Kamala Harris and the politics of envy

Kamala Harris and the politics of envy

Kamala Harris is running as the “candidate of change” promising a “new way forward.” Has she forgotten that she was Joe Biden’s vice president? Since the majority of voters says the country is heading in the wrong direction, she thinks the electorate must have amnesia. The polls indicate that she might be right. Again, any candidate but Trump would be 20 points ahead and have a landslide victory rivaling that of Nixon’s over McGovern who managed to eke out 17 electoral votes.

Kamala Harris, who as you know, grew up a poor girl forced to ride school buses and flip burgers at McDonald’s and could not afford to go to her parent’s schools (Berkeley and Stanford) like her younger sister, is your typical working class person of color.

Harris is running ads saying that she will make billionaires “pay their fair share” whatever that is. What is fair? The US tax code is one of the most progressive in the world. In 2020, the top 1% of taxpayers paid $42% of all federal income taxes despite earning only 22% of taxable income. The bottom 90% paid only 26% despite earning 50% of income. Is this fair? By the way, 34% of all tax filers paid no income taxes at all. Is this fair? I think not. I think that all earners should pay a minimum tax regardless of income as part of the price of residency.

Let us suppose that their fair share is the max tax bracket of 37%. Of course, one problem is that some billionaires may have very little income. Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet have a salary of about $100,000 a year which puts them in the 22% tax bracket. This is where Biden’s proposed tax on unrealized capital gains comes in. Of course, most billionaires including the democrat ones oppose such a tax. Even Mark Cuban who has been acting as a Harris surrogate telling us what she really means, is against the tax. Another problem is how to treat unrealized capital losses. For example, last year Elon Musk “lost” $24 billion when Tesla stock fell 9%. Does this mean that Musk who as a result was worth only $232 billion would be due a tax refund?

What about Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax? She wants a 2% tax on every dollar of net worth over $50 million and an additional 1% on every dollar of net worth over $1 billion. Instead of impacting just the 500 or so billionaires in the country, it would affect over 75,000 households. Some European countries have instituted such a tax and it has been a flop. In France, before Macron killed it, 42,000 millionaires left the country. As a result, wealth taxes raise less revenue than anticipated. Warren’s proposal would tax people regardless of where they lived. If they were to change citizenship it would levy an exit tax of 40 percent of wealth over $50 million. However, one problem is for the government to estimate yearly the market value of all of person’s assets. The high administrative costs of such a task caused Austria to end their tax. Again, let the billionaires who back Warren lead by example. Let them donate 2% of every dollar of net worth over $50 million and 1% of every dollar of net worth over $1 billion. It would be only fair!

What is fair? The US tax code is one of the most progressive in the world. In 2020, the top 1% of taxpayers paid $42% of all federal income taxes despite earning only 22% of taxable income. The bottom 90% paid only 26% despite earning 50% of income. Is this fair? By the way, 34% of all tax filers paid no income taxes at all. Is this fair? I think not. I think that all earners should pay a minimum tax regardless of income as part of the price of residency.

Here is a better idea, let the billionaire democrats voluntarily donate a certain percent of their wealth each year to the federal coffers. So Cuban, Bloomberg, Soros, Steyer, Jobs, Pritzker, Schultz (Starbucks), Gray (Blackstone) and the rest should, in addition to buying influence, could then have Harris change her campaign spiel from making billionaires pay their fair share to “make republican billionaires pay their fair share too”.