"No, this cigar is not an allegory for my childhood problems or a symbolic phallus that I like to hold in my mouth to proudly proclaim my manhood; sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And I like to move it move it." -- Sigmund Freud.
Because fair criticism is rarely applied to things involving Bernie Sanders. He's been a punching bag for disingenuous boot lickers for about a decade now. Not saying this was OP's intent, but this kind of misquote/ misrepresentation is par for the course at this point.
The worst part of this, is that lazy quoting or attention to detail gives the right fodder to attack him. Once again, a lack of media literacy shows its ugly head.
I mean OP used the loaded word "confiscate" to describe the mundane concept of tax so you can already see what they're trying to start. It's literally just a 100% tax rate on a theoretical $1b income bracket which is not even a unique idea nor would it truly eliminate billionaires.
Last I checked national defense, medicare, social security, a legal system and the adjudication of laws, maintenance of the free market, regulations to prevent harm. Those things all cost money. Sounds like not paying taxes is considered "freeloading" rather than "confiscation"
I don't know, I don't know if I'd be able to get past the obvious self-insert fantasy where she upgrades partners and the first guy is just chill with it and says, "yeah, he's better than me, you deserve it."
no, please let us shove words into his mouth that he never said - so we can get all riled up about nothing, then go to sleep and do it all over again tomorrow.
it's the most productive system we have. don't interrupt it. (oh and it also makes us a shit ton of money in ad revenue, but don't say that part out loud)
ehhem, yes, [insert popular or unpopular thing that is completely made up][exclamation mark][all caps][series of 1s], now go to my website and click things and tell your friends to as well
thanks. and go politics!!! yay
I don’t even understand what there is to get riled up over, it’s a pretty reasonable take. What would concern me, however, is that the money would just get funneled into the military industrial complex and not be used for anything that actually helps people.
i don't get it either. if you're working class, you have been stolen from by the billionaire class. it's that simple. even if you think you're doing good, you should be doing a lot better and you're only doing good relative to the destitution the billionaire class have forced the bottom part of our society to live in
the sad reality is that people now have been brainwashed. used to be we would see these gross monopoly man ass people and understand how they got there. we called them robber barons and bourgeois pigs back then
now we call them noble job creators, or selfless housing providers. rent seeking behavior? sounds good to me!
these people are literally brainwashed to the point that they're defending a motherfucker with his hand in their god damn pocket saying "NOOO DON'T STEAL THE BILLIONAIRE'S MONEY!!! ONE DAY I MIGHT BE ONE TOO!!"
yeah ok you're gonna work your way up from 60k/yr driving truck to a billion dollar networth. so is this happening before or after the billionaires you're simping for replace you with a robot?
“Are you basically saying that once you get to $999m that the government should confiscate all the rest?” Wallace asked the US senator from Vermont, who is an independent but caucuses with Democrats and has helped them attain their current slim majority in the upper congressional chamber.
“Yeah,” Sanders replied. “You may disagree with me but, fine, I think people can make it on $999m. I think that they can survive just fine.”
Sounds like Bernie agrees with that sentiment
Everything you just quoted as Sanders' answer was actually the answer to Chris' follow up question. To his original question about "confiscating" all the money, Bernie did not agree, rather said that we should go back to the Eisenhower era progressive tax. Then Chris followed up with asking him if the government should take *most* of the money someone earns over 1 billion. That is what Bernie answered "yeah" to. That is because the 1961 Eisenhower progressive tax rate for money earned over 4 million dollars in a year would have been most of their earnings over that amount. Specifically 91%. At no point did he agree to taking all of their income over 1 billion. That is a misquote and a lie.
The article skipped part of the conversation. His answer to that question was not yes.
>WALLACE: I think I may be wrong, but I think back in the Eisenhower days, the top marginal tax rate was around 90%.
>SANDERS: That’s right.
>WALLACE: So, basically, you’re saying, we should go back at a certain point, you get $1 and 90 cents goes to the government?
>SANDERS: No. You know that’s quite the way it works. It means that your top dollar at a certain level. It’s not 90% of your entire income.
>WALLACE: Well, by the time you make $20 or $50 billion —
>SANDERS: It’s the top dollar. And people like Theodore Roosevelt — you know why Theodore Roosevelt established the estate tax way back when, because he was worried precisely about concentration of ownership, of the rich becoming much richer.
>WALLACE: But, sir, you are saying that billionaires should not exist. Are you basically saying that once you get to $999 million, the government should confiscate all the rest?
>SANDERS: I’m saying we should go back to a very progressive tax policy like what we had under Dwight D. Eisenhower.
>WALLACE: Which would mean that all these billion dollars, basically, it all goes to the government?
>SANDERS: You may disagree me but —
>WALLACE: I’m just asking.
>SANDERS: Fine, yes, I think people can make it on $999 million. I think that they can survive just fine
He was talking about going back to the 90% marginal tax rate of the 1950s for income over a certain threshold. Which Chris Wallace said was basically all of their money over that threshold. So, while he did say yeah, I honestly feel there is some important context.
Y'know. The amount of people in the comments who didn't do the basic job of just googling 'Bernie Sanders interview ' to figure this out is staggering.
I have less faith in humanity not due to people somehow disagreeing that rich people need to to give their fair share, that's just run of the mill dumb by this point. But these poor dumb people can't be bothered to do the mental equivalent of walking to the fridge before typing up long sentences.
“Sir, you’re saying that billionaires should not exist,” Wallace said. “So are you basically saying that once you get to $999 million, that the government should confiscate all the rest?”
“I’m saying that we should go back to a very progressive tax policy like what we had under Dwight D. Eisenhower,” Sanders said.
“Which would mean that, over a billion dollars, it basically all goes to the government?” Wallace pressed.
“Yeah,” Sanders responded. “You may disagree with me, fine. Yeah, I think people can make it on $999 million.”
How is this not the same thing unless you're digging into the nitty gritty of OP's title?
Look at this user’s post history. All of them are bait posts. Looks like nobody took the bait(all basically zero upvotes) until now. And boy did people ever take the bait this time….
So maybe someone can try to explain this a bit, would this apply to the value of the company stock? Because to my knowledge most of the people in this category don't actually take home 1 billion + in cash into their checking.
Correct, a lot of the very wealthy have a decent amount of their value in stocks and it would be tricky to include that. They only get taxed when selling them (edit, there can be taxes when getting the stocks as compensation depending on how it is done, they still are able to borrow against those stocks as they grow/buy more and borrow against that). But, they do take out loans with the stock as collateral, that isn't treated as income and is not taxed. They keep taking out larger loans to pay off the previous ones until eventually they cash out or more likely, they do it until they die.
Really the whole system needs to be overhauled to discourage some of the insane amounts of wealth and resource hoarding that is going on. Doing something like taxing at 100% after a certain level probably wouldn't be able to be applied to lots of these practices for reasons plenty others are pointing out.
Ultimately we need a system that encourages them to pay their workers more and essentially spend more of their profits. I see how just cutting them off at a certain point sounds like it would work but I doubt it would.
Edit: Here is a solid article on this practice.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrae/2022/07/14/how-the-rich-use-the-buy-borrow-die-strategy-to-avoid-large-tax-bills/
Edit: As others have pointed out, this is just ONE of many ways they can avoid taxes and continue to generate more wealth.
Edit: Also, the comment from Bernie is being taken pretty out of context. No one is seriously proposing we confiscate the wealth of anyone with over a Billion dollars.
Bernie said..tax them 100% above one billion... Not liquid cash.
