This bill on the face of it is pretty dumb. Most billionaires do not have liquid assets that are easily converted into money. In fact, most of the people's wealth increased due to their company stock price increasing. In order to pay these bills, the people would likely have to break sec laws to sell the stock quickly since there are all kinds of rules in this area. And if they get around that and are forced to sell large amounts of their holdings in companies, I imagine the stock market would crash, or have a local crash. And almost assuredly the stock wouldn't be worth nearly as much, so they would be forced to liquidate nearly everything they own to pay this tax bill.<p>I also imagine these billionaires will find some loophole or simply sue the government and keep this in the courts for years while they figure out a way to nullify it.<p>Honestly, this whole thing is a publicity stunt because the backers all know it has no chance of ever happening. Then they can pretend they care, and that they tried to do something. While in reality, they are doing nothing and never had any plan to do anything achievable.
Meanwhile, you can create a billion dollars with a few keystrokes at the Federal Reserve.<p>It's really about who has power to control the economy of the country: private individuals or the banks and the government. It used to be way over on the private individual side before the fed and the income tax flipped power over to the banks and the government side. Previously, you had Carnegie and Rockefeller running very large portions of the economy and the banks and government were much less powerful.<p>Today it's govetnment borrowing and the banks that make most of the money. Yes, the banks create money. It's called fractional reserve banking and the money multiplier and it's all legal all totally out in the open. Keynesian economists will tell you that the banks are the most important organizations in the entire economy because they create money to increase aggregate demand.<p>Meanwhile in China, the government prints money whenever it needs it and tells the banks what to do and who to lend to and they haven't had a credit bust since the 80s, even though The Economist has regularly been predicting one since the early 90s.
An obscene and thoroughly unconstitutional (Article I, Section 9) move.<p>The wealthy pay an incredible amount of tax - Cuomo just said that a single percent of New Yorkers pay half of the entire tax take.<p>That may be good and just - it may even be right to increase that share - but to slap a retroactive tax on their POST-TAX wealth is heinous.<p>This is before we get into practicalities... if I recall correctly, nonpartisan modelling of Warren's wealth tax plan would've levied tax rates over 100% on certain people, and been incredibly inefficient (the cost of collecting the money, all said, negated a good portion of the takings... much more than any existing tax targeted at the wealthy does).<p>Class war greed. It should be opposed. IMHO.
This is a totally legitimate, efficient, and reasonable method of taxation. The persons involved are basically lottery winners, due to random and unjustified gyrations in the stock market, and will remain extremely wealthy after the tax is levied, barely even noticing the effect of this tax. The real question is whether or not the government will use the money for something productive, like infrastructure, or unproductive, like pointless wars.
>Bill Gates: I’ve paid $10 billion in taxes. I should have paid more.<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/27/18243183/bill-gates-foundation-reddit-ama-billionaire-taxes" rel="nofollow">https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/27/18243183/bill-g...</a>
> Amazon and Walmart, for example, have both seen their stocks grow as Americans increasingly relied on their services during stay-at-home orders during the pandemic.<p>Jeff Bezos through Amazon and the Walton family through Wal-Mart did more to help me and my family, and I suspect most Americans, get through the coronavirus than Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, and Kirsten Gillibrand.<p>Businesses that solve the massive logistics problems of operating in a pandemic and provided needed goods to consumers should be rewarded. I am not any worse off that Bezos' and the Walton's stock value increased because of this. In fact, I am better off.
The traditional way to make this project feasible is to give the billionaires (and maybe even a few aspiring multimillionaires; one mustn't be too picky in fundraising) a piece of coloured ribbon in exchange for their donations to their fellow citizens, as well as inviting them and their families (especially marriageable children) to an annual cell-phones-in-the-fishtank no-non-donators-allowed party celebrating their commitment to their nation.<p>(TIL "Eat the rich" is attributed to Rousseau, not to Wells' Eloi/Morlock dynamic. I am disappoint. "Tax the rich" is apparently a 3rd rail in US politics. "Feast the rich", on the other hand, would use the carrot of exclusive membership — what Capitalist could resist such an incentive?)
Come on, Sanders, don't puss out and stop there. How about: a 100% marginal tax rate on any wealth earned after personal wealth exceeds 1 billion dollars.