<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/13/billionaires-taxes-inequality-one-percent>
"Three trillion dollars in new revenue is enough to make college free at
all public universities, make a massive new investment in infrastructure
along the lines of what Senate Democrats have proposed, and triple the
budget for the National Institutes of Health. Needless to say, all of
these investments would pay enormous economic dividends.
Of course, we could raise even more from the rich. We could raise the
top 1%’s effective tax rate by as much as 25 percentage points and still
leave them with an average annual after-tax income of over $1m. Doing
that would generate about $8tn in revenue, which is enough to send every
household in the bottom 75% a check for nearly $8,500 every year for 10
years."
[...]
"A tax that took about 1% of… wealth each year would yield about $4tn
over the next decade. To put that amount in perspective, $4tn is more
than the federal government will spend over the next decade on foster
care, school lunch, school breakfast, the Children’s Health Insurance
Program, food stamps, unemployment compensation, supplemental security
income for the elderly, blind people and those with disabilities, and
all the tax credits for working families combined."
[...]
"There will be those who claim the sky will fall if we tried to tax the
rich like this. They’ll predict widespread economic damage, maybe even
collapse. These warnings of doom and gloom rely on the theory that
growth and prosperity come from rich people’s ingenuity and knowhow. If
we tax them, they might take their ball and go home. That’s
preposterous, of course. Rich people are neither the source of economic
prosperity, nor will they decide to go off and form their own society in
Antarctica or 10 miles off the coast of San Diego.
In fact, taxing rich people will make our economy work more like it
should. If we disincentivize hoarding at the top, money will more easily
flow to the workers and families who really drive economic growth."
Via Lisa Stranger.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