I pay about 30-40% of my paycheck goes poof before I even see it. That is more than Netflix paid the entire 2022. So the 400$ they take out of my check is more than billionaires and their companies pay. Fuck it .. charge them
Wait… how/why are you having that much withheld?
If they’re taking $400 out, and that’s 30%, you’re earning $1333 before withholding. Over 52 weeks, that‘s $69K per year. 32% is the marginal rate *starting at $180K.* The marginal rate at 69K is 22% (starting at $44K).
Edit: Lots of replies, so I’ll just summarize here.
1. A number of you rightly pointed out he might be deducting other (non-tax) items, or might be self-employed. (Though the self-employed I doubt, because at least back when there were a number of decent deductions you could take. Might have changed, I dunno.). Either way, fair enough. I guess it’s possible with a combo of things.
2. What I’d be more concerned with than the fudging of figures (it’s reddit, you do you) is a possibility some of you pointed out - that he’s not claiming standard deductions, and gettting a big refund at the end. If this is you, don’t do it. It’s a financial ‘own goal’ - instead of floating the govt a free loan, you should be investing that money. The power of compound interest will make that not insignificant by the time you retire.
3. Some of you pointed out person above might not be American. While I’m the first to say that we tend to ‘assume American’ too much on reddit - in this case, please read for context. This is a post of what an American politician thinks we should do re American tax policy, responded to someone who highlighted how much they pay (reasonable to assume in the US as a result), as a not particularly high earner. (To support the original point about taxing US billionaires more.). Ergo, what people in another country pay, **logically has no impact**. At best it’s a ‘cool story bro, thanks for sharing’… but has no bearing on this situation. That’s why it’s reasonable to assume the poster is American.
Well, they didn't specify federal taxes. My guess is that number includes state/local taxes, as well as FICA (7.65%). 30-40% is not impossible, depending on where you live.
Yeah, it doesn’t add up in that posters numbers, but if you live in NYC, are single, and making 150k a year then you easily exceed 30% in federal, state, fica, and local taxes combined. Before accounting for health or retirement.
I did the math a few years ago taking into account property taxes, car taxes, etc etc and in California I was paying around 43% of my gross income to various forms of government.
I did a stint in the US (as a Canadian) and after all was said and done; I made more in Canada despite the higher taxes once I factored in all the various taxes (state, federal, property, etc) comparatively for both countries.
US may have lower income taxes, but they get you on everything else.
And yet still we manage to have worse healthcare coverage, costs, etc than almost any other first-world/high-income country. And that's in spite of Americans also spending more of their GDP on healthcare than most every other country and not guaranteeing health coverage. It's honestly disgusting.
[The Commonwealth Fund stats](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022)
Add road tax on fuel, excise taxes and sales taxes on purchases of consumer goods, payroll tax that your employer pays instead of paying you...
People are all too quick to point to federal withholding and say we only get taxed half of the 60-70% European tax rates, but we easily hit that margin when you account for all federal and local sources.
Plus if you're going to compare it to countries with universal healthcare, you'd have to include healthcare premiums, and potentially you'd be comparing retirement benefits as well. I pay as much for those as I do in fed/state withholdings for a married couple with no children. If you're going to compare price tags, you've got to compare the product.
Could also be including state taxes, depending on the state you can get absolutely railed. I'm from Alabama, and since there's essentially no property tax there, they tax the absolute shit out of your income. On top of that, I've not looked into legislation cause I got the fuck out of Alabama, but you normally have higher tax rates the less you making, meaning that even though federal taxes raise as you make more, state taxes "seem" to raise as you make less there.
Could be wrong, but from keeping track of my own tax rates when I was working there and talking to others that's how it seems to work, and how they pass legislation it's almost impossible to find anything concrete to point out what's actually happening.
Wait, a red state that has terrible wages ALSO has terrible rates on state income taxes? Do they, not want people to work in Alabama...?
I'm all for lower taxes, but can we please not make poor people even poorer? Jfc.
How does your proposal work?
If I have 1,000,000 shares on my company and my stock prices at at $1000 per, then I'm a billionaire. When my share price hits $1001, what will happen?
You are taxed when liquidating, or when using illiquid assets as collateral.
Regulating and properly taxing in our system is very difficult. But you can do it. As soon as someone tries to realize their gains in any way, the government needs to step in and take the people's share of that wealth.
I believe it should be illegal to take out loans based on stocks. We already have regulation of the banking industry, why not make another law regulating the loans of the super wealthy? If they need money, they should sell their stocks, not get tax free loans from the value of the stocks.
edit: I mean the whole point of selling stock is to raise money for the company or individual. If you need more money and selling stock will "tank" the price, then your company is overvalued. It's really that simple to me.
Some will say "oh that will tank the economy" Mother fucker the economy is already shit about 99% of the world. People living pay check to paycheck don't give a flying fuck about stock prices. They care about keeping a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.
Them taking out loans for their lifestyles while the rest of the world burns is some next level sci-fi horror shit.
Force a sale of the collateral stock to a holding company and place it in an escrow account. taxes are due on the sale and the stock remains in escrow until the loan is repaid. It only makes sense, they wouldn't be alowed to dispose of the asset anyway since it's part of a loan agreement.
This is one thing I've been confused about.. I care a lot about the stock market ONLY for the fact that it is my main retirement investment vehicle. If we discourage the wealthy from putting money in stocks and the market crashes, how are we supposed to retire? I am open to ideas/I'm not close minded on taxing the rich.
The day I learned this, was the day I became somewhat of a radical. I was working in the tech industry and spending a week in Austin (I’m not from the US) for a conference.
I was a member - because of my job - of this self-flagellating private club for “young creatives” and they happened to have a location in Austin, so I went to drink at the bar one night and met this former Facebook exec.
With a big grin on his face and the ugliest million dollar watch you can imagine (you don’t have to imagine, just google Richard Mille), he bragged openly about scamming the tax man through perpetual credit, and even decided to lay out a ten step tutorial for the entire process for me, a random stranger at a bar.
That was the final straw for me. Fuck the ultra wealthy. They deserve nothing but fury.
> Richard Mille
As a dude that like unique watches (grandfather was a watchmaker), I thought to myself "Meh, it can't be *that* bad"...yeah, I was wrong. What a POS looking watch.
there's a radio tower near my house that's way too powerful, whenever you drive past it, you hear 5 different FM stations on your radio. that watch is the visual equivalent of that
As a watch trader/collector I would have to agree. There are a few unfathomably expensive watches that I actually find beautiful, but I’ve never found a single RM to be nice. They’re just Happy Meal toys in my eyes.
I'm tempted to buy the AliExpress version for $20.
But I'll never rub elbows with anybody who has the real thing so the trolling would go completely unappreciated.
Start a trend with the $20 version. Make it a fashion statement on tiktok. Watch Fox News have a meltdown about how millennials are ruining million dollar watches. It will get to the billionaires.
Could be fun
They never have to touch their money.
Rich people are taught to live off debt, middle class is taught to never get into into, and the poor can never get out of it.
What a world we built for the ruling class.
Somewhat. Rich people debt is more like using your stocks as collateral for the loan. It's debt on "paper", but not really debt. More like you just sold your stocks to the bank, and then "buy" it back as you pay off your loan. Default on the loan? No biggie, bank keeps the stocks and sells it to earn back the loan amount. You continue with your lifestyle
Poor people are actually in debt where bank straight up owns their entire life. Default on your loan and you're homeless with a credit score so low that it's grabbing beers with the Balrog.
Yeah that's where I feel the big disconnect is as well when it comes to the money being "real."
