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Post by ck4829 on Feb 9, 2022 17:44:17 GMT
Even before the Covid pandemic supercharged economic inequality, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced as a 2020 presidential candidate that “billionaires should not exist.” That was a perfectly reasonable argument from a contender to lead a country that in the 1950s maintained a top marginal tax rate of 92 percent. But, as with so many of the senator’s proposals, the notion of taxing the rich down to size proved to be a bit too bold for both parties—and for the pundit class that polices the political discourse to ensure that things don’t get too interesting. So let me offer a more modest proposal: Let’s tax billionaires—and übermillionaires—back to where they stood when the pandemic surged in March 2020. With authorization from Congress, Internal Revenue Service auditors can calculate the excess profits of the billionaire class and then collect the cash in the spirit of shared sacrifice. Two years ago, working-class Americans masked up and marched into hospital wards and meatpacking plants to do what they understood was essential work. Their level of sacrifice was immense: Thousands of nurses, hundreds of transit workers, and an untold number of employees in factories and warehouses died from Covid-19. Millions of workers got sick, lost jobs, and faced the threat of eviction and hunger. It was different for the rich. They decamped to country homes and waterfront villas, where they toted up their winnings from a game that, as Naomi Klein has reminded us, is rigged to reward disaster capitalists. www.thenation.com/article/society/tax-billionaires-covid/
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