.
1
@one percenter
She is saving that for her second term.
2
@one percenter, you, like my brother and many others, do not realize that yes, those Russians placed in factory manager or commodities trading positions managed to murder their competition on the way to the top. That IS hard work. Didn't work out so well for El Chapo. Oleg Deripaska still owns a majority percentage of Rusal over 50%. He had to divest some of it from, I think, 75% and in partnership with a US mogul, invested in a factory in Mitch McConnell's territory in order to have sanctions lifted from his Russian aluminum company. Those oligarchs also have enough money to throw around to politicians here for favorable sanctions treatment and US oligarchs and their bribed politicians are liking what they see and wish for that scenario here.
If they're Republicans they're probably not going to vote for her no matter what. The ground war will be won with independents
8
The wealth tax is an asinine idea. It taxes individuals in some years where they may have no income at all. The solution to the problem is the Estate or Death Tax not a wealth tax.
A properly administered Estate Tax is more efficient can produce more revenue and is fairer as it does not take away an individual's accumulation of assets until death.
For me, Ms. Warren's and Mr. Sanders' Wealth Tax are non-starters and I will not vote for either.
12
@Eric T.
It taxes individuals regardless of whether or not they ever have any income. It simply taxes away assets.
5
This is a flawed methodology and thus a flawed story. Many other polls have showed greatly reduced support for Medicare-For-All when the cost (or how to pay for it) was factored in. Likewise, a wealth tax is awash in similar unknowns. As has been pointed out, it has been tried in many other countries and has largely failed or been rolled back. A poll without background information or more detail is just a measurement of ignorance.
16
@Paul when a Harvard professor candidate tells us hicks in the Midwest that she will impose Medicare for all and we learn what it will cost all of us, more than a few look on her wealth tax proposal, free college for all and every other financial plan she proposes as a cup of hemlock we’d prefer not to drink. If the Dems think that will win in the Midwest, ask Presidents McGovern and Dukakis about it.
8
Why have I heard little if any discussion on the economic impact a wealth tax? I think it would end up just collapsing the price of equities, real estate and other real assets.
The top 1% own a disproportionate amount of the nation’s wealth. Wealth at extreme levels is typically a multiple of income. I have $1,000 in wealth and $50 in income (in reality the ratio for many of the wealthy is likely much higher). I am taxed 50% on my income, and 2% on my wealth. My total tax burden is $45. If $5 a year isn’t enough to support my lifestyle and maintenance costs of my assets, I will be forced to sell them - stocks, bonds, real estate and other assets.
Before you rejoice with gleeful envy, wouldn’t you want to know how that may impact the value of your pensions and homes? I think that the wealth tax, combined with restoration of the pre-Trump corporate, will decimate stock prices, pensions, 401k’s and home prices of many more people than are in the top 1%.
Prices of stocks and real assets will certainly not go up!
It’s gonna be great.
7
Her proposal affects very few people, truly the ultra wealthy, and they can readily absorb a few hits. They can afford to simply from 5 homes down to 4.
9
Perhaps then the economy would be reorganized so that it wasn’t dependent on a plutocratic class. Seems like the natural outcome.
3
@Francis
It has been reported in the NYT that Warren's wealth tax would reduce GDP growth.
1
Nearly any tax targeting a minority of the population will have majority support. It's not a healthy attitude to wish for others to bear a disproportionate burden of any endeavor so you may benefit. These are academic questions in any event, however, since such policies will not be enacted any time soon. I would like to think that this is what triggered Warren's precipitous drop in recent polling.
12
@Frunobulax
When a minority of the population holds the vast majority of the wealth, either you have to make them pay higher taxes or you won't have enough funds to support the activities of the government. And the latter leaves you with only two options: increase government debt or cut services. The great disparity in wealth and financial security, however, means a need for more government services, not fewer. So that means increasing the debt is the only pragmatic possibility. Do we think an exploding debt is better for the economy than a small wealth tax? Because that may be our only realistic choice.
4
@617to416
Why not cut services? We have way too many services as it is and people need to be more self-reliant.
@Driven
The American social safety net is already terribly thin compared with those in other advanced democracies. To make it even thinner would be unwise (and probably socially disruptive).
1
The U.S economy was booming inequality was reduced when taxation on the upper incomes was 80% then came Reagan ... 50% of the lowest incomes have been stagnant since 1980 while taxation on the upper incomes dropped to 39%...
Inequality of income has never been so high and a con-artist is in the white house .
25
@phil
The US economy was actually stagnating in the 70’s. Inflation was high and growth was slow. Government mandated wage and price controls were tried and failed. Taxes were high. Americans were frustrated by the country’s poor economic performance during that decade.
Reagan took office in ‘81.
11
@phil
There's no magic solution to reducing inequality. It is addressed by increasing the number of people working or, as the Fed Chair put it, by increasing "labor force participation".
The Fed Chair also called for helping workers to meet the "challenge of technological innovation". Trump has gotten commitments from several large corporations to re-train millions of American workers.
Trump is doing exactly what the Fed Chair is prescribing.
2
@AACNY Average CEO pay has increased 940% since 1978 while average worker pay has increased 12% since 1978. Labor force participation today is around 64%, which is about the same as it was in 1978.
Of course those with the wealth oppose the tax. They know it will impact their ability to hire more people and expand their businesses. Why do uninformed people assume that those with wealth only spend it on themselves?
6
They aren’t hiring more people. They are hoarding their wealth while eliminating and reducing employees, and keeping salaries/ wages stagnant fur extent employees. Do your research before posting an opinion like this, because it’s not based on reality or facts.
16
You my friend need to do the research. I know first hand that the primary objective of businesses, especially small businesses is to expand their businesses and make sure they retain good employees by compensating them adequately.
5
I know first hand that they rarely do that.
1
The Robin Hood aspect of these taxes, which may or not be legal, really aggravate me. The British tried this to disastrous consequence.
12
@DJ What does one call robbing from working class people to enrich the wealthy? Wage theft?
17
I’m a white a Democratic man and I will never have $50 million. I oppose the wealth tax because it is not a tax on the generation of income but simply a means to tax wealth a second time. First, when it’s earned, then when it’s held. It is only a means to take money away from those who’ve earned it, without any rationale basis.
Tax those who make over $10 million with an escalating rate (over 50, over 100, etc.). But don’t simply steal money for the sake of punishing success.
31
@Mark Do you have the same issue with state personal property tax? After all, property is simply a form of wealth held in a non-liquid state.
I pay a rate on my houses over and over, year after year. Do you consider that the Virginia government stealing my wealth?
4
@Mark: no, the wealth tax is really a way to get back taxes paid on income that was unfairly under-taxed originally. Think capital gains, tax dodges and shelters only available to the already wealthy.
1
@Mark - the aim is not to punish, its to level the field...
Perhaps that is because Trump and Warren plans have both been badly misrepresent by the Times and in other bias media reports. OK, you two did grudging admit that the Trump tax cut was broadly distributed. See "Face It: You (Probably) Got a Tax Cut". Apart from that, the main stream media, not to mention all of the Democratic Congress and Presidential contenders, have relentlessly pressed the narrative that only the "rich" received a tax cut.
Warren's proposal is a ploy. It would never be enacted as described. There will be no "wealth tax". Her other proposals, raise the capital gains tax, apply it to assets that have not been sold, and introduce a financial transaction tax, will effect everyone either directly or indirectly and the thresholds for direct confiscation would quickly migrate down under Democratic leadership.
Those who embrace Warren's proposals and financially ignorant. Misinformation about who pays taxes how taxes are propositioned and villainization of straw men "rich" by a partisan press does not help.
13
Where, oh, where was senator Warren when I was travelling non-stop to start my business. The endless nights of worry, putting my family's future on the line with every risk I took. The sleepless nights worrying about equipment failure, lawsuits. The missed birthday's because a client's machine failed and his 60 employees sat idle. Worry, worry, worry. Warren is Lenin reincarnate. Not this time, sorry i can't give you more of what I earned. That's real incentive for 'ya. How has that worked since the War on Poverty signed by Johnson in '64. Oh, it's gotten worse? No!!!! You mean when you give someone something for nothing they don't value it, but expect more?!!!
20
@one percenter I'm happy for your success. However, You, like so many of the others in your income bracket, seem to believe that you achieved this all by yourself. Granted much of your success probably does reflect your talent in this area, but among the worries that you had, we're lessened by the fact that your property insurance rates were lower because taxes paid for fire and police departments. Your products were able to reach their destinations on roads paid by taxpayers. Electricity and other things were provided by public utilities. You don't tell us, so perhaps you did not supply health insurance to your employees, another public benefit. Public Schools educated your workers , and if you had a requirement for college educated workers, then the cost to taxpayers was even greater. All these things made you successful. What's more taxes are necessary to keep these things going. perhaps you should look at things more like that you are paying back a return of investment that we as the public and a country invested in you when you were born.
77
@Kjensen
My guess is that one percenter did pay taxes to pay for the fire and police departments. Probably a lot more tax than most other citizen/consumers of those services.
And she probably paid more property tax than average to support the public school system.
And she probably paid more federal income tax (both amount and rate) to support the highway system (after all, only about half of adults pay any federal income tax at all).
But even after doing more than “her share” by amount and rate to help support the rest of us, and taking risk and making sacrifices that made her successful and employed others, well . . . She has more things than you, so go take them.
6
@one percenter Is your business worth over 50 million? If not, you're not getting this. If so, congratulations. When you traveled, you traveled on public roads, used public airports, and the FAA. Your workforce was educated on the public dime. Keep your first 50 million and give back 2c of every dollar over that. Crocodile tears for your pain, you loved every minute of it.