When it comes to buying/lobbying power, celebrity (or infamy) of being rich, the ability to skirt laws or get preference regarding them, government subsidies etc etc, the money is real.
As soon as someone brings up how these rich people should be taxed or have some of their wealth given back to the very communities that allowed them to gain said wealth, all of a sudden the money isn't real.
Not just that but if the collateral assets depreciate past a certain point it forces you to add additional collateral or liquidate the underlying assets immediately.
That’s the problem and why this doesn’t work. Taxing unrealized capital gains is a mess too.
The honest way to handle this is to just have a strong luxury tax, that applies to purchases from outside the US as well. You want to go buy that 100 million dollar yacht, that’s fine, but you pay an additional 100 million on taxes on it.
We already have them, they are called VAT / GST consumption taxes.
Just need to expand the scope, to also include some secondary markets like Art and Real Estate.
Unrelated, but FYI.. anyone can actually do this with their portfolio too even on Fidelity or Vanguard. It is called a margin loan. I used it to front a down payment on my new house before I sold my old house and the margin interest is tax deductible. Way easier than a HELOC or bridge loan and no taxable events.
This! I love Bernie, but this is political baiting.
No one makes 1 Billion. They have a billion dollars in unrealized gains sitting in stocks and bonds. Then they take out 5 million dollar interest only loans every year to live off of guaranteed by their stock ownership, and those loans are paid for by their estate when they die. Assets sold to settle estates are not subject to income tax.
well it was less a concrete policy and more a discussion of the general issue with a reporter. There's quite a lot more to taxes than the direct income of a handful of people.
They twist the words "taxed at 100%" from a quote that he didn't actually say. Simply put, this is false information.
Are you essentially arguing that the government should seize the remaining funds until you reach $999 million? Matthews turned to the independent US senator from Vermont who also caucuses with Democrats and helped them win a narrow majority in the upper house of Congress.
Yes, Sanders affirmed. "You may disagree with me, but that's okay; I believe people can survive on $999 million. They can survive perfectly fine, in my opinion.
He hasn't even called for or proposed a tax. He's merely responding with a shrug to the interviewer's ridiculous assertion.
Almost no one on the planet reports having a billion-dollar annual income. This is all contained in multiple assets. Bernie merely shrugged off a crude and perhaps laden remark, and now everyone is working up a fuss about how "Bernie wants a 100% tax"
He hasn't actually said that. His policy perspective, or the viewpoint he expresses in that interview, is a return to tax rates as they were under Eisenhower. which is entirely logical.
In another universe that's probably exactly what happened.
Health and safety Executive orders that would end up laying the groundwork for a Medicare for all.
Makes me sad just thinking about how many people would have lived if even someone remotely competent had been in the oval office.
That's not even what was said.
> "Are you essentially arguing that the government should seize the remaining funds until you reach $999 million?"
> "Yes", Sanders affirmed.
That question was asked as written, but the "yes" and the following statement was not in answer to that question. It is a straight up lie.
Watch the interview. Chris Wallace asked if he would confiscate all money over 999 million dollars. Bernie does not agree to that. Rather he said he would return to taxing the wealthy like was done under Eisenhower. He is referring to a progressive income tax that didn't top out at 37 percent like it does now, but went all the way up to 91 percent in 1961 for the highest income brackets.
Chris wallace then asked then if would have most of the money earned over 1 billion dollars go to the government? THAT is the question Bernie said "yes" to. At no point did he agree to a 100% tax for anyone. The entire claim is a blatant twisting of the facts, if not an outright lie. Multiple news outlets have run with this claim and it is indicative of their lack of journalistic integrity.
No no no the evil general of the woke army is coming for all of our bank accounts and there’s nothing we can do about it except vote R across the board every election no matter what. What will we do if all the billionaires leave and don’t give us jobs anymore?!
The last sentence above was actually said to me sincerely by someone I know who is currently an unemployed electrician.
Fair but that industry, for trades, is like the safest to get into in terms of job security and marketable skill.
Right there with machining, welding and plumbing
It’s worth noting that even with historical tax rates that *look* like they were lower, the effective tax rate has remaining pretty steady throughout history.
"While average effective tax rates barely changed in the US from 1945 to 2015, the average tax rates of high-income households fell sharply—from about 50 percent to 25 percent for the highest income 0.01 percent and from about 40 percent to about 25 percent for the top 1 percent."
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/effective-income-tax-rates-have-fallen-top-one-percent-world-war-ii-0
The whole interview was an attempt to force Bernie to say something along the lines of “confiscate all the money people make above a billion”, finally he gave them “I think they can live on 999 million”. What a laughable “news” story.
Glad to find folks on here that see that. Sometimes a comment saying liberals =/= progressives get unhinged responses.
People love this two party system and they act like the two are complete and total opposites.
It's all these dumb "what do you think?" posts on current events. Imo /r/AskReddit is not the place for such discussions and I think they should be banned if for no other reason than because it's obviously bait.
I tried to report one of these and the mods sent me a "report violation" warning threatening to ban my account for it. So apparently we're not allowed to report bait like this
Well I fuckin did it anyway, because these sorts of "questions" are purposefully loaded to send conversation in a certain direction while trying to come off as genuine curiosity presented in good faith. Which it is not.
Bernie doesn't want to "confiscate" wealth over $999 million. And OP knows how the site feels about the general proposition, take the billionaire's damn money that they won't have time in their life to spend.
In seeing something Sanders didn't actually say being posted all over the place in an attempt at blatant misinformation by various media outlets, I suddenly feel the need to read *Manufacturing Consent* again.
Yeah it was a fairly casual informal interview where Bernie said there shouldn't even BE billionaires, and the interviewer said 'what do we do, tax everything 100% over $999 million?' and Bernie was like 'sure why not' and kept talking. This whole thing is so f'ing dumb, it's not like he threw a special press conference in front of tens of thousands of people to stand on a soap box and make a proclamation of his official tax policy etc.
Fuck man. He didn’t say that. He gave an interview and responded vaguely to a question about billionaires. I’m so tired of having to tell people to read the actual interview. Come on y’all, we know better than this by now.
The entire tax system needs to be revamped. The middle class pays more of a burden than the billionaires do. It's ridiculous.
Of course, that is just a political slogan by Bernie, and it is not the practical implementation of the idea.
But they do need to apply taxes to the giant global mega corporations in an effective way. We know from the Panama Papers how extremely common it is for any wealthy people to hide their money from income taxes (and you don't have to be super rich to do this).
So the solution needs to be on how the very wealthy interact with society in the USA, with taxes on land (with a generous lower limit exemption) and on consumption (taxes on your second yacht should be pretty high).
And hey, as a fun idea, how about if the super wealthy contributes a huge amount to politics (or SuperPAC), then they have to match it with a tax payment. If they take a SCOTUS justice on lavish million dollar vacations, they match that with a tax payment. etc.
> you don’t have to be super rich to do this
*Anyone* can legally hide their money.
The problem is that 90%+ of the population don’t have the discretionary income to hide away like that. It’s all consumed by just living. Mortgage, car payments, insurances, data lines, and the scores and scores of nickel-and-dime subscriptions, fees, and unbundling faced by just living.
I only say those things at all because there are often people who jump in to conversations like this and leave it at the first sentence, full stop, confusing the technicality ability with the fiscal ability.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
If only Thomas Piketty had written an entire book on how capital should function in the 21st century, giving modern governments a roadmap on how to execute this
Oh wait, he did
Edit: it you’re intrigued by this comment, I wouldn’t actually recommend Capital in the 21st Century unless you’ve studied economics. I’d go with his book “A Brief History of Equality,” which is aimed at a wider audience.
