Raising Taxes on the Rich
They can well afford it
It is interesting to see the super rich commentators on television news shows talking about how hard life is for the normal person out there. They have plenty of money themselves, but some of them seem to genuinely care about the middle and lower classes where people are hurting financially. Is that rare to see multi-millionaires showing concern for those far beneath them on the economic ladder? It is heartening.
It is obvious that more of the super rich people are Republicans. It used to be that the Republican party was known as the party for the rich. It seems encouraging when you see wealthy Republicans who express concern about the welfare of others. Democrats have been the party which has traditionally cared more for those who are less fortunate. The wealthy Democrats care for their fellow humans.
The Democratic National Convention has just passed. Many people were watching, Democrats and Republicans as well as Independents. Joe Biden is no longer the “presumptive” nominee and is now the official Democratic candidate for President of the United States with Kamala Harris as his running mate for Vice President.
Bernie Sanders, the other candidate who was left besides Joe Biden in what started out to be a very crowded field, has been known to support higher taxes on the rich. Sanders has said that the rich should be taxed because they can afford it. They are unlikely to give up the money of their own free will and choice, but they should be willing to part with more of it through taxes to help other people and the country. He would be among those rich people who would be taxed higher. He thinks that is right.
Joe Biden’s tax plan includes levying higher taxes for the 1% of the richest Americans and huge corporations like Amazon. That seems more fair and equitable. The super wealthy have more money than they will ever need or than they can ever spend (unless they give it away).
The richest 1% of Americans own 35% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 80% own just 11% of the nation’s wealth. The most wealthy Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, when the economy was booming, paid a top income tax rate of 91%. Today, the top rate is 43.4%.
Since President Trump has been in office, tax cuts went to the wealthiest Americans and super wealthy corporations. He has said that he wants to extend his 2017 tax cuts if he is re-elected.
If Biden becomes President, he would push for higher taxes on people making more than $400,000 a year for both payroll taxes and capital gains. It takes an income of $538,926 to be among the top 1% of earners nationwide.
The plan for corporate tax rates under a Biden administration would push to raise the corporate tax rate to 28%, which is toward the level it was during the Obama administration. Trump’s tax cut lowered the corporate rate from 35% to 21%. Biden would want certain corporations to pay more. Amazon is said to have avoided taxes entirely in recent years and paid 1.2% in 2019. It is not surprising that Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world by far.
The rich are often able to find tax loopholes which benefit them.
Nicholas Goldberg wrote in the L.A. Times on August 7, 2020, that:
“More than a third of California’s 39 million residents are living at or near the poverty line, many of them lacking food security or decent housing or adequate healthcare. More than 150,000 are homeless. Adjusted for the cost of living, California has the highest poverty rate in the country.
“But California also has more people on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans than any other state. It has 165 billionaires and more than 80,000 tax filers with adjusted gross incomes over $1 million.”
* * * * * * *
Life is most certainly not fair, and higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans could help bring a tiny bit more equity to the country. Many of them are willing to pay more, and some have even advocated for higher taxes on the rich, including themselves. A little less inequity would be nice.
[Sources: Internet, NY Times, LA Times]