3
Taxes are important; but government needs to play a bigger role in regulating how workers are compensated. As citizens, we are asleep at the wheel allowing companies like Amazon to pay scant wages to legions of low level workers, who are never the less vital to the company's success and push for fast delivery. This is one example of how a company's success, that's made such a broad impact, is more exploitative than an improvement as great amounts of wealth are drained out of society at large and into the hands of a few.
27
@Al Either the government must regulate greater guarantees and protections for workers, or unions need to be reinvented and destigmatized for 21st century participation. Or both. Otherwise we will once again experience the miseries of the gilded age (arguably we already are)
Those who do not learn from history...
Voltaire wrote that "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."
For more than four decades, a large portion of the public has believed the absurdity of supply-side economics, the outlandish notion that channeling more of the nation's wealth to the wealthiest Americans will somehow result in shared prosperity.
The atrocity is that our tax code more and more punishes those who rely on income from wages, salaries, and tips. Those who work hard and play by the rules pay more in taxes because "people" with surnames like "Inc." and "LLC" pay next to nothing. In fact, one such "person," Amazon.com, Inc., received $2.4 billion from Virginia taxpayers, even though that "person" reported a net income of nearly $12 billion in 2018. And that led to the absurdity of attacking those who opposed such corporate welfare as "enemies of capitalism."
So let's indeed level the playing field. Let's indeed simplify the tax code, even a flat tax if you want. Let's start by treating income from wages, salaries, and tips earned by working class people the same way we treat income from carried interest and other schemes cooked up by lawyers and accountants.
177
@Kevin Brock
Bravo! Capitalism is a flawed system because it depends on human nature, i.e., "trickle down" economics. Let's all of us 99 percenters laugh in unison, now...
6
College educated white makes are accustomed to having everything their way. They have the power, so they rig the system to favor themselves, at the expense of everyone else. They do not deserve any pity.
Warren wants to even the playing field, which is a very good idea. The ever worsening gap between the super wealthy & everyone else is a danger to our society. It is reminiscent of the Gilded Era in the 1920's which led to the stock market crash of 1929 & gave us the greatest economic depression in history. It was dramatically worsened by the ill advised tax bill of 2017, which gave almost all he benefits to the top 1%, while RAISING taxes on tens of millions of middle class Americans.
I applaud Warren for her responsible economic proposal. The super rich can afford to pay their fair share to support our society. It's about time for us to demand that they do so.
98
I'm a male democrat and I'm opposed to the wealth tax. Even the economists at the NYTimes showed that it would not generate much revenue because the rich will find a way out of paying it--just like the French do. How about some practical solutions to the collapse of the middle class that do not merely play to ideology?
22
@Winter
How about an average wage gain of $5K (versus $1100 under Obama)? How about a tight labor market? How about retraining millions of American workers?
How about a doubled child tax *credit* (worth more than a deduction)? How about higher refundable credits (the portion paid by the government to taxpayers because they don't make enough income to receive the full credit)?
It's a shame NYT readers don't realize how much Trump is actually doing to help the middle class. They've been brainwashed to believe only the rich are being helped. Untrue.
2
"Strikingly for a candidate who has put so much emphasis on the economy, Ms. Warren is viewed with caution by voters who care the most about the economy, and by those who are most worried about it."
This should come as no surprise. The issue in the 2020 election will be the same as it was in 2018: CREDIBILITY. The Democrats flipped 40 Republican seats and took control of the House. How? By offering credible solutions to the concerns of voters, not by proposing grandiose schemes seen by voters as having little or no chance of success. Struggling voters want pie-on-the-table, not pie-in-the sky.
The same critique applies to Medicare-for-All. Many voters who support it, like myself, believe that the Warren-Sanders approach is unrealistic and will never become law. And that a Medicare option is the only and surest way to achieve the goal that we all support.
Warren's poll numbers began to plummet after she announced her detailed plan for Medicare-for-All. Why? It just didn’t seem credible to a lot of voters. https://tinyurl.com/y6lufdw4
Democrats, take note! Do you want to win in 2020? Then come down to earth, and meet the voters where they are.
8
Once upon a time, not so long ago, the top tax bracket was 90%.
We should bring that back and apply it to income earned by those who already have a huge net worth. For example, you're worth $50 million or more? Any new money you make, from whatever source derived, gets taxed at 90%.
To tax people's existing wealth, in effect taxing money that had already been taxed, is unfair. Not to mention that when these people die the wealth in their estate will get taxed again under the Estate Tax, which under Warren the American Indian, will amount to triple-taxation.
6
@MIKEinNYC
"Once upon a time, not so long ago, the top tax bracket was 90%."
Myth.
5
The top tax bracket was very high pre-Reagan. That doesn’t mean taxation of all income. It also doesn’t mean it was good policy.
3
@MIKEinNYC
Yes, and once upon a time slavery was legal in this country as well. That was also a very bad policy.
1
Warren needs to get the message out that, in reality, Medicare is a partnership between a basic government health insurance plan (Medicare) and a private supplemental policy.
The Message should be "You can keep your private health insurance as a supplement your basic Medicare Plan."
The majority of Americans under the age of 50, don't understand the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, and think they are getting "charity" health care with Medicare.
7
What worried me about the slate of Democratic candidates is the pledge they all took to extend universal health care not just to Americans, but to illegal immigrants.
Americans are often wrong. We were wrong to regard Ho Chih Minh as an agent of communism. We were wrong to believe Colin Powell's assertions that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. These were disastrous mistakes.
Some Republicans are wrong when they claim that global warming is a hoax. But Democrats are wrong when they fail to notice that population growth has an impact on global warming. Indeed, population growth might be regarded as the CAUSE of global warming.
The population of Guatemala has quadrupled since 1960. The consequences should have been predictable. Poverty is extreme in Guatemala City.
It is innumerate to suggest that poverty in Guatemala can be "solved" via illegal immigration to the US. What Guatemala needs is aid to improve its economy and provide family planning to its citizens.
Democrats lie (or are themselves deluded) when they pretend that open borders can be continued while simultaneously moving towards universal health care.
We cannot provide shelter for our own homeless in the US. Why should we be able to provide health care to additional millions? Where will the doctors come from?
Like population growth, achieving universal health care requires long term planning, planning which includes procedures for ensuring that the number of homeless does not increase.
12
Democrats, or most Democrats, don’t believe in open borders. We believe in a very comprehensive immigration reform—particularly for DACA of course—with a far better system for good work visas and refugees. Many farmers etc. are struggling because they can’t get the workers they need, even at $15 per hour.
Reduce immigration issues and the number of illegal immigrants seeking healthcare will be insignificant—fewer than are treated in ERs now, I’d suspect. And an intelligent system (which I don’t necessarily think is Medicare for All) would make the cost far less.
6
@Gottfried Newton Can you post a link to this pledge you refer to?
3
@Gottfried Newton How can you discuss population growth without mentioning the Republican war on women? Contraception and the right to choose are being trampled on by this party! Add in your distain for immigrants, which we desperately need in order to maintain our economy and you've blown your whole argument. We have a lowering birth rate in this country not an increasing one. Many immigrants are waiting for the opportunity to become citizens it is blockhead Republicans who prevent it. If you don't allow them to be insured, they will not have healthcare that will help the public good.
5
Everyone wants a tax proposal that doesn't effect them. This wealth tax is perfect. Almost all voters are left alone and everyone benefits. The only problem is( and I am not rich and am a democrat ) is that this kind of attack on wealth is terrible. We need an overhaul of the tax system but you can't do that without an overhaul of spending and that will take a national dailgue. We spend too much on too many things, like defense and health care to just throw too much money on them from tax increases. We are a ship without a captain and without a direction. We need a timeout. We need a national discussion on what we are as a country and where we need to go. Then we can decide what we really have to spen money on, how to reduce the interest burden of our debt and how to pay for it.
There is a principal that you should short the dollar by using debt that is cheaper than inflation. That has to change. With interest too low, we are making bad decisions because there are no long term consequences. This is a strategic plan for money management, not a way to handle fiscal policy as a country. Elizabeth Warren has to start talking about things that are possible and what will make good long term policy. We won't but we should.
4
Her M4A is designed to curtail the healthcare cost and, therefore, healthcare spending. I disagree that inflation is more preferable to low interest, because it hits low income people harder than anybody else, because their salaries tends to grow more slowly. It also decreases incentives for saving. The absence of savings makes people insecure.
"Other Peoples Money". Great movie that the Dems live every day. Will not bother me if they tax the wealthy to the hilt as I am nowhere close to being one of them. But be very careful about going after people in such an open and reviling way who wield the real power in a country. Not meaning to not do it but Clinton learned what happens when you openly attack large groups of people with enough influence to control the destiny of an election. You have to have the power first to be able to drive change which means you have to get into the WH first.
2
Billionaires in the US supported Clinton 20:1 over Trump, by the reporting of this very paper. Clinton didn't "attack" the wealthy, she openly courted them with her hustler husband and became wealthy herself while doing so. She and Bill reported $150 million in "speech fees" as personal income during her time as a Senator and Presidential candidate. They took in $2 billion (yes billion) more as donations to their foundation. Once her second Presidential campaign ended in defeat and the two hustlers had no future influence to sell, their "speech fee" racket and foundation donations cratered to nothingness, providing all one needs to know about the intentions of the donors as well as the two hustlers who raked in the mountains of cash while they could.
8
This was the law of the land in the good, old days of Republican President Eisenhower. Working people, back then, were paid a living wage. Remember the 50's and 60's?
3
Is it possible that if this poll were done in Oklahoma City the results would be diametrically opposite?