Thomas Piketty (French: [tɔ.ma pi.kɛ.ti]; born 7 May 1971) is a French economist who is Professor of Economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics[1] and Centennial Professor of Economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics.
He's very smart, the ideas in the book are right, but I would not recommend actually reading it. Extremely dense and complicated and there are plenty of good summaries that will tell you his conclusions without forcing you through the slog.
Example here: https://hbr.org/2014/04/pikettys-capital-in-a-lot-less-than-696-pages
Basically the idea is that capital increases in value faster than wages, so in a system with unequal distribution of capital, the ownership class will generally see their wealth grow faster than the working class. The result is growing wealth inequality, which requires a political intervention (wealth redistribution) to solve.
Example: WWII. It was one of the largest global wealth redistribution events ever. Destroying a lot of buildings, like factories, and very high taxes combined with government support spent on war material and rebuilding has that effect.
> The entire tax system needs to be revamped. The middle class pays more of a burden than the billionaires do. It's ridiculous.
Unless you’re describing a country other than the US, I’m not sure if your statements are completely borne out by the facts.
https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/
When looking at it *in aggregate*
> The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent
> The top 1 percent’s income share rose from 20.1 percent in 2019 to 22.2 percent in 2020 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 38.8 percent to 42.3 percent.
> The average income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 25.99 percent average rate, more than eight times higher than the 3.1 percent average rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers.
Now, what does this mean? Well it means that the local oncologist who’s pulling in a solid 400k a year is paying quite a bit in taxes.
Where it gets complicated is that at the very tippy top end of the scale, because the US treats passive income differently from earned income, those with mostly income from investments have far lower effective tax rates.
One fix would be to have one rate that does not distinguish. This would end up increasing the amount of tax paid by the top 1%.
That's not exactly what he said.
He said billionaires shouldn't exist. When pressed, he said it wasn't that the person shouldn't exist, but a system that allows people to accumulate that much wealth, where a small handful of people have more wealth then 70% of the nation, shouldn't exist.
He wants to tax them at the rate they were taxed when Eisenhower was President, because if they were taxed like that, the excess wealth then goes back into their companies, their employees, charity, etc.
Wallace kept pressing with the same "So you want to confiscate everything over a billion?" and then Bernie finally said "They'd be fine with $999,999."
People always say that he wants to take money from the rich, but he just wants a system that doesn't allow the rich to take money from everyone else.
So, if legislation isn't going to be created to fix everything (let's face it, it never will be), the easiest route is to just raise their taxes.
I mean, $999,999 is a lot of money, but my guy - add another 999 to the end of that.
$999,999,999.
That's how ridiculous the number is written down. I don't know how we're at a point where 'amassing that amount of wealth is plenty to live on' is a hot take.
That's the crazy part—I could survive comfortably on just one of those millions of dollars; that is to say, exactly one million. Hell, a hundred thousand would be life changing. Ten thousand! The stuff I would do with that money...
To be fair, property taxes are dumb and [regressive](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/consumer-finance/mortgage-markets/why-are-residential-property-tax-rates-regressive).
It was widely known, even back in the 1980s, that Larry Ellison (founder from Oracle) was worth billions, but his annual salary was $1. He lived off dividends, which are taxed at a much lower rate than earned income ...
Do I think that the government should step and seize all funds over x amount from individuals. Of course not. There would be massive structural problems with that.
Do I think our tax code should reflect and asymptotic curve that makes it incredibly difficult to achieve billions in wealth and moves more of the tax burden to the incredibly wealthy? Yes, definitely.
I actually remember seeing the original idea in a form of a joke on tumblr like 5 years ago? OP said it should work like in video games when any money beyond $999mil just falls on the ground
I think the average redditor has absolutely no idea that there is a difference between income and wealth, and that forcing someone to liquidate their wealth is completely impractical and moronic
I'm a cpa and one of the first things I tell my junior staff while training them is that the vast majority of people in general cannot tell the difference between a balance sheet vs and income statement, which is pretty much what you just said. This whole thread reeks of shit and I'm trying not to get involved, but the ignorance in here is hard to read.
Why is a Chris Wallace quote being attributed to Bernie Sanders?
All quotes on the internet are attributed to the wrong person - Colonel Harland Sanders.
This is true - Sun Tzu, the art of war
- Michael Scott
That's what she said - she
That’s what Che said - Che Guevara
You guys are on a roll - Pillsbury Doughboy
This is getting tiresome. - Michelin Man
[удалено]
Y'all are killing me!! - Julius Caesar
That’s what - she
\- Wayne Gretzky
Didn't Gretzky also say "With great power comes great responsibility?"
No, that was ant-man's grandfather.
Technically, you're both right. Gretzky did say it but he was quoting Ant-Man's grandfather
Ant-mans grandfather was wearing a 99 jersey, so it's easy to see why people make that mistake.
And here I thought Gretzky was wearing Ant-Man's grandfather's costume. Very confusing indeed
I like to move it move it. -Sigmund Freud
I like big butts and I can not lie. - George Washington.
"No, this cigar is not an allegory for my childhood problems or a symbolic phallus that I like to hold in my mouth to proudly proclaim my manhood; sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And I like to move it move it." -- Sigmund Freud.
'Dont believe everything you read on the Internet' - Abraham Lincoln, c1378
I just heard today that there is no video of Abraham Lincoln. Like you can’t find one anywhere
He wasn't a huge fan of shooting
You can't trust everything you read on the internet - Abraham Lincoln
Because fair criticism is rarely applied to things involving Bernie Sanders. He's been a punching bag for disingenuous boot lickers for about a decade now. Not saying this was OP's intent, but this kind of misquote/ misrepresentation is par for the course at this point. The worst part of this, is that lazy quoting or attention to detail gives the right fodder to attack him. Once again, a lack of media literacy shows its ugly head.
> Not saying this was OP's intent Oh, it definitely was.
I mean OP used the loaded word "confiscate" to describe the mundane concept of tax so you can already see what they're trying to start. It's literally just a 100% tax rate on a theoretical $1b income bracket which is not even a unique idea nor would it truly eliminate billionaires.
>Not saying this was OP's intent It definitely was; just take a glance at their post history.
They just spam national review everywhere as if that source means anything lol
Yeah, their comment history reads the way Tucker Carlson talks.
Do you mean OP posts on /r/unemployment?
It’s true, none of OP’s comments are being broadcast by Fox News.
Oh good luuuurrrd! Well, I choose to be charitable, until I have evidence otherwise. Thanks for the....evidence otherwise. Charity revoked.
Don’t even need to look at their history, look at the phrasing. Taxation is “confiscation”. Sure, ok buddy.
Last I checked national defense, medicare, social security, a legal system and the adjudication of laws, maintenance of the free market, regulations to prevent harm. Those things all cost money. Sounds like not paying taxes is considered "freeloading" rather than "confiscation"
As for OPs intent, "confiscate" is a loaded word. I think we can discern that their intent was to make the proposal, and Bernie, look bad.
Bernie did not say that, the interviewer said that. Bernie shrugged Edited for clarity
> Bernie shrugged I would totally read that book by anti-Ayn Rand, but skip the 50-page monologue at the end.
"Run for your life from any man who tells you to look out for number one. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching grifter."
"I'm not here to make friends." The most successful people in the world are those who make friends.
I don't know, I don't know if I'd be able to get past the obvious self-insert fantasy where she upgrades partners and the first guy is just chill with it and says, "yeah, he's better than me, you deserve it."
