Tax the rich

Started by rcjordan, May 22, 2026, 11:44:18 PM

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rcjordan

May 22, 2026, 11:44:18 PM

rcjordan

#1
May 22, 2026, 11:48:05 PM
Mayor Mamdani, Governor Hochul Announce State's First Pied-à-Terre Tax, Requiring Ultrawealthy and Global Elites to Pay Their Fair Share - NYC Mayor's Office

https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/04/mayor-mamdani--governor-hochul-announce-state-s-first-pied-a-ter

rcjordan

#2
May 22, 2026, 11:52:17 PM

Brad

#3
Today at 07:39:09 AM
Trump has made it clear that less Federal money will be flowing to the states plus cutbacks to things like FEMA and other relief which means states have to make up the shortfall and taxing the rich is the path of least resistance in many states.  So no surprise, this trend will continue to slowly  advance.

ergophobe

#4
Today at 07:54:58 PM
I think there are so many trends coming together here, some healthy, some unhealthy.

>> states have to make up the shortfall

That is the rationale for the California ballot measure. Newsom opposes it (of course he does - he needs those billionaire donors if he is going to run for prez), but the originator said he asked Newsom, "Okay, what's your plan for filling the shortfall?" and Newsom, as it turns out, had no plan.

That seems to be par for the course. I don't see anyone in office who has an actual plan for the fiscal crisis other than some form of magical thinking. Belief in Magical Thinking may be the one truly bi-partisan policy stance in America today.

But more and more, I think the people at large are anxious about "things" - they often aren't quite sure what those things are, but lots of them are associated with really rich people
 - capture of the political system
 - AI job displacement
 - corruption
 - inflation
 - general existential angst


>> path of least resistance

And billionaires are a good (i.e. popular) target, but....

We can't solve this problem just by taxing billionaires. Even if we seize 100% of the wealth of Musk, Bezos and Gates, we are still well short of covering the current year deficit... then what do we do next year? Seizing all wealth of all billionaires in the US only covers 3 years of deficit spending. This isn't even considering that if you started converting all their shares to cash, their wealth would dramatically fall.

Income taxes cannot solve this problem - most rich people have very little income. Those noble CEOs who work for a $1 salary don't do it so the rest of the money flows to frontline workers.

"Wealth" tax as conceived in California a mess - it requires valuing every asset from the stock portfolio to the art on the walls in the houses to the value of private companies of anyone who *might* owe the tax. I do not see how that works. What is the value of a private company that is not for sale and has no buyers offering money?

Basically, the approaches to the fiscal crisis remind me of a guy I worked for who ran a workshop on global warming and talked about how worried he was and then during the break said that the following week he was flying to Australia for 10 days for vacation.
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