3
“Responses were weighted to match the demographic profile of the population of the United States. “. So Oklahoma City was counted to the extent it should be.
3
Did the poll ask about support for “a wealth tax,” or “Warren’s wealth tax”? I can’t find the wording of the question in this article, and the link to Survey Monkey isn’t working for me.
5
@Chris The poll asked:
“Do you approve or disapprove of a two percent tax on households whose net worth (including income, real estate, stocks, and other investments) is more than $50 million?”
2
Not satisfied with just an unhealthy worshipping of rich people many Americans think they are just a step away from being rich themselves.
Delusion is rampant in our society today.
16
Story leader should have read, " Warren Wealth Tax Has Great Support Among Those Ignorant Of Economics."
20
It is a very popular idea and to stop money from leaving the country before she is elected a 100% tax on funds above one million should be implemented immediately.
2
@Ralph Petrillo Why not just seize the money and arrest the wealthy. We can call them "enemies of the state" and have show trials. Kinda like dancing with the stars. Then when it is all over we can start starving and ask where the risk-takers are. We can have collective farms and five-year plans as the State knows best, we can turn in our neighbors if they hoard food or might be hoarding food to survive. This is gonna work, I just know it.
7
Republican men with college degrees oppose the uber-wealth tax AND adamantly oppose Medicare For All.
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
Greed Over People
November 3 2020
Don't let your children grow up to be selfish.
359
Clinton's tax increases coincided with prosperity
Dubya's tax cuts coincided with the Bush-Cheney Depression.
Obama's tax increases coincided with a recovery from the Bush-Cheney Depression.
It's too early to conclude how historically destructive Trump's tax cuts are, but we do know they exploded the national debt and worsened income inequality.
As a white, college-educated male myself, it's crystal clear that Republicans are the worst economic managers this country has ever seen.
You may think feudalism is a fine economic model, but it's not.
Broad based prosperity has a much better historical track record.
91
@Talbot
"government sanctioned theft" ?
So you support a zero-tax system ?
Taxes are the price of civilization.
I'm happy to pay for civilization.
Are you ?
9
@Talbot Are you in Canada? Do you like the tax supported health care system up there?
1
Trump loves the poorly educated. He said so at a campaign rally. Progressive democrats love the highly educated. They are more likely to support drastic measures to fight inequality and allow ordinary Americans a share in economic gains.
It’s a shame that voting can’t be weighted by IQ. We’d end up with leaders more empathetic to the acute struggles of workers, students, women and minorities. Instead, widespread Republican defunding of education at all levels is more likely to deliver voters who believe the nonsense peddled on partisan conservative media and vote against their financial and physical wellbeing.
15
I believe that while the wealth tax has its emotional appeal, an even more effective, and more politically palatable, way to reverse the growing concentration of wealth is to eliminate the distinction in the tax code between "earned" and "unearned" income.
11
@Kevin Brock
How about both? Let's not be picky.
1
@RRI I believe that ending the distinction, coupled with a higher top marginal rate and simplified deductions, accomplishes the same goal.
4
Piketty's "math" has been debunked multiple times by independent economists that are not part of the angry wave of sentiment that seeks to villify personal financial success, villianize businesses and champion the mythical "people" whose daily lives would in fact be orders of magnitude worse if not for those they seek to blame for their own woeful circumstances. Piketty won't release the underlying assumptions or baseline data used to foment his magical theory, because he knows his results are unreplicable in a learned environment where bias does not tip the scale to the left, where he and his followers dwell in the damp darkness of prior historical outcomes in places implementing similar "ideas".
12
@Fred Rick The mythical "people" championed by the right wing have names like Inc. and LLC.
8
"The wealth tax has lost a few points of support since the last time The Times asked about the issue, in July."
What?! Does this mean that the billionaire blitzkrieg of anti-Warren reportage and punditry these last few weeks, which has successfully driven Warren support in national polls down to Sanders' level, has not succeeded in souring the American public on taxing the filthy rich? Got to work harder at it, guys. We're not there yet. And they are. Yesterday, on Thanksgiving, our nation's supposedly "progressive" media outfit, MSNBC, actually featured a guest attesting that he was "grateful for billionaires." That's the stuff! More of that "moderation," please. Keep Democrats on the nonthreatening path of pablum, pursing affluent suburban white women's votes; otherwise, they might pursue the other path to poaching cross-over Trump voters and boosting enthusiasm among non-white Democrats: economic injustice in our Neo-Gilded Age "rigged economy." No, no, no, we can't have that.
4
The main purpose for any tax system is (or should be) to raise enough money to support the activities of the government. If we are going to ask our government to provide affordable and universal access to healthcare, childcare, elder care, dependent care, and education as well as to basics like food, housing, and transportation—all worthy objectives in my opinion—then we are going to have to raise sufficient funds through taxation. If a small wealth tax on large holdings can help us keep income and consumption taxes lower—and proves less disruptive to the economy than having higher income and consumption taxes—then a wealth tax is a good idea.
Unfortunately, most of the arguments for and against the wealth tax are based on emotion. But really this is a decision best made by technocrats.
6
@617to416 . . .I agree. Emotion. The wealth tax is portrayed as an attack on Billionaires, people who have more than others. Well, my policy has always been than I can only sit in one chair at a time and only live in one space at a time, so until each person has that one chair and one then nobody needs more than one.
1
Where are the Dem candidate plans to shore-up Social Security. How high should the cap on SS income be to guarantee SS for the next hundred years? Certainly it can be raised from the current cap to at least $250K - $500k.
Social Security solvency should be right at the top of any Dem candidates priorities.
14
@Mark O RN
The Democrats proposal to shore up SS is to raise the retirement age (defacto benefit cut as very few make ti to full retirement age), make more SS benefits taxable, "means test" SS benefits )anyone who worked and actually funded the system will be bumped out (FYI SS is already highly progressive). All have been proposed by Dems and endorsed by the Times.
3
@Daphne
I wish I could know that your reply is in jest. Sadly it seems likely to be truthful. This crazy notion of paying SS tax on the the first $130,000 of earned income makes no sense. We clearly need to raise this cap! Lets keep it simple: Raise the income cap by 10% annually for the next 25 years. I am not an economist, but I assume that would add to SS solvency. Question for those who abuse changing the cap - what is your plan to insure that our elderly are not going to live in poverty 30 or 40 years from now?
1
@Mark O
These types of post are not believable.
No jest.
Early SS benefit amount is reduced by up to 11% for each year before full retirement age. Most Americans "retire" and or before age 62. Those who start to receive SS take a hit.
Those who work during retirement to try to get ahead pay taxes on their SS benefit.
The Democrats and their supporters are big fans of means test SS. Basically making it into a Welfare program.
Raising the cap is an option but would you also change the benefit formula? You should know that already earnings above about $66,000 do not count for much in the benefit calculation which is heavily weighed toward lower incomes. Those earning more are giving up 12.4 percent of their pay for nothing in return.
While I generally approve of EW, and would certainly vote for her over Trump, the Wealth Tax is not a viable or fair proposal. Had she couched the proposal as income over fifty million, it would have made marginally better sense. Most wealth in this country of that magnitude is still held in land or in trust. What of the family farmer? What of the small business owner? Many individuals have land which may be worth fifty million or more but a relatively paltry liquid amount available. Sell? And of those assets held in Trust? Break the trusts? No, this proposal would send money out of the country faster than Trump cheats on a golf course. VAT that cover everything at the register and the elimination of income tax is a much fairer and more workable solution. At this point, Joe or Pete for me.
5
@John Tapley
In the actual implementation of a wealth tax, you'd have to work through what to do with illiquid assets. But I think the point of the tax is to get people like Jeff Bezos, who holds some $90 billion in Amazon stock—a stock that pays no dividends and therefore generates no income—to pay some taxes on all that unsold stock.
2
@617to416
Is a union worker's promised pension benefits considered part of their wealth since a a non-union worker's 401K and/or IRA is? What is the value of my sofa, chair, bed, etc., since that is part of anyone's wealth? What about the cars, do we use Kelly Blue Book or some government formula? What happens when stocks go down from the previous year, do you get a return from the government because you overpaid the year before? Do we have government agents coming into everyone's home every year to audit our "wealth" and make arbitrary valuations based on some technocrats secret formula? Are we now going to be required to keep a receipt of everything that we have purchased during the year in order to "prove" our wealth or lack thereof?
Sounds absurd doesn't it, yet throwing around the the idea of a wealth tax without defining the meaning and process of determining it is even more so. Let's don't do what was done when passing Obamacare, where Pelosi said that in order to know what was in the bill the House had to pass it.
My guess is that if Warren has a "plan" to determine how one's actual wealth is determined even most proponents of it would be shocked to see how individually invasive the process would be, and we know how important it is to the dems to keep the government from invading our privacy.
2
@philly
Figuring out details is what Congress does when it passes bills. The first step is to set broad goals. Given that Warren's tax only applies to people with $50 million or more in assets, the value of your sofa is unlikely to be material. If you have a hefty stock portfolio, however, that may be material—and also relatively easy to value.
Given attitudes and knowledge of the electorate, I wonder about the wisdom of announcing specific plans, even though in principle it would be the right thing to do.
My instincts from reading these and other polls would be for democrats to make noise about: health care ("medicare for all who want it or need it", wealth tax, infrastructure (those who travel know it, the US is falling apart), climate change (the younger generation seems to know or at least have an inkling) and last but not least basic decency and good governance. Campaigning on infrastructure and anti corruption/anti vileness may help some misguided souls realizing that Don Trump is just a low level con man.
2
The article misses another group opposed to a wealth tax: mainstream Democratic economists.
Lawrence Summers has come out against it saying it is “bad economics, bad policy and built on bad data.”
