Below is my column in Fox.com on the interview last night of Michigan Democratic Senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed with Fox host Jesse Watters. (An earlier version appeared on the blog, but I have replaced it with this shorter version).
Here is the column:
Abdul El-Sayed is tackling a new national crisis: the excess of money held by some tragically wealthy citizens. In his interview this week with Fox host Jesse Watters, the Michigan Democratic Senatorial candidate not only reaffirmed his call for a wealth tax, but suggested that wealthy people really do not have much use for money that is best left to the public.
El-Sayed needs money. A lot of money. He has called for massive new programs to fund Medicare-for-All, reparations, roads, and other programs promised to Michigan voters. He is only the latest Democratic leader to support a wealth tax, which would (in my opinion) be unconstitutional on the federal level and disastrous on a state level.
Earlier in the week, El-Sayed expressed full support for a wealth tax, including non-billionaires. He declared on a podcast: “I also think we got to start taxing wealth for people who now have over $100 million. I mean at that point like what are gonna even do with more money?”
Figures such as Rep. Ro Khanna have also called for a wealth tax on millionaires, not just billionaires. As some of us predicted, the use of billionaires was simply a strategic and political framing. Once politicians succeed in opening up this untapped wealth to taxation, they will gradually work down the tax rolls as they acquire a windfall in new revenue.
I discuss the tax in my book “Rage and the Republic” as an example of the “eat-the-rich” politics used by demagogues from ancient Athens to the French Revolution. Politicians seek to divide a population into “haves” and “have-nots” with the promise that citizens could have it all. Much of what El-Sayed said is ripped from the pages of such figures like Huey Long and his “share our wealth” campaigns in the 1930s.
In his Fox interview, El-Sayed reaffirmed his call for a wealth tax, adding:
“The question ultimately is, ‘Do you want to drive on good roads, or would you rather have a billionaire make a second billion?’ That’s what Mike Rogers wants. That’s why Donald Trump wants. Apparently, that’s what you want. I think the people in Michigan want something different.”
While El-Sayed has reported $686,069 in income with his wife in 2025, they would not be subject to the wealth tax. It would currently apply to those with $100 million or more in property and other forms of wealth.
El-Sayed appears to conflate or confuse wealth taxes and income taxes in the interview. He told Hannity, “If we tax you at 7%, you’re still going to make what? A cool $30 million off your billion dollars? I think that’s okay, they’re going to be okay, Jesse.”
It’s unclear what he is referencing. Even if you are talking about a billion dollars in income taxes, 7% would be $70,000,000, with $930,000,000 left after taxes. If he is talking about $100,000,000 made from a billion in wealth, that sounds like an income tax but it would not result in $30 million in remaining income.
There is a great difference between a wealth tax and an income tax. The wealthy have already paid taxes on their wealth. Indeed, they pay income taxes when the money is earned and pay taxes on any profits from that money when it is invested in stock or property. A wealth tax is an additional tax on all that you own from homes to boats to art.
At a seven percent tax on wealth for those worth $100,000,000, the wealthy would pay an additional $7,000,000 every year in Michigan beyond their income taxes. In Michigan, the state tax of 4.25% (and the corporate tax on their businesses at 6%). If the wealth tax is added to an income tax, that would be in addition to the 37% top tax rate in the federal system.
Again, the wealth tax would continue to apply to what an individual owns in the form of cars, homes, and other property every year, regardless of whether income declines.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) drove this point home when she ran for president, taunting the wealthy that she was coming for “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts.”
While some states allow a wealth tax, many of us view it as unconstitutional under the federal system. The federal government secured the right to tax individuals in 1913, but the 16th Amendment only approved income taxes.
This is why many of these same politicians are promising a hostile takeover of the Supreme Court by either eliminating the Court or packing it with an instant liberal majority. Once packed, the Court could greenlight a variety of unconstitutional measures.
Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur.
Even if states like Michigan are allowed to do this, it will result in the same exodus that is unfolding in California, where an estimated trillions in jobs and revenue have been lost due to the threat of wealth taxes. That is why figures like Khanna and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) are calling for a national wealth tax, leaving the wealthy nowhere to go but out of the country.
This is precisely what socialist governments like France under François Mitterrand attempted in the last century, with disastrous results that tanked their economy and forced a rapid retreat from such policies.
