The most absurd mass delusion in America two-and-a-half years ago was that electing a constantly lying, hate-spewing, financially corrupt multimillionaire as president would somehow improve the lives of working people struggling to survive in small towns and rural areas. Donald Trump claimed—as a wealthy American who had made enormous profits while paying as little as possible in taxes utilizing every loophole created by Washington politicians for the wealthy— he knew how corrupt the system was and that “I alone can fix it!!”
Ordinary Americans were right that something was seriously wrong with a country where super-wealthy corporate CEOs paid lower effective tax rates than their office secretaries. But working-class voters were foolish to believe that Trump, a lying conman in a gold-plated tower, ever intended to change a system that allowed wealthy people like himself to pay no taxes at all some years. Instead, the only major piece of legislation Trump passed was a $1.5 trillion-dollar tax cut that continued to stuff the bulging pockets of himself, his family and other millionaires and billionaires.
The funny thing is increasing taxes on the wealthy is overwhelmingly popular among all voters, supported by 74% of Democrats, 56% of independents and even 50% of Republicans. That was the response in a recent Politico-Morning Consult poll to a proposal by Democratic presidential candidate Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for a 2% wealth tax on families with a net worth of more than $50 million and an additional 1% tax on families worth more than $1 billion.
The Rich Pay Too Little
And it’s nothing new. With little change over the past 15 years, nearly two-thirds of Americans have been telling Gallup that the wealthy pay too little in taxes. During that time, income inequality has become dramatically worse. Today, the richest one tenth of one percent owns as much wealth as the bottom 90% of Americans. That just happens to be 75,000 families who would pay Warren’s wealth tax that economists estimate would generate $2.75 trillion dollars over the next decade that could be used for health care, education, infrastructure and anything else we might need.
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“That’s how badly out of whack our economy has gotten,” Warren tells enthusiastic crowds as she rises in the polls. “Two cents on the greatest fortunes in this country would yield an investment in every one of our kids in this country.” A 2% tax on “the diamonds, the yachts and the Rembrandts” of a small group of wealthy Americans who’ve been shielded from paying their fair share could fund child care, pre-school and debt-free college and protect necessary social programs such as Social Security and Medicare that Republicans keep targeting for major reductions.
A few words about many of the families who possess those great fortunes: Trump is a continuing example that those fortunate enough to be enjoying such unimaginable wealth are far from our best and our brightest, nor have most of them achieved their lofty positions over all the rest of us through hard work or, for that matter, any work at all. Most have inherited their great fortunes, and many of them have never worked a single day in their lives. They work less and spend far more on drugs than all the poor welfare recipients in the inner cities of America combined, who are continually denigrated by Republican politicians representing the interests of the wealthy.
Level the Playing Field
With such a prime example of why U.S. tax laws need to be shifted to level the playing field for ordinary Americans and force the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share, you won’t believe the latest Republican argument against increasing taxes on those most able to pay. It’s that rich people are far too dishonest—and have so many high-paid lawyers and lobbyists creating tax loopholes for them—so they can never actually be forced to pay a cent more in taxes.
This argument was spelled out recently in an analysis in The Washington Post, suggesting Warren’s tax on the super-wealthy to pay for programs benefitting all Americans “could amount to the largest transfer of wealth from the richest Americans to the middle class in U.S. history.” But it warned that Warren was relying on assumptions “that deny a long history of U.S. policymaking,” especially “that the country’s wealthiest taxpayers won’t find ways to evade the targeted tax hike she proposes.”
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics and an advisor to billionaire Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, said: “Will the wealthy do things that wealthy people can do to avoid paying the tax? That’s the real concern that I have.”
That’s it? That rich people are too rich, powerful and dishonest ever to be required to pay higher taxes? If that’s true, democracy is even more broken than most of us realize. It’s even more important working people elect candidates who really will restore fair taxation instead of electing lying multimillionaires who only care about themselves.