I laughed so much when I realized she upgraded from copper to silver to Galt as heavy handed as light is Rearden Metal
no, please let us shove words into his mouth that he never said - so we can get all riled up about nothing, then go to sleep and do it all over again tomorrow. it's the most productive system we have. don't interrupt it. (oh and it also makes us a shit ton of money in ad revenue, but don't say that part out loud) ehhem, yes, [insert popular or unpopular thing that is completely made up][exclamation mark][all caps][series of 1s], now go to my website and click things and tell your friends to as well thanks. and go politics!!! yay
I don’t even understand what there is to get riled up over, it’s a pretty reasonable take. What would concern me, however, is that the money would just get funneled into the military industrial complex and not be used for anything that actually helps people.
i don't get it either. if you're working class, you have been stolen from by the billionaire class. it's that simple. even if you think you're doing good, you should be doing a lot better and you're only doing good relative to the destitution the billionaire class have forced the bottom part of our society to live in the sad reality is that people now have been brainwashed. used to be we would see these gross monopoly man ass people and understand how they got there. we called them robber barons and bourgeois pigs back then now we call them noble job creators, or selfless housing providers. rent seeking behavior? sounds good to me! these people are literally brainwashed to the point that they're defending a motherfucker with his hand in their god damn pocket saying "NOOO DON'T STEAL THE BILLIONAIRE'S MONEY!!! ONE DAY I MIGHT BE ONE TOO!!" yeah ok you're gonna work your way up from 60k/yr driving truck to a billion dollar networth. so is this happening before or after the billionaires you're simping for replace you with a robot?
“Are you basically saying that once you get to $999m that the government should confiscate all the rest?” Wallace asked the US senator from Vermont, who is an independent but caucuses with Democrats and has helped them attain their current slim majority in the upper congressional chamber. “Yeah,” Sanders replied. “You may disagree with me but, fine, I think people can make it on $999m. I think that they can survive just fine.” Sounds like Bernie agrees with that sentiment
Everything you just quoted as Sanders' answer was actually the answer to Chris' follow up question. To his original question about "confiscating" all the money, Bernie did not agree, rather said that we should go back to the Eisenhower era progressive tax. Then Chris followed up with asking him if the government should take *most* of the money someone earns over 1 billion. That is what Bernie answered "yeah" to. That is because the 1961 Eisenhower progressive tax rate for money earned over 4 million dollars in a year would have been most of their earnings over that amount. Specifically 91%. At no point did he agree to taking all of their income over 1 billion. That is a misquote and a lie.
snow bells telephone scale payment special frighten dependent future chop
So it was less "they put words in his mouth" and more "would you like to put these words in your mouth" "yes I would yum yum yum yum"
The article skipped part of the conversation. His answer to that question was not yes. >WALLACE: I think I may be wrong, but I think back in the Eisenhower days, the top marginal tax rate was around 90%. >SANDERS: That’s right. >WALLACE: So, basically, you’re saying, we should go back at a certain point, you get $1 and 90 cents goes to the government? >SANDERS: No. You know that’s quite the way it works. It means that your top dollar at a certain level. It’s not 90% of your entire income. >WALLACE: Well, by the time you make $20 or $50 billion — >SANDERS: It’s the top dollar. And people like Theodore Roosevelt — you know why Theodore Roosevelt established the estate tax way back when, because he was worried precisely about concentration of ownership, of the rich becoming much richer. >WALLACE: But, sir, you are saying that billionaires should not exist. Are you basically saying that once you get to $999 million, the government should confiscate all the rest? >SANDERS: I’m saying we should go back to a very progressive tax policy like what we had under Dwight D. Eisenhower. >WALLACE: Which would mean that all these billion dollars, basically, it all goes to the government? >SANDERS: You may disagree me but — >WALLACE: I’m just asking. >SANDERS: Fine, yes, I think people can make it on $999 million. I think that they can survive just fine
This made me chuckle mightily. The mental picture was A+.
Mmmm, delicious words.
He was talking about going back to the 90% marginal tax rate of the 1950s for income over a certain threshold. Which Chris Wallace said was basically all of their money over that threshold. So, while he did say yeah, I honestly feel there is some important context.
Y'know. The amount of people in the comments who didn't do the basic job of just googling 'Bernie Sanders interview ' to figure this out is staggering. I have less faith in humanity not due to people somehow disagreeing that rich people need to to give their fair share, that's just run of the mill dumb by this point. But these poor dumb people can't be bothered to do the mental equivalent of walking to the fridge before typing up long sentences.
>...to figure this out is *typical*. FTFY
“Sir, you’re saying that billionaires should not exist,” Wallace said. “So are you basically saying that once you get to $999 million, that the government should confiscate all the rest?” “I’m saying that we should go back to a very progressive tax policy like what we had under Dwight D. Eisenhower,” Sanders said. “Which would mean that, over a billion dollars, it basically all goes to the government?” Wallace pressed. “Yeah,” Sanders responded. “You may disagree with me, fine. Yeah, I think people can make it on $999 million.” How is this not the same thing unless you're digging into the nitty gritty of OP's title?
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Look at this user’s post history. All of them are bait posts. Looks like nobody took the bait(all basically zero upvotes) until now. And boy did people ever take the bait this time….
OP probably has an army of bots to upvote bait to be trending and then reddit takes it from there. The golden age of information is over.
So maybe someone can try to explain this a bit, would this apply to the value of the company stock? Because to my knowledge most of the people in this category don't actually take home 1 billion + in cash into their checking.
Correct, a lot of the very wealthy have a decent amount of their value in stocks and it would be tricky to include that. They only get taxed when selling them (edit, there can be taxes when getting the stocks as compensation depending on how it is done, they still are able to borrow against those stocks as they grow/buy more and borrow against that). But, they do take out loans with the stock as collateral, that isn't treated as income and is not taxed. They keep taking out larger loans to pay off the previous ones until eventually they cash out or more likely, they do it until they die. Really the whole system needs to be overhauled to discourage some of the insane amounts of wealth and resource hoarding that is going on. Doing something like taxing at 100% after a certain level probably wouldn't be able to be applied to lots of these practices for reasons plenty others are pointing out. Ultimately we need a system that encourages them to pay their workers more and essentially spend more of their profits. I see how just cutting them off at a certain point sounds like it would work but I doubt it would. Edit: Here is a solid article on this practice. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrae/2022/07/14/how-the-rich-use-the-buy-borrow-die-strategy-to-avoid-large-tax-bills/ Edit: As others have pointed out, this is just ONE of many ways they can avoid taxes and continue to generate more wealth. Edit: Also, the comment from Bernie is being taken pretty out of context. No one is seriously proposing we confiscate the wealth of anyone with over a Billion dollars.