But who cares what they think when you can confiscate stuff from someone else.
11
@Meg - Are you referring to the fact that for the past 40 years we've been confiscating stuff from people who actually work for a living and shoveling it into the overstuffed Money Pits of the already obscenely rich through repeated rounds of voodoo, trickle-up tax "reforms" foisted upon us by by successive (R)egressive administrations?
BTW, Summers is to a "mainstream (D) economist" as the Neocon, Republicrat Clintons are to FDR.
5
@Miss Anne Thrope
Sounds like your definition of “confiscating stuff” means that people keeping more of their own income and wealth is confiscation.
Meaning the fruits of my labor somehow rightfully belong to someone else.
Good luck with that.
3
@Meg - Exactly the opposite, my dear. There is much for you to learn about our tax code and the transfer of our nation's wealth up the income scale over the past 40 years. It's easy - try Google.
Altho', maybe you're one of the Idle Rich who have benefited from those (R)egressive tax policies.
1
If we don’t elect a woman—a good woman, a woman who rightfully believes that we are all doomed as moral human beings (the supposed heart of the Declaration of Independence), if so many of us remain disenfranchised, or too sick to compete, or just plain hopeless, a woman whose actual plans do lift everyone up—some economically, some morally and without whose plans for real “structural change’ we are realistically on course to drown or burn up with the planet, the plans of a mother, a schoolteacher, a woman trying to get us to wake up and go to work, who is handing us our lunch to take with us—how do we expect to get through this gigantic mess that we find ourselves in, all over the world. Please, overcome the misogyny guys, overcome the greed 1 percenters, because middle of the road right now won’t cut it. This is an emergency.
4
The poll actually shows that most people who have studied and understand college-level economics can see why a wealth tax is a profoundly foolish and counterproductive idea. Everyone else believes that they can have a free lunch by robbing their rich neighbors.
8
Warren's demise is well-deserved. She is a deceitful person. She misrepresented herself as having a native American background. She paints herself as victim of gender discrimination in an episode that occurred over 40 years ago and the key players are all dead so cannot dispute her, but the records of the event made at the time dispute her. She misrepresented her 2% wealth tax as a "2 cent tax", a cynical attempt to make it appear trivial when in fact it was to raise very substantial revenue. Even her 2% wealth tax grew in just a matter of months, first to 3% and then to 6%.
11
@Errol I think the accusation that she misrepresented herself as a Native American is an exaggeration of trivial importance. The statement that she was discriminated 40 years ago does not mean it is untrue, merely that it happened a long time ago. It is not as if such discrimination no longer happens in America. Just ask any working woman. Furthermore in the math that I know 2% of a dollar is indeed 2 cents and in percentage terms is a trivial amount of money for the wealthy.
15
Polling aside, promising to "tax the rich" is a tired, old democrat bromide that just doesn't resonate anymore among those Ms. Warren claims would benefit, especially when it's uttered by a law professor who became wealthy in part by falsely claiming to be a native american on her job applications. Add to that Senator Warren's active pursuit of campaign donations from the very same people she would ostensibly tax and it's not difficult to understand why she is "viewed with caution by voters who care the most about the economy", especially those who are “very concerned” about losing their job".
With record low unemployment in the black and latino communities and approval ratings for president Trump in those same communities at historically high levels, it's clear that democrats need a new bromide to beat president Trump.
5
If voters want more info on the wealth tax idea, check out the book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," by Thomas Piketty.
It's an interesting book that explains how and why inequality of income and wealth is inevitable. Piketty shows how tax policy, including a wealth tax, can keep inequality within limits.
The criticisms I've heard and read about a wealth tax sound to me like the critics never read the book. I think most, if not all, voters who read this book would come away convinced that a wealth tax is a good idea.
1
You're a few years behind. Piketty has been soundly criticized, if not debunked entirely, by multiple credible economists who lack Picketty's pronounced political bias.
6
Take the other guy’s money (just not mine) is often popular among people who are not the ones targeted for confiscation. The government does not and shall not get a second bite at the apple. If tax rates are too low or loopholes to broad the government may raise rates or close loopholes if they can cajole sufficient support, but there will be no wealth tax in this country. In fact, the mere talking about the wealth tax has people of some intelligence realizing that Trump isn’t really so bad and should get another four!
7
Please read Thomas Edsall's work here in the NYT that does a deep dive into the policies and data and demonstrates that the the majority of Americans oppose Warren's policies. This article neatly sets up the Republican male boogie man that so excites Warren and Sanders supporters. A Warren nomination is the surest way for Dems to hand Trump another election.
8
That is what wealthy Reps like us to think.
1
The fact that the wealth tax supposedly has the support of 6 in 10 Americans" means nothing. As with anything else, a good, well-financed public relations blitz can change public opinion. Anyone remember 1993, when Bill Clinton took office? A majority of Americans wanted healthcare reform. Then, the medical industrial complex pumped big money into a PR onslaught. Remember the Harry and Louise ads? Remember slogans like "I don't want big government in my medicine cabinet" and "Hillarycare?" What happened? Public opinion moved against the Clintons' proposals.
If this wealth tax idea overlooked like it might gain traction, rest assured moneyed interests would plow big bucks into a concerted PR effort to paint it as socialism and a "job killer." Front groups with names like Americans For Jobs would pop up, sending flacks out to make the rounds of talk radio and Fox News. The American public lacks the sophistication to resist a good PR campaign.
4
It only means the 'wealth tax' and 'M4A' should have more PR. There is no reason that PR should work only for opposition.
Alienating a group of people is not good. I am pretty sure some very smart tax attorney will figure out an escape. It should be simplified so everyone pays a fare share. I am all for paying more taxes but I first need to be assured the ultra affluent don’t get an escape route.
5
The methodology of this poll looks shaky on the surface, but if it reflects actual opinions, it's finally some good news for the Democrats. A clear majority of independents supporting Medicare For All is a positive development, as is the overwhelming support for the wealth tax on those making with over $50 million in assets.
As for the college educated, wealthy Republicans, these are the people that have sold their souls to the incompetent and unqualified Donald Trump in exchange for tax cuts and validation of a lie, cheat and steal culture - they should matter not a whit to the Democratic candidate.
18
The problem is it’s an annual tax. A cumulative drag. And an annual hassle equivalent to a once in a lifetime litigation with the IRS. Every year.
If you are rich you’d be crazy not to move to Canada, the new tax haven.
14
@Mmm If a 2% tax causes the wealth to shrink then the economy is down the tubes and the wealth tax is the least of the wealthy's problems. The value of their wealth would be shrinking much faster than the 2%. I do not think that the wealthy are concerned about that, only about the principle that they need to pay their fair share of the benefit they receive by living in this country rather than avoiding it. And if they move to Canada, good riddance. That means they have no loyalty to the US anyway.
5
(Wonkish) In his book, Piketty defines a quantity, ß, which is the length of time it would take the entire income of a country to purchase the capital of that country. It is a measure of the relative importance of capital and labor, and roughly correlates with inequality. He shows with vast amounts of historical data that before WWI, ß was about 8 years in capitalist countries.
WWI & II destroyed huge amounts of capital and ß declined, to about 4 years if I remember correctly. After WWII an increase in government ownership and regulation, especially in the US, kept ß from rising to its historic levels. At the time, this lower value of ß was thought to represent a maturation of capitalism that would persist.
Piketty shows, again with enormous quantities of data, that this has NOT been the case. ß is trending inexorably back to 8 years.
He also shows that if r, the rate of return on capital is > g, the growth rate of the country, then ß will rise. His solution is straightforward. Simply lower r by tax on wealth.
Warren has learned this lesson. Others have not.
7
@Errol
But it only kicks in with households over 50 million! So for instance a professional athlete who makes 48 million does not get hit with the wealth tax.
Yes I understand. On principle it is rather cringe worthy. But the premise that it kills ambition can be challenged by the fact that a ball payer making 48 million is not going to feel like he’s working for nothing and living in despair.
7
You clearly don't understand. Your comment confuses income tax and wealth tax.
2
@GMooG
Yes I misunderstood. But even as a wealth tax, that is to say a tax on households of net 50 million and above I don’t see someone saying he won’t get out of bed because there is a wealth tax and billionaires won’t stop riding around in private jets just because there is a wealth tax.
I’m not old enough to know about the zeitgeist around Medicare but I do know that Ronald Reagan and the conservatives thought the world would come to an end.
And now you would be hard pressed to find 60 Republican votes in the Senate to get rid of Medicare. Funny how that works.
3
Warren doesn't have wide support, but this is what the term gaslighting was created for, to make you think that it does.
7
As a college educated male who would not be subject to the wealth tax I still oppose it because it would be nearly impossible to impose and collect it on a fair and equitable basis.
45
@Thomas Smith
Agreed. Politicians thinking they can outsmart the ultra rich and their money managers are fools. The wealth tax has been tried numerous times and most of those countries have abandoned it. There is also that pesky problem of it likely being unconstitutional.
The more disturbing tax Warren is proposing is an additional 14.8% tax on wages over $250k to be shared by the employee and employer. That would raise the top income tax rate in states like states such as California, NY, CT, MN, and MA to over 60% and higher than any country in the world.
12
Everything that costs money people will find ways to skirt paying it. I don’t think we should sacrifice the good in pursuit of the great here. Warren of course is thinking about tax avoidance scheming and she will implement firewalls and checks and balances to help prevent it. It won’t be perfect but if we stay in front of it we’ll evolve as time goes on to close loop holes each time they’re found.
4
@Warren - The top marginal in Denmark is 62.28%. That is just the individual's contribution and does not include the employer. BTW income taxes in the US are not paid by the employer.
