An economist at the forefront of the growing global push for a billionaire wealth tax is welcoming news that U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is embracing calls for a minimum levy on the United States' richest individuals.
If Zucman is a fan, this is great news indeed. A 25% minimum tax on billionaire wealth sounds great, and with broad support, as the article notes (even 51% of Republicans).
Much better news, too, for those of us who only saw this part reported on til now:
The campaign spokesperson called the move—which would still leave the corporate tax rate lower than it was when Trump first took office in 2017—a “fiscally responsible way to put money back in the pockets of working people and ensure billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.” (emphasis mine)
IIRC, the corporate tax rate was slashed by Trump from 30-something percent, maybe 35%, to something like 18%, so to see that Harris was not interested in reversing this Trump tax cut fully (only to 25%) felt til now like yet another depressing instance of the ratchet effect, where the right does what they do, and neoliberals only undo part of it when they are in power.
There is some debate about the current usage, but many, if not most, Democratic politicians are arguably neoliberals. The model was promoted in the US by Bill Clinton, who championed a centrist, Third Way approach for the party.
There’s no debate, it’s very clearly right wing Republicans. There is a neat campaign on lemmy to conflate the American “liberal” with the European “liberal” and the term “neoliberal”. It’s absolutely obvious to anyone who’s ever paid attention to American politics before, but these propagandists always deny it and there’s a lot of kids whose only experience of politics is via TikTok starting last year, who get fooled.
The term neoliberalism has become more prevalent in recent decades. A prominent factor in the rise of conservative and right-libertarian organizations, political parties, and think tanks, and predominantly advocated by them, neoliberalism is often associated with policies of economic liberalization, including privatization, deregulation, consumer choice, globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society. The neoliberal project is also focused on designing institutions and is political in character rather than only economic.
That’s Republicans. Just Republicans.
And before you start saying “Democrats are right wing”, fuck you that’s some bothsides propaganda too. The Democratic presidential nominee supports raising taxes on billionaires. They are NOT neolibs.
During Nancy Pelosi’s first terms in Congress in the late 1980s and early 90s, few Democratic leaders questioned the need to tack to the center to win over the prized white middle-class voters who could, they believed, make them the majority party once again. After the debacle of the 1994 midterm, Bill Clinton adopted that strategy—to win reelection and nudge the party toward embracing the business-friendly outlook of the Democratic Leadership Council—but without alienating his base among urbane liberals.
In his 1995 State of the Union Address, the president seemed to embrace the conventional Beltway wisdom that the conservatives who had just taken command in Congress had also won the battle to shape public opinion. “The era of big government is over,” Clinton declared. He called for “balancing the budget in a way that is fair to all Americans,” a goal he said enjoyed “broad bipartisan agreement.” Democrats, it appeared, would no longer abide by the Keynesian theory that budget deficits were fine as long as spending created jobs and lifted Americans out of poverty. The next year, Clinton signed a “welfare reform” bill that cut back payments to single mothers in need. By 1998, tax receipts from an economic boom had indeed made it possible for the government to balance the budget for the first time in almost three decades.
Before the president left office, he also signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed during the Great Depression, which had prohibited commercial banks from investing the money of their depositors on stock speculation and other risky financial ventures. The party once known for fighting for the interests of wage earners and small farmers against big business now seemed intent on rolling back nearly any regulations that made CEOs unhappy.
And before you start saying “Democrats are right wing”, fuck you that’s some bothsides propaganda too.
As usual, the question is “to the left of what” and “to the right of what”.
If you stack the Democratic Party leadership against the average Senator or Congressman, you’ll find a left wing candidate. If you stack them up against a mean voter, they’re solidly centrist. If you put an American Democrat on a global stage, they’re solidly to the right of the mean.
But modern Democrats are definitely a corporate party. They get their money from big business. They draw the bulk of their candidates, appointees, and administrators from big business. And they have their policies dictated to them by powerful corporate lobbying firms of various stripes. The populist democratic movement of the FDR era is thoroughly eviscerated. This is decidedly a party by, of, and for business management.
I’m just a millionaire. I’m worth diddly squat “on paper” because I intend to stay a millionaire. This isn’t a difficult fiscal apparatus to create. Billionaires have much more effective methods at their disposal.
It doesn’t matter what the tax rates are so long as the loopholes remain wide open and there’s very little enforcement.
Loopholes are a consequence of tax law and enforcement. In theory, you can raise a lot of money for popular programs by aggressively pursuing tax cheats. In practice, we’ve built a society that hates the idea of taxation and yields social and financial rewards to people who open and defend new loopholes in the system.
At what point does the neighborhood PTA put two and two together, to conclude a big cut to property taxes must necessitate a big cut to school budgets? Idk. Seems like redder and poorer states have been forced to square up with this reality sooner. But these states also tend to be captured by the corporate interests that dominate their political systems.
But the real methods that the billionaire class have to stay free of taxation and regulation are in mass media and corporate lobbying. You can only do so much to hide your assets without rendering them valueless. Apple can bury its trillions in cash in a big hole in the ground, but then they can’t spend it on anything for the business. The real way to free up that cash is to convince voters that a big tax cut for repatriating all that money will benefit the country more than a higher tax rate on the Jobs Family Trust.
The methods by which businesses evade taxation routinely place the assets out of reach for general spending and utilization. This reduces their value to the business, sometimes even beyond what they’d save if they simply ate the tax bill.
If you’re not doing that, I’m not surprised. Its very rarely a productive proposition unless your assets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
If Zucman is a fan, this is great news indeed. A 25% minimum tax on billionaire wealth sounds great, and with broad support, as the article notes (even 51% of Republicans).