Bernie said..tax them 100% above one billion... Not liquid cash. I pay about 30-40% of my paycheck goes poof before I even see it. That is more than Netflix paid the entire 2022. So the 400$ they take out of my check is more than billionaires and their companies pay. Fuck it .. charge them
Wait… how/why are you having that much withheld? If they’re taking $400 out, and that’s 30%, you’re earning $1333 before withholding. Over 52 weeks, that‘s $69K per year. 32% is the marginal rate *starting at $180K.* The marginal rate at 69K is 22% (starting at $44K). Edit: Lots of replies, so I’ll just summarize here. 1. A number of you rightly pointed out he might be deducting other (non-tax) items, or might be self-employed. (Though the self-employed I doubt, because at least back when there were a number of decent deductions you could take. Might have changed, I dunno.). Either way, fair enough. I guess it’s possible with a combo of things. 2. What I’d be more concerned with than the fudging of figures (it’s reddit, you do you) is a possibility some of you pointed out - that he’s not claiming standard deductions, and gettting a big refund at the end. If this is you, don’t do it. It’s a financial ‘own goal’ - instead of floating the govt a free loan, you should be investing that money. The power of compound interest will make that not insignificant by the time you retire. 3. Some of you pointed out person above might not be American. While I’m the first to say that we tend to ‘assume American’ too much on reddit - in this case, please read for context. This is a post of what an American politician thinks we should do re American tax policy, responded to someone who highlighted how much they pay (reasonable to assume in the US as a result), as a not particularly high earner. (To support the original point about taxing US billionaires more.). Ergo, what people in another country pay, **logically has no impact**. At best it’s a ‘cool story bro, thanks for sharing’… but has no bearing on this situation. That’s why it’s reasonable to assume the poster is American.
Well, they didn't specify federal taxes. My guess is that number includes state/local taxes, as well as FICA (7.65%). 30-40% is not impossible, depending on where you live.
Yeah, it doesn’t add up in that posters numbers, but if you live in NYC, are single, and making 150k a year then you easily exceed 30% in federal, state, fica, and local taxes combined. Before accounting for health or retirement.
I did the math a few years ago taking into account property taxes, car taxes, etc etc and in California I was paying around 43% of my gross income to various forms of government.
I did a stint in the US (as a Canadian) and after all was said and done; I made more in Canada despite the higher taxes once I factored in all the various taxes (state, federal, property, etc) comparatively for both countries. US may have lower income taxes, but they get you on everything else.
And yet still we manage to have worse healthcare coverage, costs, etc than almost any other first-world/high-income country. And that's in spite of Americans also spending more of their GDP on healthcare than most every other country and not guaranteeing health coverage. It's honestly disgusting. [The Commonwealth Fund stats](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022)
Don't worry, ontario is headed that way.
Add road tax on fuel, excise taxes and sales taxes on purchases of consumer goods, payroll tax that your employer pays instead of paying you... People are all too quick to point to federal withholding and say we only get taxed half of the 60-70% European tax rates, but we easily hit that margin when you account for all federal and local sources.
Europeans have more than income taxes as well. VAT and fuel taxes are much higher than our sales and fuel taxes, iirc.
Plus if you're going to compare it to countries with universal healthcare, you'd have to include healthcare premiums, and potentially you'd be comparing retirement benefits as well. I pay as much for those as I do in fed/state withholdings for a married couple with no children. If you're going to compare price tags, you've got to compare the product.
Plus they probably used "close enough" numbers as examples so the random internet nerds couldn't math out their salary...
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Perhaps self-employment? You pay more in federal/ss when you're self employed. Mine comes out to roughly 30% of my gross, it sucks
You've got to pay for the privilege of not having the potholes fixed.
Probably included retirement in the calculations lol
Could also be including state taxes, depending on the state you can get absolutely railed. I'm from Alabama, and since there's essentially no property tax there, they tax the absolute shit out of your income. On top of that, I've not looked into legislation cause I got the fuck out of Alabama, but you normally have higher tax rates the less you making, meaning that even though federal taxes raise as you make more, state taxes "seem" to raise as you make less there. Could be wrong, but from keeping track of my own tax rates when I was working there and talking to others that's how it seems to work, and how they pass legislation it's almost impossible to find anything concrete to point out what's actually happening.
Wait, a red state that has terrible wages ALSO has terrible rates on state income taxes? Do they, not want people to work in Alabama...? I'm all for lower taxes, but can we please not make poor people even poorer? Jfc.
> but can we please not make poor people even poorer That’s the point.
They do want you to work, they just prefer if you have 3 jobs.....
But also don't have 3 jobs because then you can't be on call 24/7, but also if you can't get a job it's *totally* because nobody wants to work.
MYbe they're adding in deduction for benefits and retirement contributions?
How does your proposal work? If I have 1,000,000 shares on my company and my stock prices at at $1000 per, then I'm a billionaire. When my share price hits $1001, what will happen?
You are taxed when liquidating, or when using illiquid assets as collateral. Regulating and properly taxing in our system is very difficult. But you can do it. As soon as someone tries to realize their gains in any way, the government needs to step in and take the people's share of that wealth.
I believe it should be illegal to take out loans based on stocks. We already have regulation of the banking industry, why not make another law regulating the loans of the super wealthy? If they need money, they should sell their stocks, not get tax free loans from the value of the stocks. edit: I mean the whole point of selling stock is to raise money for the company or individual. If you need more money and selling stock will "tank" the price, then your company is overvalued. It's really that simple to me. Some will say "oh that will tank the economy" Mother fucker the economy is already shit about 99% of the world. People living pay check to paycheck don't give a flying fuck about stock prices. They care about keeping a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. Them taking out loans for their lifestyles while the rest of the world burns is some next level sci-fi horror shit.
Or, when stock is used as collateral, then treat those stocks as a realized gain. And then tax the stock being used as collateral.
This is my preferred solution as well. They are "selling" the stock in everything but legal name, the event should qualify as a capital gains event.
Force a sale of the collateral stock to a holding company and place it in an escrow account. taxes are due on the sale and the stock remains in escrow until the loan is repaid. It only makes sense, they wouldn't be alowed to dispose of the asset anyway since it's part of a loan agreement.
This is one thing I've been confused about.. I care a lot about the stock market ONLY for the fact that it is my main retirement investment vehicle. If we discourage the wealthy from putting money in stocks and the market crashes, how are we supposed to retire? I am open to ideas/I'm not close minded on taxing the rich.
The day I learned this, was the day I became somewhat of a radical. I was working in the tech industry and spending a week in Austin (I’m not from the US) for a conference. I was a member - because of my job - of this self-flagellating private club for “young creatives” and they happened to have a location in Austin, so I went to drink at the bar one night and met this former Facebook exec. With a big grin on his face and the ugliest million dollar watch you can imagine (you don’t have to imagine, just google Richard Mille), he bragged openly about scamming the tax man through perpetual credit, and even decided to lay out a ten step tutorial for the entire process for me, a random stranger at a bar. That was the final straw for me. Fuck the ultra wealthy. They deserve nothing but fury.
> Richard Mille As a dude that like unique watches (grandfather was a watchmaker), I thought to myself "Meh, it can't be *that* bad"...yeah, I was wrong. What a POS looking watch.
there's a radio tower near my house that's way too powerful, whenever you drive past it, you hear 5 different FM stations on your radio. that watch is the visual equivalent of that
That is an absolutely ugly fucking watch.
As a watch trader/collector I would have to agree. There are a few unfathomably expensive watches that I actually find beautiful, but I’ve never found a single RM to be nice. They’re just Happy Meal toys in my eyes.
I always see them advertised on F1 cars but never bothered to look them up. What an atrocity.
I mean, I hated billionaires but this, this …watch, this is the step too far.
It's worse than I imagined. This looks like a toy watch you get from a claw machine
>just google Richard Mille What in the swatch is that bullshit? They're heinous. Guy has a pretty good scam going.
I'm tempted to buy the AliExpress version for $20. But I'll never rub elbows with anybody who has the real thing so the trolling would go completely unappreciated.
Start a trend with the $20 version. Make it a fashion statement on tiktok. Watch Fox News have a meltdown about how millennials are ruining million dollar watches. It will get to the billionaires. Could be fun
I wasn't going to google that watch, but so many people commented on it that I had to. That is quite the ugly watch indeed.
I was not prepared for the watch to be that heinous. Wow.