We had top marginal rates over 90% in post WWII, a period of Great Prosperity.
11
Under what conditions is a wealth tax beneficial for the economy. The first fact to consider is:
Thru the FED, the federal gov can create as much money as it needs out of thin air.
So it does NOT need YOUR money to pay for programs. BUT creating money has an effect on the economy. We may not be able to make enough stuff to soak that money up & will have too much money chasing not enough stuff, i.e. excessive inflation. This is rare & is usually caused by shortages, e,g, of oil.
But that's easy to solve & where taxes come in. Taxes allow the gov to take back the excess money & prevent inflation.
The purpose of taxes is to adjust the amount of money in the private sector. The more we can produce, the lower taxes can be.
So the first question to ask is how much do we have to tax? If the gov creates money for programs that increase production, then not very much. If one looks at the economic multipliers computed by the BLS and others, you will see that Warren's programs will increase production.
The next question is what kind of taxes do we want to have? Inequality is bad for the economy. History shows that in general, periods of low inequality (e,g, post WWII) have had a great economy, while periods of high inequality (e.g. post WWI) have led to disaster.
This is because that the Rich spend a smaller percentage of the money & use most of the rest for financial speculation.
I think it is clear that a wealth tax is the most direct way to reduce inequality.
7
@Len Charlap .. And the increase in tax revenues could be applied to repairing and rebuilding our infrastructure.
1
Actually the most direct way to establish economic equality would to be to have randomly selected, pairwise equalizations of wealth. Select two people at random using SS#, driver’s license, passport or whatever ID method is appropriate. Those two individuals then receive a summons to economic equality court, where a federal judge will assign the total wealth of the individuals on a 50/50 basis. No recourse. Boom. You’re done. Economic equality. Random. Non-discriminatory, blind economic justice.
I’m guessing that if you’re posting in Princeton NJ at 8:30 am the day after Thanksgiving you are probably not living in a van or in a box over a subway grating and that randomized economic equalization would represent to you a gross, unconstitutional miscarriage of justice and an unfair appropriation of your property and hard earned assets. Yet, it is quantitatively just a more efficient and mathematically Democratic version of Warren’s plans.
You can throw around the entire Greek alphabet and every theory cached in the stacks of the Pliny Fisk and it wont change the truth that Warren’s plans are nothing more than ill conceived policies to grab headline time and attention.
4
No, it will be not most direct way, because some people have so much wealth that even if your paired them with most poor person in the country, they both still will be very rich after the split while every body else will be still poor. There are just not enough rich people who are much much more rich than everybody else for pairwise equalization to work. Check your math. Maybe then you'll understand that Warren's policies are not so bad at all.
2
NYT - are you saying that Republican men are the only group that realizes that when Warren says "wealth tax" and repeatedly dodges specifics, what she means is "tax the middle class more heavily, while the millionaire and billionaire class continue to hide their wealth offshore"?
19
@Jeff Perhaps the operative word here is continue. Other than that if the middle class are truly worth 40 million or more then I suspect they might not be middle class at all.
5
And, that is why Bloomberg is running, to protect the wealth of those Republican white men with college degrees. Warren and Sanders put such a scare into those living off the wealth gravy train, that they tapped one of their own to run as a Democrat. What really scares these people, are those who inherited large estates, and do not have to ever work. They live on wealthy welfare, as the expense of those who work, or are retired, who are forced to pay taxes.
While a wealth tax has zero chance of passing, the 1% are making sure it never does, and are in the process of buying the election. Not only for president, but right down the line with Congress.
Thank you Supreme Court and Citizen's United (sarcasm).
15
For those that read and look beyond slogans, it is an emperical fact that the biggest political spenders using the Citizen United window are unions, especially public employee unions, who live off the taxes they and their Democratic masters continue to pile onto private businesses and their employees.
The myth that Citizen United benefits only wealthy centrist business owners is a deliberate lie, repeated so often that there are those that believe it, as was intended by those who spread the lie to mask their own activities.
6
@Fred Rick
Bloomberg has allocated over $250 million. He represents the Wealthy Oligarch Union. It's slogan, "Only the little people pay taxes".
5
More reasons to overturn the Citizen United that evil people ( union and the rich) could not use it for their advantages. Everybody should be happy. Reps because it decreases power of unions, Dems because it decreases the power of corporations.
1
Warren and her husband have an estimated combined net worth of $12 million, according to Forbes. But she is female and a minority as well.
2
So people that who are going to vote against the Democrat no matter what they say are against the wealth tax? What a shock!
The basic misunderstanding of this election being pushed by corporate media and corporate Democrats is that if you scold the left for the next year, you can get them to vote for a corporate Democrat.
The Left will not vote for a corporate Democrat. The Left has values that they hold above electoral politics, and they will not sacrifice those values even to get rid of Trump.
Personally I would vote for Nixon over Trump right now, because I understand the dire threat that the Right poses to Our Constitutional Republic. But many left activists who get real things done, like doubling the minimum wage around the country, organizing thousands of hours of volunteers and and millions of dollars of supplies for Hurricane Sandy victims, or using the rules of debt collection to pay off people's medical debt for pennies, have been burned by sell out corporate Democrats so many times that they will not just vote for one because you say so.
The activist Left, that would go door to door to educate people about the dangers of the Right, will not change. They will not sacrifice their values to stop Trump.
The Trump base of white Supremacists funded by billionaires to spread the gospel of hate, greed, and violence will not change.
Moderates cannot make the Left vote against Trump.
What moderates can do is explain to each other why the Left is better than the Right.
1
Well educated Republican men are benefiting from huge tax cuts and many of them still think they are paying high taxes. They are the ones who think that health benefits, Medicare, and other funding that benefits the poor and middle class are unfair to tax payers.
17
@Louise
I'll bet you a dollar Warren would eliminate the cap the Trump tax cut imposed on the mortgage interest deduction and allow it for multiple homes (vacation home on the Vineyard etc.). After all. Her proposals are carefully crafted to exempt herself and her very well off peers.
1
I guess at least she is not planning to get much richer, considering her tax on 50mln.
2
Wide support ?
We'll see.
The election will determine the true nature of American sentiment, not more polls.
I think it's good that they show support because the polls are usually wrong.
The polls, were all pointing toward an certain landslide win by Clinton.
6
@Objectivist
Perhaps you missed it, but Clinton did get nearly three million votes more than Trump. He owes his election to the Electoral College. The poll in question is a national poll.
PS I am not a big fan of a wealth tax which I believe would present great constitutional problems as a direct tax, I just have a penchant to think things through thoroughly after first being well informed.
4
@Bill
"Clinton did get nearly three million votes more than Trump. "
Another poll, that didn't get it right.
He owes his election to the fact that the founders of this nation understood that concentrated populations of people with opinions distinctly different from those in much of the rest of the nation should not be allowed to dominate the politics of the entire nation.
So, they wisely chose a federal republic structure with the president elected by the states.
Thus we are saved, in perpetuity, from the tyranny of the majority.
If Warren gets elected, constitutional constraints won't matter. She has already made it clear that she intends to use plenary executive power to force her ideas onto the nation.
4
So, now we have to live through tyranny of minority, who also prefer to rule by means of executive orders.
1
Sorry, but the wealth tax is a bad idea. It would put a very heavy burden on people who own a lot of illiquid assets such as farmland and rental property. Better to raise income taxes, and at the very least rescind the recent tax tax cuts of Bush the Younger and Trump: you get cash in, you pass some of it on to the government.
12
@Philip Holt it sounds like you own a lot of farmland and rental property. Most of the US population does not. Raising income taxes will only further erode the middle class.
7
@Philip Holt
How many farmers own $50 million worth of farmland? I would estimate it 0.0001% (just a guess of course). That would equate to a land value of $25,000/acre on large 2,000 acre farm.
On rental properties. If a person “owns”, meaning actual equity over $50 million in real estate they can afford this tax.
I agree that other forms of tax should be increased also. We should tax dividend and capital gains on stock investments at the same rate (or higher) as earned income. Income from fund managers (hedge funds etc) who have no skin in the game is regular income and should be taxed as such. Corporate shenanigans should be closed and companies should have some level of minimum tax regardless of all other tax deductions.
20
The greatest evil of a wealth tax is the discouragement of ambition that it causes. It is literally a punishment for success.
An income tax, even a progressive one with relatively high top brackets, still allows one reap some benefit from more effort. But a wealth tax relentlessly, year after year after year, simply takes and takes and takes from you. To merely keep what you already have, you must work more and more and more.
Discouraging ambition will have disastrous consequences for the nation, reducing the total output of the economy and the amount available to be redistributed to those who cannot provide for their own needs. A wealth tax will cause many more people to have attitudes toward work like those of government employees.
A wealth tax is not the equivalent of the property tax on your home if you purchased your home and if the tax is not increased following purchase. If you bought it, then prior to purchase, you factored the property tax into your calculations of the cost to maintain the home. However, if you inherited the home or if the tax on it is raised, then it acts just like a wealth tax. That is the reason why homeowners rebelled against the politicians and government employees of California by passing Proposition 13 back in the early 1970's which limited the annual increase in property tax due to valuation increase.
8
@Errol
Your argument is odd. You say: "To merely keep what you already have, you must work more and more and more."
It that's the case, a wealth tax would be a great stimulus to get people to be even more productive!
9
@Errol Do you really think the only driver of ambition is the chance to not pay taxes on your accumulated assets? Do you really think that paying 2% tax will destroy the drive to create wealth? You have very little confidence in the ambition of wealthy people then. Th
at seems little different than the idea that a higher income tax for higher earners will discourage people from earning more money.