As Michigan struggles to secure new businesses and jobs, El-Sayed is embracing the same policies that would decapitate the top of its tax base. While repeating the mantra that the wealthy are “not paying their fair share,” the top 10 percent pays more taxes than the bottom 90 percent combined. In 2023, the top 1 percent paid an estimated 38.4 percent of all federal individual income taxes.
El-Sayed has proven himself a gifted politician. He juxtaposes concrete benefits like new roads with the image of unused wealth among top earners. The fact is that Michigan will have fewer roads if it chases away top earners with their businesses and jobs.
Like Long, who referred to “our wealth” being held by the rich, El-Sayed portrays the property of the wealthy as rightfully belonging to the people, promising that “if we put a tax on wealth it would return a lot of that money back into public use.”
El-Sayed has perfected the “eat-the-rich” pitch in portraying the wealthy as virtual Scrooge McDucks who accumulate unused wealth as a type of vanity project. He has struck out at “people who have accumulated so much wealth that your money makes money.” That is also called investments that power the economy—and when your “money makes money,” it is taxed as income.
Nevertheless, El-Sayed is waging the same class war as other rising figures in the Democratic Party, denouncing “extreme wealth” as “an existential threat to our economy and our democracy and it demands a crisis-level response.”
The real crisis is unfolding as candidates like El-Sayed are promising trillions in new programs while promising to make the rich pay for it. As with Warren, their property is being portrayed as rightfully belonging to the public.
The problem is that both wealth and the wealthy are mobile and few are likely to stick around for El-Sayed’s people’s paradise in Michigan.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Enough negativity about billionaires please. These are the ppl who took a risk and developed an idea that blossomed into a commodity that met demand and created jobs. Think about the benefits of Musk’s Starlink, Space X, and Neuralink. The wealthiest 2% of taxpayers pay 50% of all federal taxes.
Excerpted from a 1/18/26 Ox Fam piece entitled: “Do the Rich Pay Their Fair Share?”
“Billionaires in the U.S. often pay a lower tax rate than teachers and nurses. Thanks to a tax code that favors income from wealth over income from work—and a slew of tax-avoidance strategies—the richest among us too often end up paying a smaller percentage of their income to the federal government than working families.
Here’s what we know:
Recent Oxfam analysis shows that the wealth of the 10 richest U.S. billionaires surged by $698 billion over the past year.
According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent.
According to leaked tax returns highlighted in a ProPublica investigation, the 25 richest Americans paid $13.6 billion in taxes from 2014-2018—a “true” tax rate of just 3.4 percent on $401 billion of income.
That’s not paying your fair share. Instead of rewarding wealth over work, our tax system should ensure that billionaires play by the same set of rules as the rest of us. It’s good for the planet, and it’s essential to the preservation of our democracy.
So what should they pay?
Higher tax rates: The IRS code should raise individual tax rates for billionaires and equalize taxes on capital gains and labor income so work isn’t taxed more than wealth.
A fair tax on their wealth: Billionaires should pay a wealth tax, and we should close tax loopholes that permit the rich to stash profits in tax havens.
“The tax code should be designed to work for ordinary people, not rigged to produce the world’s first trillionaire,” said Rebecca Riddell, Senior Policy Lead for Economic and Racial Justice at Oxfam America.
Do giant corporations pay their fair share?
While giant companies enjoyed record profits in recent years, many still pay lower tax rates than most working families. That’s in part because many take advantage of generous tax breaks and stash profits in tax havens around the world.
Here’s what we know:
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 23 of the largest and most profitable companies in the US paid no federal corporate income taxes from 2018-2022. And 109 corporations paid zero federal tax in at least one of those years.
Corporations shifted nearly $1 trillion in global profits to tax havens in 2022—depriving countries all over the world of desperately needed tax revenue.
That’s not paying your fair share. Instead of only maximizing profits for their overwhelmingly rich, white shareholders, corporations should do more to support the employees, consumers, and community members that corporations rely upon to make their money.
So what should they pay and do?
To reduce tax haven abuse and the offshoring of corporate profits, corporations should pay the same tax rate on their foreign profits as on their domestic profits, and all large multinational corporations should pay a global minimum tax rate.
To end the secrecy that shrouds corporate tax dodging, corporations should publish key financial data like revenue, profits, and taxes paid on a country-by-country basis.
“We want an economy that works for everyone, not just for a small elite,” said former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
Who benefits from the Trump tax cuts?
