BlazeProbably not how it works
ekZepp
earthwormThe wealth tax typically proposed by these campaigns (like 2 or 3%) would raise money but it would not stop billionaires from getting richer. (That’s why even billionaires advocate for it.)
The finish line should not be “raise money to fund public programs.”
The finish line should be “tax wealth billionaires out of existence.”
"tax the rich" is a scam?
ObjectivityIncarnateThe finish line should not be “raise money to fund public programs.”
The finish line should be “billionaires don’t exist.”
Financially speaking, helping the poor and hurting the rich are not the same thing, and it’s honestly concerning when I see people prioritize the latter over the former. Eradicating poverty matters infinitely more than keeping people’s net worth (which as a reminder, is just a guessed (there is no billionaire whose net worth is precisely known), hypothetical, fluctuating price tag on the stuff they own, should they decide to sell it) under some arbitrary maximum.
And that’s without even mentioning how much tax revenue is wasted on things that don’t actually serve the population at large. What good is an extra $X billion in tax revenue if it’s all pissed away anyway? As one example, the US government spends more per capita on healthcare than any other country, and yet we’re far from #1 in most healthcare categories. How does that make sense? We’re already not getting what we’re paying for, fixing things like that is more important than simply increasing the amount of money going down the same wasteful hole, I think.
I disagree.
Billionaires have outsize influence. They buy politicians to set public policies that affect the working class and divert billions of our dollars into their pockets.
If you put all of their money on a pit and set it on fire, it would have a greater impact than taxing them 2% and spending all of it on public programs, because they would no longer be able to do harm on a billionaire scale.
The people could heal.
We’d still have other beasts to deal with, but the existence of billionaires is a cap on the lives of the working class.
the existence of billionaires is a cap on the lives of the working class.
Billionaires per capita in the US increased by about 7x over the past 100 years, while the percentage of the population living in poverty was 4-6x higher 100 years ago, compared to what it is today.
The correlation is in literally the opposite direction as what you claim. How do you reconcile these facts with your assertion?
Even if I had asserted that billionaires cap the lives of the working class to the poverty line (which I didn’t), the poverty line is an outdated, unserious measure of how Americans are doing.
More about the FPLMy assertion is that billionaires are a cap on the lives of the working class, not that the cap is set at the federal poverty line. But even if I had, the poverty line itself is an outdated measure and should not be trusted as a simple measure of how the working class is doing. I can’t see your links (imgur says their servers are overloaded), but I’ll use US figures for the sake of argument. > The [federal poverty line is] derived from the official poverty thresholds, which were originally developed in the 1960s based on the cost of a minimum food diet multiplied by three — reflecting the “fact” [quotations mine] that food makes up about one-third of a typical family’s budget. (What is the federal poverty level?) Look up “average American monthly expenses”, and you’ll see that food consistently accounts for less than 15%. The FPL is outdated and has been for decades. There’s controversy about the right way to measure poverty, but no one serious on either side of the argument points at “the percentage of the population living in poverty” and calls it a day.
The majority of Americans support progressive policies. But whether or not a policy is passed depends on whether or not it has the support of the billionaire class.
::: spoiler More on the popularity of progressive policies and the impact of wealth on policy change Over half of Americans say they lack the cash to cover a $1,000 unexpected emergency expense. Increased earnings — not lower spending — is main driver for boosting emergency funds. The most common cause of emergency expenses in the United States is a medical emergency. Regardless of whether or not they meet a 1960’s definition of poverty, Americans are not, by and large, financially well.
The majority of Americans support progressive programs that address the causes of this precarity: paid maternity leave, childcare support, boosting the minimum wage, free college, and Medicare for All.
But what we want doesn’t get passed.
When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. … When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
Working class Americans (and not just those at or below the federal poverty line) support policy changes that would materially improve their lives. When those policies conflict with the interests of billionaires, the billionaires stop them from passing.
In other words, they put a cap on it.
Working class Americans (and not just those at or below the federal poverty line) support policy changes that would materially improve their lives. When those policies conflict with the interests of billionaires, the billionaires stop them from passing.
Are you seriously suggesting that legislation that is detrimental to billionaires never becomes law?
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, among other things, imposed an excise tax on stock buybacks, something that will literally never impact anyone who isn’t significantly wealthy, and that passed. A year before, the Corporate Transparency Act passed, and basically struck the death knell for shell company schemes, (not a whole lot of that happening among the working class, lol) by requiring “Beneficial Owners” to be reported to FinCEN, so they know who the actual human beings who own them are. Billionaires lost the ability to hide assets and real estate within anonymous LLCs.
It’s ridiculous to think that billionaires are all just smiting any and all legislation that would negatively impact them at will. You are clearly deep in some echo chambers.
A year before, the Corporate Transparency Act passed, and basically struck the death knell for shell company schemes… by requiring “Beneficial Owners” to be reported to FinCEN, so they know who the actual human beings who own them are. Billionaires lost the ability to hide assets and real estate within anonymous LLCs.
You mean the one that Trump and Musk (both billionaires, btw) killed the enforcement of after a tweet? Doesn’t sound like the billionaires lost the ability to hide anything.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, among other things, imposed an excise tax on stock buybacks, something that will literally never impact anyone who isn’t significantly wealthy, and that passed.
Are you arguing that a 1% excise tax limited to stock buybacks (even lower than the 2 and 3% we were initially discussing) in any way counters the well-documented fact that billionaires and corporations have hundreds of ways to avoid paying taxes.
Part of the IRA (2022) was budget for hiring more tax auditors. Corporations underpay every chance they get and won’t pay a penny more until an auditor can prove the difference. Under Trump, the IRS has shrunk. They’ve had to repeatedly provide relief and extended relief from penalties due to underpayment.
The headline of “we passed a law that says they’ll pay” doesn’t match the reality of “but not this year because they say it’s too complicated, we don’t have enough staff to audit them, and they have more accountants than we have people who specialize in legally hiding their assets and cooking the numbers.”
For every legal loophole that is closed, the ultra-wealthy find and create two more.
Every program to serve the needs of the working class is pushed back with “how are you going to pay for it?” With the money that billionaires and corporations should be paying, but aren’t.
The existence of billionaires is a cap on the lives of the working class.
You mean the same Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) that Trump and Musk killed the enforcement of after a tweet? (Both billionaires, btw.)
Goalpost move, you said billionaires prevent those laws from passing. They passed. You lied. The end.
Are you arguing that a 1% excise tax limited to stock buybacks (even lower than the 2 and 3% I already argued won’t change the status quo) in any way counters [anything]?
Nope. A new tax that applies only to the wealthiest demographic successfully passing is just another refutation of your assertion that billionaires prevent legislation that affects them negatively from passing, and that’s the only reason I mentioned it. More desperate goalpost moves.
For every legal loophole that is closed
So you admit they do get closed. I thought billionaires never let detrimental legislation pass?
It would be convenient for you, if I were to suggest that, or any other argument you try to put in my mouth.
Behold, your words, verbatim:
When those policies conflict with the interests of billionaires, the billionaires stop them from passing.
For anyone who’s read this far, I hope you got something useful from it.
Hopefully you’ve seen enough evidence that billionaires and corporations consistently avoid paying the taxes they owe, and that counterclaims (like the assertion that the BOI ended their ability to hide their assets) often fall apart when you look into what’s actually happening.
With the last response above, it has become clear that damnedfurry isn’t interested in good faith argument, but in childishly scoring points by intentionally misinterpreting my words.
I’m done with damnedfurry, and I’ll block them if their comments further devolve into childish sneers or personal attacks.