As for Prop 13 it is the main reason that there is an enormous shortage of housing in California so it is fair to say one wonders if it was a good idea anyway.
Furthermore implying that all government employees are lazy and worthless is painting the teachers and policemen and firemen of America with an insultingly broad brush. Perhaps you think that all government business should be done by private enterprise and the government should be just abolished. Would that satisfy you?
5
@Larry Steckman
1) Warren's wealth tax has already grown to 6%.
2) I did not say the only driver of ambition is to keep what you have. I said a wealth tax discourages, not that it destroys completely.
3) It is convoluted reasoning to think that the California housing shortage was aggravated by Prop 13. Oregon has a similar law as Prop 13. But the housing situation is different than in California. Housing shortage in California is simply caused by excess of demand over supply. The supply of housing in California's metro areas is because of intense restrictions and extra costs imposed on building. You may agree or disagree with the need for or wisdom of those restrictions and extra costs, but they are the cause.
3
It’s very interesting that Sen Warren’s proposals have lost steam since July for Democrats and Independents, but are actually picking up steam with Republicans, except for the white men with college degrees group.
This should scare Trump. As we speak Team Trump is probably looking to see if one of her children is on the board of an overseas utility company.
4
A tax proposal has been made, and Casselmam and Tankersley have put time and effort not into honestly analyzing whether the tax will be effective, constitutional, or fair. Instead they create pretty charts based on easily-manipulated polls and data to give everyone one more reason--as if they need one--to detest white men.
How about changing the title: Warren Wealth Tax Has Wide Support Among Those Who Won't Pay the Tax.
20
The irony is not lost on me that the less educated among us are weary of Warren’s plans that will help them the most. Elizabeth Warren is a highly educated, thoughtful policy expert. She happens to also be pretty good at dumbing down complicated topics so the average American can understand it. I think it is way too early to react to polling from busy half paying attention respondents that are overwhelmingly fed prepacked biased sound-bites about big chunky concepts.
5
Have any of the candidates outlined how these wealth taxes will actually work? Rich people with unrealized capital gains in real estate or equities would have to sell 2% of their assets every year to pay in? How would these be valued when market fluctuations impact their holdings daily?
It seems unconstitutional to levy a tax on wealth that may have already been taxed when earned, just because it's sitting there. There's already a 2% tax on wealth the Feds implement on all of us savers at every income level - the 2% inflation target, which robs us of our future purchasing value.
18
@Kevin Perera - Actually the vast majority of wealth is investment income which is passed tax free to heirs. This is money that rather being taxed twice, is NEVER taxed.
5
@Len Charlap - I left off "except for the estate tax which Republicans want to eliminate."
3
@Len Charlap - I left off "except for the estate tax which Republicans want to eliminate."
It's pretty easy to poll support for a tax that will hit only a few "other" people. The fact that said tax is difficult or impossible to enforce and is likely unconstitutional affects the poll not at all.
28
@kwb - Why is the wealth tax " difficult or impossible to enforce" while the estate tax which is also based on wealth easy to enforce?
As for constitutionality, Here is what the ABA says:
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/taxation/publications/abataxtimes_home/19aug/19aug-pp-johnson-a-wealth-tax-is-constitutional/
7
If your net worth is > 50million, what are you complaining about.
5
Most Republican men are not college educated, so maybe not much to worry about Anyway, Trump likes the undereducated
2
Oh no! If the Democrats can't please their traditional base of Republican men, how will they ever win the presidency?!
62
It's not like college educated Republican men aren't underepresented in American governance. Billionaires need MORE money, right?
Funny how people "care about the economy" yet elect a total self-dealing conman (and are talking about electing him again).
Americans are too ignorant to responsibly choose their leaders. That's why we've got Teflon Don the Child King at the helm.
5
Statistics lie and liars use statistics. Look at the first chart. It shows me that support for a wealth tax has slipped across all segments of the survey. The second chart says support for Medicare for all has slipped across all segments except older republicans.
2
The wealth tax did not work in Europe. It is very costly to implement and it will not raise the money that Warren says. Never mind the Gallup poll— what do independent analysts say about the wealth tax?
8
The top 10% of Americans own 80% of the wealth, which they inherited from their parents. The vast majority of this is tied up in the stock market, which does nothing to drive the economy. The Republicans know that "trickle down" economics is a fiction, but are owned by the donor class.
Rewarding innovation is important, but this obscene wealth gap goes far beyond the incentive that's needed. Tax cuts for the middle and working classes, deficit reduction and a social safety net equivalent to all industrialized democracies would put money into the hands of people who would actually spend it. The US economy is 71% consumer spending, so reducing the wealth gap would stimulate the economy, benefiting everyone, including the short-sighted donor class.
5
@David Excellent point on getting some of these dollars “working” in the economy. By and large, mid and lower income individuals spend all of their income. Upper tier earners spend a much lower percentage of their income. We need to balance this wealth gap.
3
What if the IRS was as well funded as the DEA? Adding another tax layer full of loopholes and carve outs does absolutely nothing.
6
Great comment. Thank you.
1
@Alex Emerson
For every dollar spent on the IRS, we get another $9 in revenue from the rich. The Right has been decimating the IRS budget for decades, driving down revenue.
So yes, fully fund the IRS, get rid of loopholes, and tax the wealth of the rich also.
I don't see Warren or Sanders proposing loopholes or carve outs, so I'm not sure what that part of your comment means.
2
All this talk about wealth redistribution will guarantee Trump a second term.
Keep up the good work Dems, the Reps don't even have to try to win. You're handing them the win on a platter.
44
@Randy L. You hit that nail on the head Randy. As a Trump supporter, I am enjoying it immensely.
2
You want to elect a man who called the emoluments clause "phony?" If any other politician lied every time they opened their mouth, they wouldn't be considered for reelection. Why does he get special treatment? Because you think he's wealthy?
That hardly seems fair.
21
@Randy L.
Most people don't think that a few people should have more wealth than the most of the population, so I think you are wrong about that.
The worst thing Democrats can do is try to help Republicans protect the wealth of the rich.
26
It is much more interesting to hear the response when I ask people WHY they oppose a wealth tax on those with more than 50 million dollars. Answers are all over the place especially when 99% are not affected by it personally. The usual answer is some nebulous armchair assumptions as to what would happen. Most people are more interested in where that money would go rather than who would pay and make all kinds of prognostications.
4
Ms. Warren's wealth tax is more akin to the type of Voodoo economics found during the Reagan years. It is not a tax of the Uber wealth of the country which will rise all boats but a simpler, and perhaps flat tax system which would be a good starting point.
Ms. Warren has vast, grand plans, be it on a wealth tax, or health reform, or breaking up large tech firms which to me seem overly optimistic or even unrealistic.
Bottom line as a working person of liberal to moderate views across a variety of issues I'd never vote for her to be our Deomocatic nominee. If she does win that contest we will loose the election to Trump, period stop!
8
It's interesting to note that the article focuses on just the 2% tax increase on the super wealthy, which for many, is palatable. If, however, you ask about the tax on unrealized capital gains, which would affect more investors and would need an increased bureaucratic apparatus to process it, I suspect the support for that part of her plan might be far less.
7
@dc That would depend on where the excess wealth tax kicked in. Nobody who owns a share of stock would submit to paying taxes on the unrealized appreciation.
My great concern is that Warren and the other Democratic presidential candidates are competing to see who can make the most woke and socialist promises:
Free college tuition. Medicare for all, including illegal immigrants. College loan forgiveness. Reparations for blacks and gays. Guaranteed basic income. Federal job guarantees. Federally mandated school busing to achieve integration. Green New Deal (eco-socialism). Voting and early release for prisoners. Open borders.
All the fabulously wealthy US individuals and corporations together do not have the many trillions of dollars needed to pay for these goodies year after year, and even Bernie Sanders has admitted that taxes would have to be raised on the middle class to pay for Medicare for All, not to mention the additional trillions needed for the other items. (For perspective, the current US budget is about $4.4 trillion, with a deficit of about $1 trillion.)
As Margaret Thatcher aptly noted, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.
Don’t forget that our goal in 2020 is to elect a Democratic president, and that will require appealing to the independents, undecideds and others whom the Democrats failed to reach in 2016.
If all of these progressive (socialist) promises, or even a few, are planks in the 2020 Democratic platform we are doomed to a second term of Trump as president.
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@ Mon Ray
Did you even ready this article?
The majority of Democrats, Independents, AND Republicans are in favor of a wealth tax, the only exception educated Republicans.
The majority of Democrats, Independents are also in favor of Medicare for All.
What some call “free stuff” I call it a smart investment with a high return.
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@Mon Ray You are right on
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And note this: the “educated” Republicans, those against wealth tax, tend to statistically have college degrees in Business. The society and environment for business minded people is often limited to the dimensions of their wallet.
3
Funny how every time the MTA proposes a fare increase it I usually around $1. After much debate and public outcry the increase is always much less and everyone is happy.
I see the wealth tax in the same vain, propose it and settle on “restoring” the tax rates, treat dividends as ordinary income, and close the carried interest loophole.
There everyone’s happy.
3
I wish other approaches would get as much press as Warren’s wealth tax so that people, who are concerned about the disappearing middle class, but who are paying less attention to the campaign, know there are other options. I agree that the wealthy need to pay more, but I have concerns about the details of Warren’s plan. Yang’s plan, for example, of adding a VAT and a dividend, would address the same problem in a much cleaner way by targeting spending along with income. Tax reform, especially around investment income, could also accomplish a lot of this.
I’d be curious to see a follow-up poll on which type of approach to address wealth inequality people prefer.