The ultra-rich and mega-corporations benefited from last year’s massive tax cuts. In 2027, President Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” is forecast to reduce the tax bill of the those in the highest-earning 0.1 percent by $311,000 each. At the same time, it slashed vital safety-net programs and increased taxes on households making less than $15,000 annually.
One year into his presidency, billionaire President Trump has governed by and for the wealthy elite, surrounding himself with a record-breaking number of billionaires in his administration. At the risk of driving U.S. inequality to new extremes, his administration has also moved with unprecedented speed and cruelty to carry out major cuts to the social safety net and significant rollbacks for workers’ rights.
“Today, we are seeing the dark extremes of choosing inequality for 50 years,” said Elizabeth Wilkins, Roosevelt Institute President and CEO.
What would the rich paying their fair share mean for ending poverty and injustice?
Taxing the rich would pay incredible dividends in ending poverty and injustice. Calculations from Oxfam found that a modest wealth tax on multimillionaires and billionaires—at a rate of 1 percent for fortunes over $10 million, 3 percent for fortunes over $100 million, and 5 percent for fortunes over $100 billion—could raise an estimated $414 billion to invest in social programs and fighting poverty.
That kind of revenue would allow the US to invest in programs that:
Protect the climate
Lift children out of poverty
Rebuild our infrastructure
Bolster child care and healthcare
All of these programs would provide big benefits for workers, caregivers, and communities of color—unlike corporate tax dodging, which disproportionately benefits a white, wealthy elite.
“It’s time for our nation’s billionaires and giant corporations to contribute their fair share of taxes to support the very people who have provided the labor that has allowed them to enjoy record profits and excess wealth,” said Gina Cummings, Oxfam America’s Vice-President of Advocacy, Alliances and Policy.
Conclusion
While people across the country are struggling to make ends meet, the Trump administration has prioritized massive tax giveaways for the ultra-rich and mega-corporations, all while pushing to slash vital programs—like childcare, education, healthcare, and more—that benefit everyone.
By increasing tax rates on the richest Americans, taxing billionaire wealth, and making corporations pay their fair share, we can make rich polluters pay to protect our climate and lift children out of poverty. And it’s key to saving our democracy and solving our toughest global challenges.
Hundreds of thousands of people like you have joined Oxfam to demand the rich pay their fair share in taxes. Your voice in this fight matters, and when we join our voices together, our message becomes impossible to ignore.”
Perhaps the strongest human desire: getting something for nothing. The mechanism for doing so: the modern welfare state.
What others do with their legally acquired wealth is their business.
The truth reveals the true lack of knowledge held by DSA members.
If you want less of something, tax it. Want even less? Tax it twice. We already do that with state ad valorem and inheritance taxes, and federal estate and gift taxes. The less of something a State gets is loss of tax on income, wealth based on residency, exiting population and Electoral College votes. But also less of a Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak building the first Apple personal computer in the Jobs family garage. We The People do not pursue the inalienable right of happiness through a government power to tax.
Excellent point about jobs and Wozniak. And by extension, less inventors, inventions, creations, no Tom Edisons, no Jonas Salks, no discoveries that benefit humanity
That window at the IRS for volunteering more tax dollars is always open but I never see any of these Marxist walking up to it and handing over 80% of their wealth to the government. Lead by example you Karlies.
Turley Writes:
“..that would be in addition to the 37% top tax rate in the federal system.”
……………………………………….
Here we have the real issue. That 37% is way too low. We don’t need a ‘wealth’ tax. We need an income tax that is more realistic for the amounts of income the wealthy now earn.
To Anony, above: No, we don’t need higher taxes on those that already pay more taxes than 90% of their fellow taxpayers. The government needs to spend less on everything except defense and needs to stop the fraud/grift. Plus, show me where in history, either our’s or elsewhere, making the rich less rich ever made the poor any less poor.
Did el-Sayed not complete postgraduate medical training because he did not match to a clinical residency program resulting in him choosing to pursue public health instead? No medical student in their right mind graduates from medical school and voluntarily chooses to not pursue at least one year of postgraduate training (i.e., an internship, leading to medical licensure eligibility in most states) even if the student did not plan to practice clinical medicine unless that student was unqualified to be accepted into a postgraduate training program. He should release the medical school transcript of his grades, and his medical school Dean’s Letter (the Medical Student Performance Evaluation) of reference to any residency programs to which he may have applied, for public review.
Good point. Get a hacker to locate his academic history.
