The Case for the Billionaire’s Tax
I haven’t blogged in a while, so I thought it best to start with something easy …
As Democrats scramble to figure out a way to pass a tremendously important domestic spending bill with a 48-member “majority” in the Senate, the so-called “billionaire’s tax” surfaced briefly as a possibility. Unfortunately, it was then vetoed by Joe Manchin, who criticized it as “divisive” — presumably because it would divide Americans between billionaires and everyone else and asks the former to pay more in taxes.
That still left enough time, however, for various billionaires to embarrass themselves. Elon Musk, nor surprisingly, provided the perfect argument for the billionaire’s tax:
It’s hard to think of a better way to say “fuck you” to hundreds of millions of people —trapped on this planet for their lifetimes, regardless of what Elon Musk does — struggling with persistent poverty, widespread financial insecurity, increasingly devastating climate change, unaffordable health care, and an authoritarian assault on democracy.
Musk was only echoing his rival billionaire, Jeff Bezos, who several years ago said, “The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it” (quoted in Alex MacGillis, Fulfillment, p. 215). Could there be a better argument that a handful of people have consolidated too much wealth and that, instead of allowing them to indulge their Star Trek fantasies, it would be better used helping hundreds of millions of people — in the form of free pre-kindergarten, paid family leave, and more renewable energy, for example?
Cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried also took the opportunity to demonstrate that successfully timing an enormous fad does not guarantee any understanding of basic economic concepts — or common sense, for that matter. “I think this could cause hugely negative collateral damage, significantly reducing the amount of innovation and taxable base in the first place,” he said.
