Comment received via Facebook: America’s billionaires could give everybody in the country a $3,000 stimulus check and still be richer than before the pandemic. If that does not convince you we need a wealth tax, I do not know what will.
Response: So people have no incentive to work and invest?
Response from original commenter: people need help to survive and feed their families. If you have no job you can’t work an if you can’t work you can’t feed your family. If you can’t eat you can’t work or invest. Americans need to help each other. It’s called compassion. These are desperate times for millions of Americans!
Response: My problem is not with compassion. In fact, my proposals provide a lot more than a one-time $3,000 payment. A permanent program would eliminate the food insecurity so exacerbated by the pandemic. It would fund housing for the who want it without the unfunded mandate of the eviction moratorium so detrimental to landlords. It provides a level of medical care for all citizens without tying it to employment, which would have helped greatly during this time of heavy job losses.
My objection is to the funding method. Let’s not kill the goose that lays the golden egg. A wealth tax takes the once a generation business disruption of the estate tax and makes it an annual occurrence. Yes, I would like to eliminate the estate tax as well (in a way that actually increases revenue), but that is a separate issue. The time to tax growth in the value of a business is when all or part is sold — that is when the cash is available without damaging the business. Yes, I would also like to make significant changes to capital gains taxes, but that is also another issue.
In the current situation, I wonder how much of the increase in wealth is real. How much is due to Tesla, which is clearly overvalued? I do not have those numbers. That portion will be reduced when people realize Tesla cannot sell enough cars (and other things) to justify the current valuation. Isn’t the rest of the stock market overvalued as well? Why is the market higher today than before the pandemic?
Wealth Tax
Comment received via Facebook: America’s billionaires could give everybody in the country a $3,000 stimulus check and still be richer than before the pandemic. If that does not convince you we need a wealth tax, I do not know what will.
Response: So people have no incentive to work and invest?
Response from original commenter: people need help to survive and feed their families. If you have no job you can’t work an if you can’t work you can’t feed your family. If you can’t eat you can’t work or invest. Americans need to help each other. It’s called compassion. These are desperate times for millions of Americans!
Response: My problem is not with compassion. In fact, my proposals provide a lot more than a one-time $3,000 payment. A permanent program would eliminate the food insecurity so exacerbated by the pandemic. It would fund housing for the who want it without the unfunded mandate of the eviction moratorium so detrimental to landlords. It provides a level of medical care for all citizens without tying it to employment, which would have helped greatly during this time of heavy job losses.
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 26th, 2020 at 6:51 am and is filed under Comments, Tax Reform, Welfare Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.