Who would I trust to use their money wisely: billionaires like Elon Musk or the government? Easy answer. How about we eliminate all the fraud and corruption first before looking for more ways to redistribute wealth.
Perhaps this islamist/communist is not aware of the fact that wealthy people such as Andrew Carnegie or Dolly Parton used the wealth that they had procured through Capitalism to build small libraries throughout the nation or who give millions of books to poor children across the country. I am sure there are many within our history that used their wealth for good in acts of charity that are still anonymous to most of us and without the added burden of a government program of bloated bureaucrats susceptible to fraud and waste.
Communist/progressives actually think that they are smarter than the rest of humanity combined and that they can create government programs to cure the world’s ills. What hubris this requires and a cult-like devotion to ideologies that haven’t, as yet, proven functionally effective but more likely display failures at every instance.
If this islamist/communist tool is elected Senator in Michigan then we can pack up the tent and start prepping for the end of America as we have known it and all the works of Charles Martel, and Jan Sobieski were for naught.
“Communist/progressives actually think that they are smarter…” and yet you think you’re smarter than C’s/P’s. No difference eh?
What you do not realize, as you spew it here daily, is that your hate of them surpasses their hate of you.
So, who’s the bigger threat to the USA, your hate everybody but conservatives ilk, or the C/P’s who want a fair society that benefits a majority. Not on your terms?
So libraries are the deciding factor?
whimsicalmama,
“Communist/progressives actually think that they are smarter than the rest of humanity combined and that they can create government programs to cure the world’s ills. What hubris this requires and a cult-like devotion to ideologies that haven’t, as yet, proven functionally effective but more likely display failures at every instance.”
Well, yes.
Despite history showing all the failures of socialism, communism, progressive policies, they think, “When we do it, it will be different!”
And then the fall flat on their face.
They believe they are God
Muslim logic
@Anonymous
That is indeed an oxymoron. And though yes, many *people* of an Islamic tradition are peaceful and wonderful, you cannot separate Sharia law from strict Islam, that just isn’t a thing, period. There is no greater group of indoctrinated people on earth. Islam cannot coexist with freedom, period, it isn’t even intellectually possible. We really are talking Middle Ages, cave man level sh*t. There is quite literally no way to make that work.
It is generational collectivism in which personal autonomy (on which THIS country was founded) couldn’t even hope to have a first breath, even if many adherents are ‘nice’. It is a miracle they no longer practice phrenology. Islam may not strictly be Marxism, but they are great bedfellows, and it perfectly aligns with a globalist, homogeneous, aristocratic (oh, the irony) collectivist vision for the planet. We can’t allow that, even if we are the last holdouts here in the US of A.
All of these crusty liberals claiming we are currently in a Handmaid’s Tale or some frankly, insane, genocidal dominance fantasy when there have been real genocides in our history, nearly always involving the groups in question (as though they even know what that means anymore in 2026) need to eff right off. You are very stupid and/or comfortable people. And in this country, today, no one is trying even a little bit to silence your idiotic opinions; you still have your morning latte and your Sunday brunch and your kvetching, both in public and private.
This was not the case under even very recent dem rule where you could very much be ruined for life for simply expressing a differing view. Modern ‘liberals’ are generally very stupid people. I would not have said that unequivocally even 10 years ago, but today it is a fact.
Please keep your bulls**t confined to the state you ruined with it, we don’t want it. If you want a peaceful life, stop running away, take a look in the mirror, and do something differently.
When we talk about wealth taxes, the money being paid isn’t really in dollars. When taxed, society is giving up access to new businesses where society works, plays, eats, and sleeps.
Abdul El-Sayed was correct when he said, “I mean at that point like what are gonna even do with more money?” That is absolutely true. Billionaires don’t need that extra money to live on, so they invest it in office buildings, sports facilities, restaurants, and hotels. And when the billionaire tries to sell such properties, where will the extra money come from?
Abdul El-Sayed is an economic dunce using promises to bribe the public when all he does is place his hand in our back pockets.
S. Meyer, once again. You make absolutely zero sense.
You claim that taxing a billionaire means society ‘gives up access to businesses where we work, play, eats, and sleeps.’ This makes no sense. If a billionaire is taxed, those physical office buildings, hotels, and restaurants don’t magically vanish into thin air. They still exist. The only thing that changes is who holds the capital. Instead of a single billionaire holding all the chips, that money is recirculated into the economy via public infrastructure (like the roads El-Sayed mentioned), which actually makes it easier for regular people to get to those businesses to work, play, and eat.