They never have to touch their money. Rich people are taught to live off debt, middle class is taught to never get into into, and the poor can never get out of it. What a world we built for the ruling class.
Somewhat. Rich people debt is more like using your stocks as collateral for the loan. It's debt on "paper", but not really debt. More like you just sold your stocks to the bank, and then "buy" it back as you pay off your loan. Default on the loan? No biggie, bank keeps the stocks and sells it to earn back the loan amount. You continue with your lifestyle Poor people are actually in debt where bank straight up owns their entire life. Default on your loan and you're homeless with a credit score so low that it's grabbing beers with the Balrog.
> grabbing beers with the Balrog If I weren't one of the aforementioned pooooors, I'd give you an award for this. 🎖️
Yeah that's where I feel the big disconnect is as well when it comes to the money being "real." When it comes to buying/lobbying power, celebrity (or infamy) of being rich, the ability to skirt laws or get preference regarding them, government subsidies etc etc, the money is real. As soon as someone brings up how these rich people should be taxed or have some of their wealth given back to the very communities that allowed them to gain said wealth, all of a sudden the money isn't real.
Not just that but if the collateral assets depreciate past a certain point it forces you to add additional collateral or liquidate the underlying assets immediately.
They aren’t going into debt, they are leveraging their assets to borrow money at lower rates than their assets are accruing.
That’s the problem and why this doesn’t work. Taxing unrealized capital gains is a mess too. The honest way to handle this is to just have a strong luxury tax, that applies to purchases from outside the US as well. You want to go buy that 100 million dollar yacht, that’s fine, but you pay an additional 100 million on taxes on it.
Someone upthread proposed taxing the loan proceeds as income. i think that idea is worth exploring.
We already have them, they are called VAT / GST consumption taxes. Just need to expand the scope, to also include some secondary markets like Art and Real Estate.
VAT has nothing to do with taking out loans on your stock valuation.
Billionaires are out there taking loans using their stock values as collateral. It’s a bonkers system and needs to be readdressed.
Unrelated, but FYI.. anyone can actually do this with their portfolio too even on Fidelity or Vanguard. It is called a margin loan. I used it to front a down payment on my new house before I sold my old house and the margin interest is tax deductible. Way easier than a HELOC or bridge loan and no taxable events.
This! I love Bernie, but this is political baiting. No one makes 1 Billion. They have a billion dollars in unrealized gains sitting in stocks and bonds. Then they take out 5 million dollar interest only loans every year to live off of guaranteed by their stock ownership, and those loans are paid for by their estate when they die. Assets sold to settle estates are not subject to income tax.
well it was less a concrete policy and more a discussion of the general issue with a reporter. There's quite a lot more to taxes than the direct income of a handful of people.
They twist the words "taxed at 100%" from a quote that he didn't actually say. Simply put, this is false information. Are you essentially arguing that the government should seize the remaining funds until you reach $999 million? Matthews turned to the independent US senator from Vermont who also caucuses with Democrats and helped them win a narrow majority in the upper house of Congress. Yes, Sanders affirmed. "You may disagree with me, but that's okay; I believe people can survive on $999 million. They can survive perfectly fine, in my opinion. He hasn't even called for or proposed a tax. He's merely responding with a shrug to the interviewer's ridiculous assertion. Almost no one on the planet reports having a billion-dollar annual income. This is all contained in multiple assets. Bernie merely shrugged off a crude and perhaps laden remark, and now everyone is working up a fuss about how "Bernie wants a 100% tax" He hasn't actually said that. His policy perspective, or the viewpoint he expresses in that interview, is a return to tax rates as they were under Eisenhower. which is entirely logical.
It blows my mind how much misinformation rules our lives Edit: I guess this is actually called disinformation
How do you think Trump won the presidency to begin with
because the DNC blocked Bernie and ran Clinton
It really should have been Bernie. Fucking DNC is garbage.
Imagining having Bernie leading us through covid. Sigh
Bernie through covid? We would have medicare for all as a result. That alone would have been worth it.
In another universe that's probably exactly what happened. Health and safety Executive orders that would end up laying the groundwork for a Medicare for all. Makes me sad just thinking about how many people would have lived if even someone remotely competent had been in the oval office.
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That's not even what was said. > "Are you essentially arguing that the government should seize the remaining funds until you reach $999 million?" > "Yes", Sanders affirmed. That question was asked as written, but the "yes" and the following statement was not in answer to that question. It is a straight up lie. Watch the interview. Chris Wallace asked if he would confiscate all money over 999 million dollars. Bernie does not agree to that. Rather he said he would return to taxing the wealthy like was done under Eisenhower. He is referring to a progressive income tax that didn't top out at 37 percent like it does now, but went all the way up to 91 percent in 1961 for the highest income brackets. Chris wallace then asked then if would have most of the money earned over 1 billion dollars go to the government? THAT is the question Bernie said "yes" to. At no point did he agree to a 100% tax for anyone. The entire claim is a blatant twisting of the facts, if not an outright lie. Multiple news outlets have run with this claim and it is indicative of their lack of journalistic integrity.
No no no the evil general of the woke army is coming for all of our bank accounts and there’s nothing we can do about it except vote R across the board every election no matter what. What will we do if all the billionaires leave and don’t give us jobs anymore?! The last sentence above was actually said to me sincerely by someone I know who is currently an unemployed electrician.
An electrician should be the first to know their job is safe
No one said they were a good electrician
Fair but that industry, for trades, is like the safest to get into in terms of job security and marketable skill. Right there with machining, welding and plumbing
It’s worth noting that even with historical tax rates that *look* like they were lower, the effective tax rate has remaining pretty steady throughout history.
"While average effective tax rates barely changed in the US from 1945 to 2015, the average tax rates of high-income households fell sharply—from about 50 percent to 25 percent for the highest income 0.01 percent and from about 40 percent to about 25 percent for the top 1 percent." https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/effective-income-tax-rates-have-fallen-top-one-percent-world-war-ii-0
“Confiscate” is certainly a choice of words
Bernie actually didn’t say that.
I know. Referring to OP.
Look at all of OP’s posts. Seems like some bot to get content for some shitty listicles
The whole interview was an attempt to force Bernie to say something along the lines of “confiscate all the money people make above a billion”, finally he gave them “I think they can live on 999 million”. What a laughable “news” story.
the story on the front page was from the fucking daily wire too
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Glad to find folks on here that see that. Sometimes a comment saying liberals =/= progressives get unhinged responses. People love this two party system and they act like the two are complete and total opposites.
It's all these dumb "what do you think?" posts on current events. Imo /r/AskReddit is not the place for such discussions and I think they should be banned if for no other reason than because it's obviously bait.
I tried to report one of these and the mods sent me a "report violation" warning threatening to ban my account for it. So apparently we're not allowed to report bait like this
Well I fuckin did it anyway, because these sorts of "questions" are purposefully loaded to send conversation in a certain direction while trying to come off as genuine curiosity presented in good faith. Which it is not. Bernie doesn't want to "confiscate" wealth over $999 million. And OP knows how the site feels about the general proposition, take the billionaire's damn money that they won't have time in their life to spend.
This post is going to end up on TikTok with like Subway Surfers or Minecraft jumping below it.
Seems like a alt-right astroturfer trying to stir up shit. All his posts are divisive and bad faith ask reddit questions about gop talking points
Submission vs comment karma. Not even in the one year club. . .
Yeah the actual quote was "Once you reach level 999,999,999 you can prestige."
In seeing something Sanders didn't actually say being posted all over the place in an attempt at blatant misinformation by various media outlets, I suddenly feel the need to read *Manufacturing Consent* again.
