Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the growing calls from Democratic presidential candidates for “wealth taxes” targeting the increasingly demonized “super rich.” Putting aside serious questions over the constitutionality of such wealth taxes (despite being the core cause of candidates like Elizabeth Warren), Democrats appear to be moving from Rousseauian to a Robespierrean rhetoric in this new class warfare.
Here is the column with a few of the underlying facts beyond the rhetoric:
“When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” Philosopher Rousseau said those words about the French Revolution more than 200 years ago, but they could well have been a talking point in the Democratic debates this week. The candidates brushed aside repeated questions about raising taxes to pay the trillions promised for free college, universal health care, reparations and new homes for African Americans, free health care for the undocumented, massive investment in traditionally black colleges, and other “big ideas” that various candidates pledged.
What they all agreed on was that the “rich” would pay for much of it. The loudest in this declaration of class warfare was New York Mayor Bill De Blasio, who promised that “we will tax the hell out of the wealthy.” The growing Rousseauian chant to “tax the rich” is, of course, hardly new in politics. However, the current age of rage makes this call more menacing. Suddenly, the wealthiest citizens are being portrayed as virtual predators of the poor.
Senator Elizabeth Warren even seemed to be poking the chest of an imaginary tycoon in declaring that she was coming after “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts.” I previously wrote that Warren’s concept of a wealth tax appears unconstitutional. Nevertheless, Warren continues to pledge to impose taxes on the most wealthy (2 percent for more than $50 million in assets, and 3 percent for more than $1 billion). Not to be outdone, De Blasio promised to top her tax plan, with a wealth tax on everyone worth $10 million or more.
The demonization of the wealthy continued as candidate after candidate spoke of how the top 1 percent was a virtual class of robber barons who are avoiding taxes or paying little back to society. Other Democrats like Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have called to increase the tax rate to 70 percent from the current 37 percent for income over $10 million. Just for the record, the top 1 percent of federal taxpayers paid 37.3 percent of taxes, more than the bottom 90 percent combined that paid 30.5 percent. The top 50 percent of taxpayers paid 97 percent of total individual income taxes. That means that the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers are paying virtually no income taxes.
To qualify as the top 5 percent of earners, your household needs to make $300,000 or more. To qualify as one of the top 10 percent, the cut-off is around $118,000. That does not mean that the wealthy should not pay more in taxes. However, Democrats are undermining their push for higher taxes by pledging trillion-dollar programs as if those would involve chump change. Want a house? Senator Kamala Harris will help pay for it if you are African American. Want free college tuition? Virtually all of the candidates are guaranteeing it. Hate your college loans? Gone, by order of Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders.
Warren created a lasting gift during the debate when she gleefully rubbed her hands together after saying that she would take some of the wealth of fellow presidential candidate and former congressman John Delaney, a self made millionaire worth $65 million. For Republicans, it is the gift that will keep on giving well into the 2020 election. Warren relished the idea of grabbing the wealth of Delaney and others as she promised freebees to every swing group of voters. Like many politicians referring to “my” programs, the glee is in the spending, not the making of the money.
With polls showing him at a practical zero in terms of support and currently less popular than Trump in his own city De Blasio left Rousseau behind and went full Robespierre in promising a virtual reign of tax terror for the wealthy. De Blasio declared that he “would go farther than any other 2020 candidate to reshape society.” He dismissed the need to explain where the necessary trillions in tax dollars will come from with a casual, “There’s plenty of money in this country. It is just in the wrong hands.” He promised to lead the proletariat and, “When I am president, we will even up the score.” He even promised to hit Americans who are renouncing their citizenship with a 40 percent “Turncoat Tax.”
He did not explain how he would deduce which people are changing citizenship for tax reasons, or how he intends to tax citizens of another country. That does not matter when you are “reshaping society.” De Blasio’s portrayal of tax increases as a type of caged hunt for fat cats is, of course, ridiculous. The problem is that the wealthy can leave. Now that New Yorkers cannot write off their higher taxes on their federal forms, many indeed are fleeing and, faced with a $2.3 billion budget shortfall, even New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has admitted, “This is the flip side. Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. The rich leave, and now what do you do?”
The loss of those top earners can be devastating. The top 1 percent, who are being constantly attacked by Democrats, pay for nearly half of the income tax revenue in New York City. A family of four in New York earning $175,000 will pay 25 percent of their income in New York in taxes, in contrast to the 14 percent paid by the same family in Florida. The problem is that the wealthy can leave not just New York but the country. Moreover, many wealthy foreign investors are unlikely to come to the United States just to end up in a De Blasio tumbrel on their way to the Internal Revenue Service.
Our tax system remains a mess and there is a real wealth disparity that must be addressed. However, we have to do so in a constitutional, logical way, including possible tax increases. Moreover, President Trump and the Republicans in Congress have proven just as irresponsible on spending as the Democrats. Both parties have continued to lift the debt ceiling and, with the new appropriations bill, Trump will have added $4.1 trillion to the national debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Our total national debt surpassed $22 trillion in February.