Your comment completely trips over itself. First, you agree with El-Sayed that billionaires ‘don’t need that extra money to live on.’ But then you immediately turn around and claim that taxing that unneeded money is ‘placing a hand in our back pockets.’ If the money belongs to a billionaire who doesn’t need it to survive, taxing it is—by your own definition—taking it from their pocket, not the public’s.
You can’t argue that billionaires have so much money they are forced to just dump it into vanity real estate projects, and then turn around and claim that a tax on them is somehow a financial burden on the working class. If anyone is displaying economic confusion here, it’s not El-Sayed.
Oh its George the google accredited lawyer taking the magic tangent road. Tell us how you mange your billions?
“S. Meyer, once again. You make absolutely zero sense.”
You say that because you are stupid.
“If a billionaire is taxed, those physical office buildings, hotels, and restaurants don’t magically vanish into thin air. They still exist”
Where does the billionaire get the money to pay the wealth tax?
The rest of your comment demonstrates a total lack of understanding. You need a course in Economics. Can I suggest Econ 0.01?
No, I say that because you make zero sense. You can’t explain your nonsense without looking stupid.
I love that when you are completely cornered by logic, your only defense is to resort to playground insults and tell me to take an introductory economics class. It’s a brave strategy to cover up the fact that you don’t understand how liquid capital or asset management works.
To answer ‘mind-boggling’ question: ‘Where does the billionaire get the money to pay the wealth tax?’
They get it from the exact same place they get the money to buy superyachts, fund private space programs, or acquire new companies: liquidity. You knew that, right?
Billionaires do not keep 100% of their net worth locked in concrete and drywall. They hold massive cash reserves, receive multi-million dollar dividend payouts, sell off marginal stock options, and borrow against their vast portfolios at near-zero interest rates. If a billionaire has to liquidate a fractional 2% of their stock portfolio or utilize their immense cash flows to pay a tax bill, the physical buildings they own still stand, the businesses still operate, and the sky doesn’t fall.
If you truly believe that billionaires live paycheck-to-paycheck with zero cash flow, and that a tax bill would force them to physically dismantle a hotel brick-by-brick to pay the government, you might want to ask for a refund on that ‘Econ 0.01’ class you keep bragging about. You are confusing net worth with a total lack of liquidity, and it’s a bit embarrassing to watch.
What is even funnier is you never offered any answer to your own question which shows you have no idea what you’re talking about.
“society is giving up access “? Theoretically only? But what about the good government intervention does using tax dollars… schools, airports, stadiums, etc. , that corrupt rent-seeking billionaires wring free dollars from the government and create monopolies using bribe and coercion that eventually further financially subjugates
the have-nots. The billionaires have nothing to fear, even European Socialist states, China, and Russia have billionaires – they always make out.
Schools? You are an example of a government failure.
“China, and Russia have billionaires – they always make out.”
Ask Jimmy Lai, Xu Jiayin, Xiao Jianhua, Ren Zhiqiang, Sun Dawu, Wu Xiaohui….
Bribery is a felony. Please post the names of the billionaires you claim engage in bribery.
Government is the only entity in society with a monopoly. It has a monopoly on coercion. It demands you pay it money. If you object and choose not to pay the tribute government demands from you, then it will use the courts and laws it has created to take it from you anyway. If you ignore court orders demanding you pay what the government demands, then eventually men with guns will haul you off and put you into a cage. Only government does that. Businesses don’t. Billionaires don’t.
Because government is a monopoly it has no incentive to focus on economic efficiency. It has no incentive to use the money it confiscates from taxpayers wisely. Businesses do. They must compete against other businesses for dollars. The profit motive makes them provide what consumers want at prices consumers are willing and able to pay. There is not coercion involved. It’s all voluntary.
The beauty of free enterprise is the consumer is king. Consumers, collectively, vote with our dollars. We decide which industries, companies and products fail and which succeed with our dollars. Half of all businesses fail in the first five years because consumers voted with their dollars and those businesses lost.
Just for fun, Google and find the Wikipedia entry titled, “List of defunct auto manufacturers”. Marvel that literally hundreds of auto manufacturers have tried to compete for consumer dollars. Yes, many merged with other companies. But many also failed to satisfy consumer demands and were forced out of business.