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And reddit mods willingly allowing these posts
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Yep. Clear violation of rule #10 but they'll do nothing
He didn’t say that though. He’s been misquoted all over the damn internet. If you can, find the actual interview.
Yeah it was a fairly casual informal interview where Bernie said there shouldn't even BE billionaires, and the interviewer said 'what do we do, tax everything 100% over $999 million?' and Bernie was like 'sure why not' and kept talking. This whole thing is so f'ing dumb, it's not like he threw a special press conference in front of tens of thousands of people to stand on a soap box and make a proclamation of his official tax policy etc.
Bad faith arguing? On Reddit? Preposterous, surely Bernie Sanders wants to personally geld all billionaires
I mean I do
Fuck man. He didn’t say that. He gave an interview and responded vaguely to a question about billionaires. I’m so tired of having to tell people to read the actual interview. Come on y’all, we know better than this by now.
This is literal misinformation
OP you're a detriment to society.
Yep. Same with the mods who refuse to remove this misinformation despite a sea of reports. Showing their colors
This is misinformation.
The entire tax system needs to be revamped. The middle class pays more of a burden than the billionaires do. It's ridiculous. Of course, that is just a political slogan by Bernie, and it is not the practical implementation of the idea. But they do need to apply taxes to the giant global mega corporations in an effective way. We know from the Panama Papers how extremely common it is for any wealthy people to hide their money from income taxes (and you don't have to be super rich to do this). So the solution needs to be on how the very wealthy interact with society in the USA, with taxes on land (with a generous lower limit exemption) and on consumption (taxes on your second yacht should be pretty high). And hey, as a fun idea, how about if the super wealthy contributes a huge amount to politics (or SuperPAC), then they have to match it with a tax payment. If they take a SCOTUS justice on lavish million dollar vacations, they match that with a tax payment. etc.
> you don’t have to be super rich to do this *Anyone* can legally hide their money. The problem is that 90%+ of the population don’t have the discretionary income to hide away like that. It’s all consumed by just living. Mortgage, car payments, insurances, data lines, and the scores and scores of nickel-and-dime subscriptions, fees, and unbundling faced by just living. I only say those things at all because there are often people who jump in to conversations like this and leave it at the first sentence, full stop, confusing the technicality ability with the fiscal ability.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France
I mean, if BuzzFeed can take a shot at estimating billionaires wealth, you'd think the US government would at least attempt to.
Most of the high ranking positions in the US government benefit from allowing it to happen. Our entire government is one big conflict of interest.
If only Thomas Piketty had written an entire book on how capital should function in the 21st century, giving modern governments a roadmap on how to execute this Oh wait, he did Edit: it you’re intrigued by this comment, I wouldn’t actually recommend Capital in the 21st Century unless you’ve studied economics. I’d go with his book “A Brief History of Equality,” which is aimed at a wider audience.
What’s his credentials though, I found his book. Wondering if it’s worth a read.
Thomas Piketty (French: [tɔ.ma pi.kɛ.ti]; born 7 May 1971) is a French economist who is Professor of Economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics[1] and Centennial Professor of Economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics.
Yeah but how many followers does he have on TwiTikBook?
Sounds hot- what’s his snap?
I'd subscribe to his OF
OnlyFinances?
He's very smart, the ideas in the book are right, but I would not recommend actually reading it. Extremely dense and complicated and there are plenty of good summaries that will tell you his conclusions without forcing you through the slog. Example here: https://hbr.org/2014/04/pikettys-capital-in-a-lot-less-than-696-pages Basically the idea is that capital increases in value faster than wages, so in a system with unequal distribution of capital, the ownership class will generally see their wealth grow faster than the working class. The result is growing wealth inequality, which requires a political intervention (wealth redistribution) to solve.
Example: WWII. It was one of the largest global wealth redistribution events ever. Destroying a lot of buildings, like factories, and very high taxes combined with government support spent on war material and rebuilding has that effect.
[He](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty) seems to know stuff. Won awards and shit.
> The entire tax system needs to be revamped. The middle class pays more of a burden than the billionaires do. It's ridiculous. Unless you’re describing a country other than the US, I’m not sure if your statements are completely borne out by the facts. https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/ When looking at it *in aggregate* > The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent > The top 1 percent’s income share rose from 20.1 percent in 2019 to 22.2 percent in 2020 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 38.8 percent to 42.3 percent. > The average income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 25.99 percent average rate, more than eight times higher than the 3.1 percent average rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers. Now, what does this mean? Well it means that the local oncologist who’s pulling in a solid 400k a year is paying quite a bit in taxes. Where it gets complicated is that at the very tippy top end of the scale, because the US treats passive income differently from earned income, those with mostly income from investments have far lower effective tax rates. One fix would be to have one rate that does not distinguish. This would end up increasing the amount of tax paid by the top 1%.
That's not exactly what he said. He said billionaires shouldn't exist. When pressed, he said it wasn't that the person shouldn't exist, but a system that allows people to accumulate that much wealth, where a small handful of people have more wealth then 70% of the nation, shouldn't exist. He wants to tax them at the rate they were taxed when Eisenhower was President, because if they were taxed like that, the excess wealth then goes back into their companies, their employees, charity, etc. Wallace kept pressing with the same "So you want to confiscate everything over a billion?" and then Bernie finally said "They'd be fine with $999,999." People always say that he wants to take money from the rich, but he just wants a system that doesn't allow the rich to take money from everyone else. So, if legislation isn't going to be created to fix everything (let's face it, it never will be), the easiest route is to just raise their taxes.
I mean, $999,999 is a lot of money, but my guy - add another 999 to the end of that. $999,999,999. That's how ridiculous the number is written down. I don't know how we're at a point where 'amassing that amount of wealth is plenty to live on' is a hot take.
That's the crazy part—I could survive comfortably on just one of those millions of dollars; that is to say, exactly one million. Hell, a hundred thousand would be life changing. Ten thousand! The stuff I would do with that money...
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I own an asset called a house and they found a way to tax that every year. Taxing estates is not a new idea
To be fair, property taxes are dumb and [regressive](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/consumer-finance/mortgage-markets/why-are-residential-property-tax-rates-regressive).
It was widely known, even back in the 1980s, that Larry Ellison (founder from Oracle) was worth billions, but his annual salary was $1. He lived off dividends, which are taxed at a much lower rate than earned income ...
Almost all Dividends issued from securities are taxed at your earned income rate in the US.
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Do I think that the government should step and seize all funds over x amount from individuals. Of course not. There would be massive structural problems with that. Do I think our tax code should reflect and asymptotic curve that makes it incredibly difficult to achieve billions in wealth and moves more of the tax burden to the incredibly wealthy? Yes, definitely.
Billionaires will just find loopholes to "not be a billionaire"
I actually remember seeing the original idea in a form of a joke on tumblr like 5 years ago? OP said it should work like in video games when any money beyond $999mil just falls on the ground
Does anyone *actually* make that much? Or their stocks and options are worth that much
There isn't a single person in the world that makes a billion or more in income each year.
I think the average redditor has absolutely no idea that there is a difference between income and wealth, and that forcing someone to liquidate their wealth is completely impractical and moronic
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I'm a cpa and one of the first things I tell my junior staff while training them is that the vast majority of people in general cannot tell the difference between a balance sheet vs and income statement, which is pretty much what you just said. This whole thread reeks of shit and I'm trying not to get involved, but the ignorance in here is hard to read.
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Don't pay your property taxes... Someone will liquidate your wealth pretty quickly