1
Surely I can’t be the only one who finds it disingenuous for a former law professor to push a blatantly unconstitutional proposal and forget to mention that passing it will require a constitutional amendment (as the income tax did way back when)?
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@Brad
The Constitutional issues are unclear, as they were with the income tax. In fact, the US had income taxes before the 16th amendment was ratified in 1913. The Civil War, for instance, was financed by an income tax. Warren, as a former law professor, may understand that history better than many Americans.
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There’s no lack of clarity. A wealth tax wouldn’t get a single vote on the current Supreme Court.
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@Brad
I suspect a fair number of the justices would agree that a wealth tax is constitutional. The text that some say prevents a wealth tax is this:
"No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."
With this clause, however, the Framers were clearly trying to protect the slave states from having to pay a per-person tax (such as a capitation) that would treat slaves as full persons. They do not seem to be trying to restrict taxes on income or wealth. Even before the ratification of the 16th Amendment income taxes were generally thought to be Constitutional. It was only in the 1890s that the court started to rule against income taxes—and that prompted the writing of the 16th amendment to remove all doubt about the constitutionality of the income tax. But before the 1890s, the court had generally ruled in favour of income taxes.
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Gee, let me guess who's vehemently against a wealth tax?
Hello Michael Bloomberg
Nice meeting you Walton heirs
Glad to see you Jeff Bezos
For the record: The Waltons net worth is over 150 billion combined. Go ask any worker @ their stores how they treating them? Zero benefits. In fact they gave new hires papers to file to go on medicaid.
Bezos mega warehouses are 90% run by robots. There are no human capital @ Amazon.
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Obviously $150 billion isn't enough for some people. They need MORE money. And Republicans are going to make sure the wealthy will never pay taxes again.
That's what the middle class is for, right?
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@morGan
The new Amazon warehouse on Staten Island has been found to have THREE TIMES the rate of workplace injuries of the average U.S. warehouse.
People like money and markets. When a government does not create them, people create them anyway. Money and markets are not the problem. The problem is that the word "capitalism" has been used to convince most people that the owners of capital are more important than the rest of us, and that government should be used to benefit them at our expense.
"Unfettered free markets" are designed to let the mega rich abuse everyone else and manipulate markets to steal the productivity of the rest of us and turn it into their wealth. "Free Market Capitalism" is a giant smash and grab operation that purposefully creates chaos (see Donald Trump) to distract from mass theft on a global scale.
The real economy thrives on fairness and stability. A smart government (not dominated by unregulated corporate donations) creates a level playing field where small players are not disadvantaged and stability makes markets predictable, instead of "creative destruction" that destroys more than creates, letting global internet behemoths buy up all of their competition to create global monopolies.
For fifty years the Right demanded global "unfettered capitalism" that has only benefited the super rich, centralizing HALF of the world economy, including controlling shares in all mass media, under their control.
Read between the lines and follow the money.
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@McGloin
Couldn't agree with you more.
Thank you for eloquently making the case why the country needs Sen. Warren now more than ever.
Again, as student of history, I see scary parallel to 1789 in France. The last thing our country need is a revolt by the 99% that will be impossible to predict how it will end.
Does anyone really believe Bloomberg knows how the 99% try to make ends meet?
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Nice to see this framing. It is better than being lectured by the elitist opinion columnists who screech that these ideas are unpopular and will get Trump re-elected.
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Bravo! Thank you for a poll that tells us something about substantive issues and variables that matter!! Thank you for addressing issues other that M4A. In your next survey, you might want to address in greater depth the paradox you idtenify and that is familiar to social scientists. That is, the poor and less educated are least likely to support candidates who most want to lift them up. Go for it please. You will find experts who can help you dig further.
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They love all the benefits of civilization but don't want to pay for it. Who are the real takers?
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@Eric They don't want to pay for it? Now that's rich. The top 2% earners pay around 40% of all taxes, and they are the ones creating the jobs for everyone else.
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They already paid for it. We want to charge them for it again.
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@Eric I just don’t understand why the proponents of this policy just ignore history. This was implemented in almost every European country. It no longer exists except in Norway, the southern part of Spain (and aimed at British expats) and France, where it’s on the way out. Like it philosophically or not, it just doesn’t work except in very special circumstances.
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Honestly how much more money do they need.
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@Calleen Mayer The question is not how much more money someone needs but your right to someone else's money.
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@Jeremy Coney - Where did "someone else's money" come from in the first place. Did it fall like manna from the heavens? Did they print it in their basement?
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@Calleen Mayer That depends entirely on how many politicians they feel they should own. ALEC and the Club for Growth have turned the Republican Party into the overseers' arm of a latifundium.
Advice to Warren:
1-Don't identity obsess.
2-Don't identity obsess.
3-Don't identity obsess.
Whether it is singling out rich people, men etc. it is lethal.
It was lethal to Hillary with her identity/social engineering obsession.
Do unite people like Obama, increase the tax on anybody that is not paying enough and lower it on anybody paying too much.
Do not identity obsess.
Most Americans are sick and tired of identity politics whether it comes from Hillary on the left or Trump on the right.
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@Paul Rich people is only a social class if you make it that way. Otherwise, it becomes a fact. Those with the most money in this country are the ones trying to stop other people from obtaining benefits like affordable health care and college.
And some of us with no money don't see how affordable health care and college fails to benefit society as a whole.
Message boards are a great way to avoid the article and to seek victimization. Stay classy, Folks.
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@ABG I agree 100% with affordable health and college for all but you don't do it by demonizing the rich.
A lot of people consider themselves rich, ie the middle class and you really tick them off if you say the most important thing is not universal health care but soaking the rich.
It's politics 101. It is how you get elected.
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@Paul And I'm suggesting this isn't demonization. This is a redistribution of wealth, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Folks shouldn't go broke if they break a leg. College grads shouldn't enter the world in 6-figure debt. You scream demonization, while the rest of us are trying to not be serfs during our lifetime here in the Greatest Nation on Earth.
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No surprise here. Republican men - I’ve worked with many at law firms - are among the greediest people I’ve ever met.
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@JJ And yet Republicans have historically given more to charity than Democrats. I don’t think it is greed so much as a general distrust of big government.
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@JJ
Your "among" implies that there are equally greedy people in the Democrat camp. Plus lawyers are hardly typical in either party.
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@Thomas Smith - Perhaps, but by giving to charity instead of the gov, Republicans get to control how the money is spent. See the Trump Foundation.
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Look, the Democratic candidate for president, whomever she or he is, won’t be perfect, and their positions on a wealth tax, Medicare for all and other issues would be hashed out in the legislative process, not established by executive orders a la Dictator Trump. So, all this analysis in The Times and other media outlets and trying to predict the future is a waste of time. Why do reporters work so hard to analyze positions during a campaign or run polling data? Just urge us — everyone of us — to take part in the process by voting in November 2020.
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When considering 2c-policies to be yearly, you may consider (asuming these wealthy individuals have spread prosperity, already paid tons of income- and other taxes and often further shared their fortune on charity basis), 2c to sum up to 20% of Wealth gone in a single decade…This might not be much for grandchildren of some billionaire dynasty...but rather important for entrepreneurs...who work on doubling their business every 5-10 years...spreading more prosperity among all. Why not go somewhere else...with no Wealth tax and far lower income tax-rates...they may ask?
When you listen to EW...you may wonder if she is that east-coast scholar indeed...working out plans every day...for all Kind of people...or if she's not some kind of a wolf in the sheep's clothing. 2c may sound very Little but 20% do not.
And, when we listen to EW talking of the fewest of the few… we do hear very little appreciation for what they have done, and given back already (be it on voluntary basis or some sort of taxes), we just hear...they are so few….so few, that we may not care.
And still, her Approach is not inclusive but divisive to the end...pointing at the smallest minority...as the ones, that need to be milked. In my understanding, such policies have always gone wrong...especially when you deal with people likely to defend themselves...or able to leave.
The US do not need furhter division and minority pointing. It is quiet the opposite.
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From a footnote to this article:
"The data in this article came from an online survey of 2,672 adults conducted by the polling firm SurveyMonkey from Nov. 4 to Nov. 11. A supplemental survey of 2,489 adults was conducted from Nov. 14 to Nov. 17 to collect more data on opinions of the Democratic candidates; that survey did not ask about taxes or health care policy."
"In both cases, SurveyMonkey selected respondents at random from the nearly three million people who take surveys on its platform each day."
I think it would be interesting to read an article about how these surveys work as I assume there is a great deal of skepticism about surveys. Do NYTimes readers receive requests to participate in surveys and, if so, answer them?
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Surveys and polls only get the opinions of people willing to answer surveys. That sounds self-evident but it could be a reason that survey results are sometimes so far off the mark.
I have stopped doing surveys both online and by phone. So often it is ridiculously easy to tell that the survey was commissioned by a political party or an industry that only wants results favourable to them or unfavourable to a rival. It is part of the influence industry. By taking the time to answer them, you become complicit in a cooked and dishonest public relations campaign.
I’ve got better things to do with my time than be manipulated for someone else’s benefit.
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It’s not just Republican college educated men who fear and loathe a wealth tax. Plenty of left wing finance guys are angry at the thought.
Watch Steve Ratner fulminate on the subject on Morning Joe.
Yet the world is awash in capital. The rich can’t find places to invest. Returns are driven down and down. Aggregate demand is unnaturally weak because of taxation hits labor earnings more than capital earnings, let alone capital itself.
Past time to reorganize the tax system to favor labor over capital.
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@Frank
Steve Rattner and those other guys on Wall Street to whom you refer are not left wing. They’re closer to being the country club Republicans from 30 years ago, even if they claim to be Republicans now.
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@Frank
Steve Rantner was never a Dem nor Lib.
