Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Yet Another Vicious Plan to Tax "The Rich"

Steven Rattner, a counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration, is happy that the socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for higher taxes on the rich.

He writes in an op-ed for The New York Times:

Kudos to our latest political supernova, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for helpfully bringing taxes back into focus, with her call for a new top tax rate of 70 percent on incomes above $10 million a year.
He spends the rest of his essay advancing his own scheme to tax the rich, and thus destroy capital:
While I’m all for raising taxes on the wealthy (in large part because we need to deal with our growing deficit)...There are other, better ways to raise revenue — in particular, by increasing the tax rate on capital gains and dividends and closing loopholes... an expert at the Tax Policy Center told me that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal could raise around $300 billion a year.

My alternative could potentially raise as much revenue, using Congressional Budget Office estimates as a guide...

But while raising those tax rates closer to those on ordinary income would make the system fairer, other changes would be required to prevent owners of appreciated assets from avoiding their tax obligations. For example, the United States should eliminate the provision that forgives unpaid capital gains taxes on assets held at death.

And there are many loopholes that could be closed in the name of greater equity.
Never forget what the great economist Ludwig von Mises taught us:
 Capitalism breathes through those loopholes.
In this era of resistance to Trump, the statist, socialist advance continues. I warned you about AOC, she is extremely dangerous. Her hate of capitalism knows no bounds. She will continue to attack capitalism at every opportunity she can and when one of her attacks gains traction in the general public other statist operators will read the tea leaves and jump on board as Rattner is doing with his own tax scheme.

"Taxing the rich" schemes are really about taxing capital. Attacking capital by taxing it is one of the most vicious things you can do to an economy. It means a slowdown in the production of consumer goods.

But the attacks on capital, under the guise of "taxing the rich," appear to be the wave of the future.

-RW 

2 comments:

  1. If taxing the rich is taxing capital what is has the sustained attack on savers been through LIRP/ZIRP/NIRP and money creation programs? It's not taxing the rich, it's attacking the capital of the risk adverse of the middle class and those who simply don't have enough to play in the stock market without losses devastating them financially. That attack of course benefits many of "the rich" who got that way or richer from being near a fed money tap of cheap or free money. So now there is a call to "tax the rich".

    Sure blame it on Trump, but the root cause is the central bank that created artificial income and wealth disparities, not Trump. Without Trump and with HRC in office maybe the "tax the rich" thing would maybe fade into the background but the attack on capital in general would not lessen. The left would only be more sneaky about it when they are in power. As they were throughout Obama's time in office. They would have to be else be blamed for the effects of it. It would just be who's capital is being attacked that would change. And yes I understand that 'tax the rich' becomes 'tax the middle class' in practice. But let's not pretend that capital hasn't been under heavy attack for a decade now and the front lines of the war are merely shifting.




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  2. When you see the crony classes saying it's time to "tax the rich", it's time to hide your wallet if you are middle or upper middle class.

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