Ultra-rich partygoers at a Palm Beach soirée thumbed their noses at robin-hood tax proposals pitched by various Democratic candidates going into 2020, according to Bloomberg.
The party at the Norton Museum of Art Saturday night had all the trappings of the Palm Beach high season – those Stubbs & Wootton slippers, some fabulous gowns, and, with President Trump ensconced at Mar-a-Lago, a healthy disregard for the tax plans being floated by a wide field of potential Democrat candidates in 2020.
“They’re going to eat themselves alive,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said. –Bloomberg
Except – a majority of Americans are now saying they’re cool with plans to extract up to 70% from the income of the super-rich over certain levels, according to Politico.
Out of several polls showing support for the money grab, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Monday reveals that 76% of registered voters think the rich should pay more in taxes, while a survey conducted by Fox News concluded that 70% oif Americans thought raising taxes on those earning more than $10 million was warranted – including 54% of Republicans.
The surveys suggest that perhaps the Palm Beach crowd might want to take such proposals more seriously, as average voters are keenly aware of the rise in income inequality in the United States. Imagine how voters will feel during the next recession, should one materialize?
“There is a deep wellspring in terms of perception of unfairness in the economy that’s been tapped into here that either didn’t exist five years ago or existed and had not had a chance to be expressed,” said JPMorgan chairman of market and investment strategy, Michael Cembalest. “This is quite a moment in American economic history where all of a sudden in a matter of months this thing has kind of exploded like this.”
A plan from first-term Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to slap a 70 percent marginal rate on income earned over $10 million clocked in at 59 percent support in a recent Hill/HarrisX poll.
The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, conducted Feb. 1-2, found that 61 percent favor a proposal like the “wealth tax” recently laid out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would levy a 2 percent tax on those with a net worth over $50 million and 3 percent on those worth over $1 billion. Just 20 percent opposed the idea. The poll surveyed 1,993 registered voters and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.
It showed 45 percent favored a plan like that laid out by Ocasio-Cortez while 32 percent opposed it. –Politico
In short, Republicans who think they’ll be able to easily spin the Democrat tax plans as irrational cash-grabs in 2020 may find it difficult to make their case.
“There is certainly an appetite for more taxes on the rich, though the threshold matters,” said polling expert Karlyn Bowman with the American Enterprise Institute. “There is also some support for redistributing income.“
Last year, 48% of taxpayers described their own taxes as “about right,” while around 45% said they were “too high.” Democrats, keenly aware that raising taxes on the middle class is probably a really bad idea at this point, have concluded that raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy is a safe bet that could help pay for government programs such as a “Green New Deal” or “Medicare for All.”
That said, proposals have varied as to who exactly would end up paying more taxes under a Democrat president in 2020.
Some Democrats piling into the 2020 race are now competing to get further to the left on boosting taxes on the rich. After Warren’s wealth tax announcement, likely candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who bucked recent political tradition with calls for tax hikes in his 2016 campaign, unveiled a proposal to increase the number of wealthy Americans subject to the estate tax.
Those who aren’t calling for big new taxes — including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who prefers refundable tax credits — are facing some heat on the left as insufficiently progressive. –Politico
“It’s not surprising to me at all. Washington has been working so long for the billionaire class that people around here cannot imagine crossing them,” said Elizabeth Warren, adding “It never even becomes a topic of conversation. The ultra-millionaires have gotten so much from this country that it’s not unreasonable to ask them to give back a little bit.”
Warren claimed that she wouldn’t raise taxes on the middle class, should she win the Democratic nomination. “That’s just wrong. Why on earth would I do that? It makes no sense. I think I’ve already lost the billionaire vote,” she said.
Trump once pushed for an ultra-wealth tax
President Trump pushed for a measure in 1999 while pondering a presidential bid on the Reform Party ticket – suggesting a 14.25% one-time tax on those with a net worth of more than $10 million. Trump suggest this would wipe out the national debt entirely – which was just $5.5 trillion at the time, as opposed to today’s nearly $22 trillion.
“By my calculations, 1 percent of Americans, who control 90 percent of the wealth in this country, would be affected by my plan,” said 1999 Trump.
Trump has long since abandoned that idea, focusing instead on wedge issues like immigration to target voters concerned about their jobs and wages as well as those worried about demographic changes in the country.
But he may have vulnerability on the tax issue heading into 2020 given his biggest legislative accomplishment as president so far was a $2 trillion tax cut that showered most of its benefits on corporate America while offering much smaller reductions to middle-class taxpayers. –Politico
Trump’s $2 trillion tax cuts, meanwhile, has been lauded by Republicans for the promse of faster growth and higher wages – however the new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found that just 33% of those surveyed thought the tax bill was helping the economy, while 41% said it made no difference, and 25% had no idea or no opinion on how effective it was.
While the progressive plans have been panned by most of the ultra-wealthy, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said last week: “I believe that individuals earning the most can afford to pay more,” adding “And I have no problem paying higher taxes to address some of the fundamental challenges and inequities in our society.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2GaVBbg Tyler Durden