He is a member of the "super financiers" who manages Bloomberg wealth.
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Possibly because Republican men with college degrees prefer facts to "Progressive" delusions.
The abject failure of wealth tax systems throughout Europe is one of those annoying facts that continues to intrude into the never-never land of Warren's alternative universe in which "Mother knows best" trumps, so to speak, that nasty real world in which we seem to be hopelessly stuck.
But, sail on, Elizabeth, into the endless primary debates leading to the edge of the flat earth and plummeting into the abyss beyond.
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@Good John
"Abject failure?" That would be news to Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and more! These countries regularly best the USA in health and happiness polls. No one goes bankrupt and loses their home because of a medical crisis. More than half of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, despite often working multiple jobs. Life expectancy rates are dropping after decades of rising. A truly strong America wouldn't leave so many people behind.
It's time for a change. I haven't made up my mind about the presidential choices currently in front of us. I just know that more of the same old, same old, will continue America's decline as a truly powerful nation.
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@JMA
A very astute observation, JMA.
Unfortunately none of those nations happens to have a functional "Wealth Tax".
Some have tried and it failed, a fact which doesn't seem to have filtered down into the wilds of Kentucky, but don't let that stop you.
"Reply" away.
But, perhaps, before you have, "...made up (your) mind" you might try cluttering it with a few facts.
They are annoying but you might be surprised at how they help.
@Good John Fagin
"Wilds of Kentucky?" What utter disdain for an entire state. It doesn't change the fact that much of Europe taxes the wealthy at a far higher rate than we do. The results put them far ahead of us in both health and happiness indicators. It doesn't change the fact that our life expectancy rates are falling. Facts.
I assure you that I have plenty more facts "cluttering" my mind. I also speak four languages and have two masters degrees from top private universities. I require no reply from you, because honestly your lack of civility merits no further attention from me. The only reason I'm replying now is to restate facts you clearly missed and to remind you that NO ONE requires your permission to reply or have a voice.
3
A sweeping wealth tax is probably unconstitutional. And will be a bear to implement. Will need a new Amendment. Won’ t happen.
4
I don't know how the question is being worded but, no one is for higher taxes. The only informed people who could possibly support this grab are those who pay no taxes and are looking for free stuff.
10
You are not reading and not paying attention. Unless you earn more than Warren’s upper limit, most of us will not pay more taxes. I’m guessing you don’t eArn enough to worry so try catching up on the news.
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@John hannon
I'm for higher taxes. And I pay a six-figure income tax bill already.
7
Wealth redistribution should not be the aim per se. The aim should be to reduce the divide by elevating the bottom. Those things can’t happen without two key things:
- affordable, reasonable health care costs
- universal access to higher education
On those things, there’s a factor almost universally ignored: the costs have runaway because we’ve allowed it. Other countries don’t have the exorbitant costs we accept on drugs or procedures....or education.
Quick example: I stopped using vision insurance because it was cheaper to go to LensCrafter, pay for their eye exam and use credit towards glasses/contacts. Recently my husband talked me into trying again. I found a provider, waited a month and was thrilled that they took my insurance. Well thrilled until after my eyes had been dilated and exam was over I was told that I’d have to cough up an additional $180 for a contact fitting fee. On top of insurance.
Some of these things just have to be regulated!
My issue with the wealth tax is not one of philosophy but also one of application. If you ask the investor class to cough up a hard asset annually as a price for keeping a soft asset, pretty sure you’re going to see a contraction in investments. Say I own a bunch of McDonalds. On paper they are valued at $50m. Asking me to cough up additional $1m *in cash* annually may be just the thing that keeps me from taking what is always a risk and trying to add to my portfolio with a new store.
4
More progressive income taxes promotes fairness. Confiscation allows government by tyranny. Medicare for all is impossible to deliver without incremental steps. Proposals like this are just meaningless. You need a plan to accomplish anything meaningful. Magical fantasy is not the way to get there.
5
Medicare is not “impossible” to deliver except in incremental steps. Canada did it in the early sixties. We all survived. It’s one of the reasons Canadians are healthier than Americans and live longer.
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@MJM Full disclosure. My wife was born in Canada. Your population is roughly 10% of the U.S. Even under present conditions Medicare is facing insolvency. Unions here sacrificed wages for benefits and they are not willing to renegotiate change of that magnitude. Let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
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@MJM: exactly. The average US citizen has no idea that his or her Canadian or EU counterpart has a longer life expectancy, at a lower health-care expense, and is also better-educated at a lower cost. In the EU, varsity teams are supported by local businesses, not by taxes.
1
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." -- 16th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Regardless of the merits, Sen. Warren's "wealth tax" is not an income tax and thus is almost surely unconstitutional. It's doubtful that a President Warren could pass a wealth tax (even if Dems keep the House, take the Senate and eliminate the filibuster) but if somehow she did, it would be tied up in litigation with the most likely result being a complete rejection by the Supreme Court. Have the Democrats learned nothing from the enactment of "Obamacare"? Resting an entire Presidency on a sweeping reform enacted by a party-line vote only to spend the next years fighting the constitutionality of the program in federal court is a recipe for a failed Presidency.
Sen. Warren's entire platform is a house of cards built on the shaky platform of a tax that can never become the law of the land in the US. This is why I have shifted my support away from Sen. Warren.
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@The Judge And to be clear: My views are not motivated by personal interest; I do not anything near the level of wealth to become subject to Sen. Warren's proposed wealth tax.
1
@The Judge That's why it should not be called a "tax," it should be called a mandatory "health insurance premium" that assesses higher risk from those with greater net worth and exclusively goes to defray the cost of universal health care coverage. But, for some, breaking the constitution is the point, even when there's an easy way to simply work around it.
2
@The Judge
I know Elizabeth Warren. She has never practiced law. She has spent her whole life in the Ivory Towers of Academe. She is naive. In principle I have no objection to the wealth tax. Rich people have an obligation to pay higher taxes. However, in addition to being unconstitutional, it will be impossible to implement. The super rich will hire lawyers to figure out ways to avoid the tax. I know this because, unlike Warren, I spent my professional life practicing law. I would christen the wealth lax legislation “The Tax Lawyers’ Enrichment Act.” You have to wonder about a lawyer who proposes an unconstitutional law as one of the principal blanks in her platform. Unfortunately, many people will vote for her only to see that the law will never be passed. Same thing with Medicare for all.
3
This is an interesting but simply useless regurgitation of numbers that will have little or no effect upon the outcome of the 2020 election. Despite act other commenters opined, it will not be the policies or Wall Street that decide the election.
In real estate everyone knows its "LOCATION, LOCATION LOCATION". Unfortunately in elections, it's now "GERRYMANDERING, ELECTORAL COLLEGE and VOTING SUPPRESSION".
Unless Warren and/or some other candidate has a "plan for that", its a useless dialogue at this point.
8
Why not simply campaign to rescind the "Great Wealthy and Corporate Tax Gift Act of 2017"?
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@Ellwood Nonnemacher If we are to address the widening income gap. which was already extreme at the time the tax cuts were passed, we must do more than simply rescind that act.
15
@Richard Yeah, try the impossible or nothing. None of this piddling around with achievable goals. Go team!
6
No surprise there, greedy little bunch those college educated male Republicans. And on the other hand the group with the highest percentage supporting the wealth tax at 85.6% are college educated male Democrats.
Something to think about, like what do these college educated male Democrats do for a living? Teachers, Scientists, Environmentalists, etc.
The male Republican equivalent, Wall Street, Wall Street, Wall Street, etc.
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@cherrylog754
The fact is, the chance that any of these respondents would be affected by such a tax is effectively nil, pro or con.
It’s about an abstract concepts of justice.
Supporters of the tax want to address what they see as the the unfairness of wealth distribution today, opponents see unfairness in annually taxing accrued personal wealth that has already been through taxation.
Oddly, no candidate addresses the tax structures that created the disparity in the first place. Taxes have become less progressive, regressive when carve outs for investment income is factored in. Why not restore progressivity to statutory rates and treat capital gains as ordinary income? Get rid of the carried income charade. Restore SALT deductions?
34
@RD - Right. Republicans decry "redistribution." What a wealth tax does is to simply redress the redistribution of money from the non-rich to the Rich that happened after 1980.
37
@cherrylog754
My great concern is that Warren and the other Democratic presidential candidates are competing to see who can make the most woke and socialist promises:
Free college tuition. Medicare for all, including illegal immigrants. College loan forgiveness. Reparations for blacks and gays. Guaranteed basic income. Federal job guarantees. Federally mandated school busing to achieve integration. Green New Deal (eco-socialism). Voting and early release for prisoners. Open borders.
All the fabulously wealthy US individuals and corporations together do not have the many trillions of dollars needed to pay for these goodies year after year, and even Bernie Sanders has admitted that taxes would have to be raised on the middle class to pay for Medicare for All, not to mention the additional trillions needed for the other items. (For perspective, the current US budget is about $4.4 trillion, with a deficit of about $1 trillion.)
As Margaret Thatcher aptly noted, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.
Don’t forget that our goal in 2020 is to elect a Democratic president, and that will require appealing to the independents, undecideds and others whom the Democrats failed to reach in 2016.
If all of these progressive (socialist) promises, or even a few, are planks in the 2020 Democratic platform we are doomed to a second term of Trump as president.
8
So, here is a novel method of reporting on political races: an empirical investigation of how appealing different candidate policies are to the electorate.
Americans are constitutionally more pragmatic than ideological.
Reporting based on personalities, a horse race, "likeability", endorsements, or campaign dynamics is more fun for the reporter. This type of analysis is likely to be far more useful for understanding outcomes.
23