Kamala Harris’ plan to raise taxes on billionaires is not radical.
What’s radical is accepting a system where billionaires pay lower effective tax rates than nurses, teachers, and truck drivers.
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Open on masto.ai Robert ReichSubstack:
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Berkeley professor, former Secretary of Labor. Co-founder of Inequality Media. Sign up for updates, analysis and drawings: http://robertreich.substack.com
Wall 20 posts
Kamala Harris’ plan to raise taxes on billionaires is not radical. What’s radical is accepting a system where billionaires pay lower effective tax rates than nurses, teachers, and truck drivers. Trump's administration weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules over four years. Now, he's promised to do whatever Big Oil wants if they give him $1 billion for his campaign. That's the thing with Trump: He'll sell us all out for his own gain. Be warned.
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@rbreich Caring about our future... Not so much. Call me crazy, but maybe presidents who get themselves indicted shouldn't have their criminal trials presided over by judges they themselves appointed.
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@rbreich it would at least give a better impression of the administration of genuine Justice. @rbreich Senators and Representatives in Congress don’t get to vote during an Impeachment when they are known to be complicit. We wouldn’t have a Trump problem if this were the norm. Amazon and Space X are fighting in court to have the National Labor Relations Board declared unconstitutional. This means the two richest men on earth want to dismantle the agency that holds them accountable for union busting. Nothing terrifies them more than worker power.
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Full support for any lawsuit trying to protect individuals and businesses right to a jury trial. Hopefully reform can be done to the NLRB that benefits both sides. Between 1978 and 2022: -Worker pay grew by 15% -Top exec pay jumped by 1,209% Major US CEOs are now paid 344 times more than their typical employees. When I say corporate CEOs are exploiting labor, this is what I mean.
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Note that the rich do not contribute much to FICA because of the cap, so the fund shrinks in relation to inflation. The price of Huggies diapers went up 6% between April- June 2023. Inflation, right? Wrong. Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Huggies, reported that the cost to make its products fell by $75 million.They took the money and ran, banking $168 million in operating profits in Q3 2023. Now, new research shows that corporate profits drove 53% of inflation during the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2023. During the 40 years prior to the pandemic, profits drove just 11% of price growth.
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@rbreich Mark of capitalism's dominance over the government. Pretty much an oligarchy now. @rbreich greed! Guess they needed that extra to build their own apocalypse proof, underground bunker? Republicans are lying when they say slashing IRS funds will lower the deficit. For each extra $1 the IRS spends auditing rich tax cheats, it can collect $12. Defunding the IRS will INCREASE the deficit. They want to help their rich donors cheat, while the rest of us pay for it.
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Just a reminder that Clarence Thomas let a GOP megadonor take him on lavish trips, buy his mom's house and let her live there rent free, pay for his grandnephew to attend a private boarding school — all in secret until now. How is he still on the Supreme Court?
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RT @AOC The Court is de-legitimizing *themselves.* https://twitter.com/basedmikelee/status/1651369912215158784
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@rbreich This is what happens when Republicans are in charge. Honesty and decency are thrown to the wolves. @rbreich #Unpack the #FailedRobertsCourt now! It is a white nationalist, Christian, theocratic body (in direct opposition to separation of church and state) and is legislating fringe, junk politics and prejudices from the bench. It is illegitimate and needs to be fixed asap! Mount a well funded grass roots lobbying machine to make it so. #UnpackTheCourt ! #Politics Why are Democrats mostly silent when it is their side? Blumenthal - Vietnam RT @rbreich The Bush and Trump tax cuts have cost us an estimated $10 trillion since their enactment. When billionaires and corporations are getting a handout, the GOP couldn’t care less about the national debt.
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@rbreich Repealing the #GOP tax cuts should be the answer to articulate in negotiations and the media. And bring back the 90% top tax rate, and initiate a wealth tax. All these should be obvious. The super rich are robbing everyone else and making the poor fund the country, and baiting the ignorant into fighting over crumbs to keep them too busy to see the truth. #Politics Just to recap, Clarence Thomas: -Accepted lavish trips from GOP billionaire megadonor Harlan Crow -Had undisclosed real estate deals with Crow -Didn’t recuse himself from a SCOTUS case that involved Crow's business Are we really going to let him get away with this?
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@rbreich sad to say we will, and we will lose our democracy before abandoning delusions of easy riches and fame. @rbreich We will, because people don’t understand or care about the things which don’t immediately impact them in their current moment. Elon Musk lost $13 billion in 24 hours on Thursday, and he’s still the world’s second richest person Don't tell me billionaires can't afford a wealth tax.
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@rbreich When billionaires take control of vital communication platforms, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for oligarchy. And when those billionaires justify their business motives by citing “freedom,” what they actually seek is freedom from accountability. Don't be fooled.
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@rbreich we have to come together and build a way to stop them! #WeAreTheGuardrails is a great start! Building a coalition to save democracy! We’re not going to be fooled by their Russian lies. @rbreich TWW: The messenger is not the origin, look past and expose why they would deceive. Beware the overt deception repeated. trickle down economics
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Since 2020, for every dollar the bottom 90% have gained, billionaires have gained $1.7 million. This level of inequality is not only unsustainable, it’s downright cruel.
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@rbreich and despite this they fight for every cent as if they are minimum wage workers. For example: Musk could have rid homself of Twitter for $1B. Instead he made the calculation that it is better to lose $44B and drive Tesla stock into the ground, rather than pay the penalty Moderna is planning to charge $130 for its COVID vaccine, but the vaccine only costs $2.85 to make. Meanwhile, over the last two years, the company made over $19 billion in profits off the vaccine. Folks, this is what corporate greed looks like.
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@rbreich While the pandemic is still going on, no less. Absolutely reprehensible. RT @ninaturner@twitter.com It’s not a coincidence that the “no one wants to work anymore” crowd is also against increasing the minimum wage to be a living wage. 🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/ninaturner/status/1609946252015198212 Three multibillionaires now own more wealth than the bottom half of America – 160 million Americans. Don’t tell us we can’t afford a wealth tax on the super-rich.
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@rbreich If you work for someone else, you're being exploited. Work for yourself. I refuse to accept an economic system in which school teachers pay a higher tax rate than billionaire investors.
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@rbreich |
@rbreich
BRAVO! That's it in a nutshell. Now it's up to the Electoral College to decide who will be president because I have no doubt that a large majority of voters want to tax the rich.
Pretty strange "Democracy".
If the Dems sweep all branches of government they must institute significant democratic reform.
MAGA is anti-democratic at its core. It is a fundamental rejection of our founding myth: majority rule, minority rights.
This election decides if majority rule is possible.
@rbreich Bring back 1986 tax rates
@rbreich has anyone yet suggested or hinted that the supposed attempt at assassination might have been planned by Trump?