What About Biden's & The Dems' Accomplishments On That Front? Anything?
If Dan Pfeiffer is right that Biden’s best message against Trump is that Trump is a selfish narcissist— rather than say, just “a crook, a clown, a dictator, an asshole, an idiot, a racist or a Russian sleeper agent— one way to illustrate that is via his one big “accomplishment,” the massive inflation-fueling tax-break for the rich. “Donald Trump putting his interests first is true to all but the willfully blind,” noted Pfeiffer. “Trump is a classic grievance politician in the mold of George Wallace and Pat Buchanan. But with Trump, more often than not, the grievances are personal. The Deep State is after him; the press is unfair to him; the courtroom is too hot; etc. If elected, Trump has pledged to go on a revenge tour against the people who wronged HIM. It’s always about Trump. Second, it connects Trump’s personal foibles with his policy agenda. Yesterday, the Biden Campaign released another ad that shows how you can use the ‘Trump only cares about himself’ frame to explain his economic policies… By painting Trump as a self-interested narcissist, the Biden Campaign confronts this question head on. Trump must choose between helping you and helping himself, and he will choose himself every time.”
Coincidentally, Patriotic Millionaires talked about a related issue with its members this week: the need “for lawmakers around the world to rise taxes on wealthy people using the same minimum standards in every country. The Globe minimum tax on billionaires is moving forward mong the G20 countries. The Brazilian government, which has now assumed the presidency of the G20 expressed it’s commitment to prioritize issues of international tax justice as part of its G20 agenda. ‘ It didn’t take long for them to deliver on this promise: in February, they invited world-renowned economist Gabriel Zucman to deliver a speech at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in São Paulo, Brazil, where he spearheaded the conversation of instituting a global minimum tax on the world’s 2,781 billionaires… So far 5 countries— Brazil, France, Spain, South Africa, and Canada— have all backed the idea of instituting a global minimum tax on the world’s richest individuals. The United States, however, is very much another story. And the problem is not Trump; it’s Biden.
Ahead of a meeting with G7 finance ministers in Stresa, Italy in May, The Wall Street Journal reported that US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen opposed the global billionaire minimum tax proposal. Our group released a statement expressing our bewilderment at Yellen’s opposition, and pressed her for further clarification. Our comments were picked up in POLITICO and Forbes. Three days later, at a press conference at the G7 meeting, Yellen heeded our call and clarified that she had no objection to instituting a minimum level of taxation on high-income individuals in the United States, but was “not supportive of an international negotiation that would involve all countries agreeing to do it, and to redistribute the proceeds among countries…”
On Tuesday, the EU Tax Observatory, under the direction of Gabriel Zucman, released a report which outlines how a coordinated minimum tax on ultra-high-net-worth individuals could work in practice. The report was commissioned by the Brazilian G20 Presidency following Zucman’s speech in February. The end proposal of the report involves a global minimum tax standard equal to 2% of the wealth of the world’s billionaires. It would not function as a wealth tax, but rather as a “top-off” mechanism to ensure that billionaires pay at least 2% of their wealth annually in income tax, similar to the minimum tax on multinational corporations agreed upon by 136 OECD countries in 2021. (According to the report, today, billionaires pay roughly 0.3% of their wealth in income taxes annually.) Countries could meet the standard in a variety of ways, whether through income taxes, taxes on broad notions of income (e.g. unrealized capital gains), or wealth taxes. In their analysis, Zucman and his team also found that, compared with increases in personal income taxes and estate taxes, only their proposed coordinated minimum tax could adequately address regressivity at the upper end of tax systems.
We couldn’t have timed Zucman’s report better ourselves, as it follows right on the heels of a YouGov poll that our group sponsored which found support for a variety of progressive tax policies among American millionaires. The poll results were picked up by Financial Times and Fortune. The survey polled 800 respondents from May 24th to June 6th who reported having $1 million in assets, not including their home. Top-line findings included:
62% agree that rapidly expanding inequality is a threat to democracy
62% are supportive of international action to set standards for how we tax the super-rich
59% support a 2% tax on billionaire wealth
63% support a 2% tax on American households with more than $100 million in wealth
91% said the concentration of extreme wealth allows some to buy political influence
We know that the general public supports taxing the rich. We know economists support it. We know millionaires across G20 countries support it. We know politicians support it. And now, we know that American millionaires support it too.
In light of all this, there is no justifiable reason why Secretary Yellen should withhold her support for the G20 coordinated minimum tax proposal. Zucman’s report makes clear that the proposal would not have any redistributive element and would merely act as a floor to ensure that billionaires fulfill their civic duty and pay some degree of income tax every year like working people do.
In our increasingly connected world, countries are hard-pressed to achieve any goal by going it alone, and tax fairness is no exception. If they’re in the mood to avoid tax, billionaires can move their capital to low-tax jurisdictions pretty much with the click of a button. If all countries agree to a minimum tax standard for the world’s wealthiest individuals, we can stop this “race to the bottom” and take critical steps forward in achieving tax fairness here at home.
This policy should be a no-brainer for anyone who cares about tax justice, and that includes Secretary Yellen. We’ve said it many times over the last few months, and you can rest assured that we’ll continue to do so, especially in the lead-up to the next G20 finance ministers' meeting at the end of July.
A financial advisor herself, Michigan progressive Diane Young launched her campaign to replace do-knowing MAGA backbencher John James with a promise to work for a fairer and more equitable economic deal for working families. This morning, she told us that she sees a status quo where “the top five richest men in the world have more wealth than 4.9 BILLION people combined… we have a problem. Concentrating wealth in the hands of a few is dangerous for the peace and security of the planet. The trickle down economic theories have proven time and time again to be ineffective. We need to examine better ways to ensure prosperity for everyone."
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