Much better news, too, for those of us who only saw this part reported on til now:
IIRC, the corporate tax rate was slashed by Trump from 30-something percent, maybe 35%, to something like 18%, so to see that Harris was not interested in reversing this Trump tax cut fully (only to 25%) felt til now like yet another depressing instance of the ratchet effect, where the right does what they do, and neoliberals only undo part of it when they are in power.
“Neolib” is Republicans. Democrats are just “libs”. Confusing, I know. But it’s like the difference between anarchists and anarcho-capitalists.
There is some debate about the current usage, but many, if not most, Democratic politicians are arguably neoliberals. The model was promoted in the US by Bill Clinton, who championed a centrist, Third Way approach for the party.
There’s no debate, it’s very clearly right wing Republicans. There is a neat campaign on lemmy to conflate the American “liberal” with the European “liberal” and the term “neoliberal”. It’s absolutely obvious to anyone who’s ever paid attention to American politics before, but these propagandists always deny it and there’s a lot of kids whose only experience of politics is via TikTok starting last year, who get fooled.
That’s Republicans. Just Republicans.
And before you start saying “Democrats are right wing”, fuck you that’s some bothsides propaganda too. The Democratic presidential nominee supports raising taxes on billionaires. They are NOT neolibs.
You’re right, but for the wrong reasons.
During Nancy Pelosi’s first terms in Congress in the late 1980s and early 90s, few Democratic leaders questioned the need to tack to the center to win over the prized white middle-class voters who could, they believed, make them the majority party once again. After the debacle of the 1994 midterm, Bill Clinton adopted that strategy—to win reelection and nudge the party toward embracing the business-friendly outlook of the Democratic Leadership Council—but without alienating his base among urbane liberals.
In his 1995 State of the Union Address, the president seemed to embrace the conventional Beltway wisdom that the conservatives who had just taken command in Congress had also won the battle to shape public opinion. “The era of big government is over,” Clinton declared. He called for “balancing the budget in a way that is fair to all Americans,” a goal he said enjoyed “broad bipartisan agreement.” Democrats, it appeared, would no longer abide by the Keynesian theory that budget deficits were fine as long as spending created jobs and lifted Americans out of poverty. The next year, Clinton signed a “welfare reform” bill that cut back payments to single mothers in need. By 1998, tax receipts from an economic boom had indeed made it possible for the government to balance the budget for the first time in almost three decades.
Before the president left office, he also signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed during the Great Depression, which had prohibited commercial banks from investing the money of their depositors on stock speculation and other risky financial ventures. The party once known for fighting for the interests of wage earners and small farmers against big business now seemed intent on rolling back nearly any regulations that made CEOs unhappy.
As usual, the question is “to the left of what” and “to the right of what”.
If you stack the Democratic Party leadership against the average Senator or Congressman, you’ll find a left wing candidate. If you stack them up against a mean voter, they’re solidly centrist. If you put an American Democrat on a global stage, they’re solidly to the right of the mean.
But modern Democrats are definitely a corporate party. They get their money from big business. They draw the bulk of their candidates, appointees, and administrators from big business. And they have their policies dictated to them by powerful corporate lobbying firms of various stripes. The populist democratic movement of the FDR era is thoroughly eviscerated. This is decidedly a party by, of, and for business management.
This may come as a shock to you, but Bill Clinton is not the President. Or even in office.
Democrats went through a period of trying to court right wing and centrist voters. That was thirty years ago. Let it go.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/29/biden-campaign-launches-new-ad-targeting-haley-voters/
Not even six months ago.
Stop being obtuse.
I’m just a millionaire. I’m worth diddly squat “on paper” because I intend to stay a millionaire. This isn’t a difficult fiscal apparatus to create. Billionaires have much more effective methods at their disposal.
It doesn’t matter what the tax rates are so long as the loopholes remain wide open and there’s very little enforcement.
Loopholes are a consequence of tax law and enforcement. In theory, you can raise a lot of money for popular programs by aggressively pursuing tax cheats. In practice, we’ve built a society that hates the idea of taxation and yields social and financial rewards to people who open and defend new loopholes in the system.
At what point does the neighborhood PTA put two and two together, to conclude a big cut to property taxes must necessitate a big cut to school budgets? Idk. Seems like redder and poorer states have been forced to square up with this reality sooner. But these states also tend to be captured by the corporate interests that dominate their political systems.
But the real methods that the billionaire class have to stay free of taxation and regulation are in mass media and corporate lobbying. You can only do so much to hide your assets without rendering them valueless. Apple can bury its trillions in cash in a big hole in the ground, but then they can’t spend it on anything for the business. The real way to free up that cash is to convince voters that a big tax cut for repatriating all that money will benefit the country more than a higher tax rate on the Jobs Family Trust.
non sequitur. My assets and earnings are concurrently mine and not mine in accordance with state and federal law. Nothing is hidden or devalued.
The methods by which businesses evade taxation routinely place the assets out of reach for general spending and utilization. This reduces their value to the business, sometimes even beyond what they’d save if they simply ate the tax bill.
If you’re not doing that, I’m not surprised. Its very rarely a productive proposition unless your assets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
If all I ever did was tell people what I think I know then I’d never have became a millionaire, let alone protected my assets and earnings so well.
Ah, see, I just stuck all my money in the S&P and rode the historic overblown equities returns.
But I’m sure you’ve got a special mysterious secret that made your million a little more special.
Hard to beat.
Yes, in both the making and the protecting.