Rather than deal with the economic meltdown caused by such a debt load, Democrats are pledging to hunt down the wealthy, while Trump is bizarrely insisting he can wipe out our debt in eight years. They all are kicking the can down the road for the next generation to pay. In the meantime, class warfare is now a virtual political-platform item for Democrats. Aerosmith already has a theme song ready to go for the Democratic Convention. It’s called “Eat the Rich.” While not complaining about the “diamonds, yachts and Rembrandts,” it does denounce the wealthy for their “poodles and pills.” The rest is a good sound byte that you can literally dance to: “There is only one thing that they are good for. Eat the rich. Take one bite now. Come back for more. Eat the rich.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Some basic facts are necessary to understand federal taxation in America. First, about 45% of Americans aren’t paying any income tax. But the top 10% earners pay about 69% of total income taxes (with the top 5% paying 58%). That means the remaining 45%, largely consisting of the middle and upper middle classes, are paying the rest of the taxes. So any tax schemes that purport to target the top 10% of earners are really going after the middle class, regardless of what their proponents say. Of the Democratic candidates, only Bernie Sanders was at least a little bit honest in admitting that his proposals would raise taxes on the middle class.
And with those facts in mind, I submit the following joke:
A tenured professor holding the “distinguished” Karl Marx Chair in Economics at Harvard University is explaining to her class the “golden rule” that “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” and that under an ideal socialist economy, there will be “free lunch” for all.
One of the students in the back of the class, however, raises her hand and tells the professor that Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, has advised that there is no such thing as a “free lunch.”
The professor responds, “Well, yes, in Milton Friedman’s capitalist society, that places limits on human achievement, there is no “free lunch,” but in the ideal socialist world that I’m speaking of, there is, indeed, “free lunch” for everyone!”
The student says, “Okay, if you say so. I’ll ask Milton Friedman when I get to Heaven to find out who is correct.”
“But what if Milton Friedman didn’t make it to Heaven?” the professor asks.
“Well, in that case, you ask him.”
Canuck would seem to be jabbering to himself. Sad.
Blah blah blah. Time for you to grow up.
A lack of class is what you demonstrate here regularly. How about you take your nastiness elsewhere so the rest of us don’t have to be bothered with your hating?
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Talking to yourself, Canuck?
The last time I heard that particular little jab, the speaker was in grade 3 and thought he was oh so clever. So now we know you’re intellectual level, don’t we?
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In reply to whom?
Class warfare has been going on for generations, just ask those in bottom 50% who have been on the losing side. They know it. Now that it looks like it’s JT’s wallet that’s being targeted, he sees the war.
not the bottom 50 at all. The bottom 20 has about 15 different enttitlement programs to give them free stuff. it is the “Working poor” who make too much to qualify for all those programs who get screwed the hardest. let’s say the middle 80 per cent more like.
the top 10 % will always be able to hire lawyers and CPAs to lawfully, strategically, “avoid” taxes. I should know, it’s helped me put bread on the table for many years of my humble and unimpressive career out in here in flyover.
Why is it that there are so many diverse voices questioning the cost of the people programs and not one raises an objection to the bleeding, no, hemorrhaging of the treasury (and indebting of our future generations) in financing the wars? We are talking about trillions, folks! No chump change. That money would more than cover the naysayers’ objections. And before we savage the poor for “getting something for nothing,” let us not forget that tax write-offs, subsidies, and deferrals are nothing else but corporate welfare–welfare on steroids. Nothing wrong with making money, but we all are on the same boat whether we like it or not, and the only way we can hope to survive is to work for a common good. How much enough is enough?.
https://thornberry.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=44611
When defense spending was over 50% of the U.S. federal budget, a significant cut in defense spending would have had a big impact on overall spending.
With defense spending currently at about 15% of all federal expenditures, reduction of spending in that area would have a far lesser impact on the size of the federal budget.
According to the War Resisters League 2020 fiscal year budget, current military budget is 26% and past military is 22%. Isn’t it amazing that trillions of dollars can always be found to fund the war machine but there’s nothing available for the good of the people.
What better good than to protect the country from enemies while making sure that our strength is such that no one desires to test it which is how wars get started?
PUNITIVE TAXATION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
REDISTRIBUTIVE TAXATION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
REGULATION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Good morning, children. Today’s lesson is that Congress cannot engage in taxation for corrupt payoffs to favorites, impose any punitive tax and that Congress has the power to tax merely for “…general Welfare…” omitting and, thereby, excluding any power to tax for “…individual Welfare.” Charity and redistribution of wealth must be voluntarily accomplished in the free markets of the private sector observing the implicit policy of Separation of Charity and State.
Additionally, Congress has no power to regulate anything other than trade, exchange or “…commerce among the several States…” to preclude bias or favor by one state over another.
Make no mistake. The American Founders overthrew the British monarchy and dictatorship and individuals were deliberately provided maximal freedom by the Constitution and Bill of Rights as government was deliberately severely limited and restricted. Restriction is on government not individual Americans.
Citizens may “…petition” the Government for a redress of grievances.” Citizens may not conduct a virulent dictatorship or otherwise breach the Constitution and/or Bill of Rights through that process of “redress.” Courts of law exist to deter and penalize crime and to remediate civil damages – to effect “…redress of grievances.”
We are all obligated, as Americans, to familiarize ourselves with the law and obey the law including fundamental law – that includes all of you corrupt, anti-American, one-world-globalist Justices at the Supreme Court and all of you corrupt, anti-American, one-world-globalist judges throughout the judicial (i.e. 2nd legislative) branch.
Your homework today, children, is to study Article 1, Section 8. There will be a quiz tomorrow.
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Article 1, Section 8
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;…”