No One Gets To The Left Of Bernie

If the Trump-hating/AOC-hating/Elizabeth Warren-hating/Bernie-hating, clueless Starbucks Guy is running on reducing a deficit his class built up and on cutting what he calls "entitlements," and on opposing Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal and fair taxes on the wealthy, why doesn't he just run as the Republican his top aides and advisors all are?

Earlier in the week Miss McConnell and John Thune proposed repealing the weak estate tax, which is expected to be paid by fewer than 2,000 Americans a year. As Erik Sherman pointed out for Forbes readers, "The PR game that was waged to promote and forcibly sell the massive tax cut of 2017-- a move that has only begun to put the country into trouble-- is over. Corporations, the rich, and the politicians that serve them had their way. Now that particular façade has been dropped by those who erected it and the likely truth is out. The $1.5 trillion giveaway was supposed to create new jobs and significant investment by companies in facilities and equipment, all of which would drive economic growth." It turns out that 84% had not changed investment or hiring plans because of the drastically diminished corporate tax cuts and only 4% of corporations hired more people because of the tax cuts. The vast majority did nothing more than they would otherwise have. Trickle down/voodoo economics still doesn't work-- except for the already very wealthy. McConnell, Thune and the rest of the GOP are waging class war against the rest of us-- we most of us don't even know it. "GOP senators are now arguing to end the estate or inheritance tax because it's such a burden-- on fewer than 2,000 families a year," Sherman continued. "Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, and John Thune on the Senate Finance Committee are all saying that there has to be a big cut." How about a guillotine?



Yesterday, there was something strange about Sydney Ember's NY Times headline-- in 2019, rather than say 1980-- saying Sanders Unveils Estate Tax Plan, Joining Democrats Who Want to Tax the Rich. Bernie, she wrote, "introduced legislation on Thursday that would increase the number of wealthy Americans subject to the estate tax. With the bill, Mr. Sanders joins a growing chorus of left-wing politicians calling for new ways to tax the rich. Welcome to the party begun by Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren? Ummm.... maybe Sydney's headline writer is a 5 year old child prodigy who missed what Bernie had been talking about since 1970?

If passed and signed into law-- it may take a few years-- Bernie's new bill, the For the 99.8% Act, would establish a progressive estate tax on the fortunes of the top 0.2 percent of Americans and significantly increase rates on billionaires, raising $2.2 trillion from the nation's 588 billionaires. Bernie: "At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the three richest Americans own more wealth than 160 million Americans, it is literally beyond belief that the Republican leadership wants to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 0.2 percent. Our bill does what the American people want by substantially increasing the estate tax on the wealthiest families in this country and dramatically reducing wealth inequality. From a moral, economic, and political perspective our nation will not thrive when so few have so much and so many have so little."

His bill only applies to the wealthiest 0.2% of Americans. It would establish a 45% tax on the value of an estate between $3.5 million and $10 million; a 50% tax on the value of an estate between $10 million and $50 million; a 55% tax on the value of an estate in excess of $50 million; and a 77% tax on the value of an estate above $1 billion-- a return to the top rate from 1941 through 1976, while also closing tax loopholes that have allowed billionaire families to pass fortunes from one generation to the next without paying their fair share of taxes. BONUS: "The Kochs, a family worth over $97 billion, would owe an estate tax of up to $74 billion. And the family of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who has a net worth of more than $130 billion, would pay an estate tax of up to $100 billion."

The For the 99.8% Act was endorsed by a number of leading economists including Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman, Robert Reich and Darrick Hamilton.

"The estate tax was a key pillar of the progressive tax revolution that the United States ushered one century ago. It prevented self-made wealth from turning into inherited wealth and helped make America more equal. However, the estate tax is dying of neglect, as tax avoidance schemes are multiplying and left unchallenged. As wealth concentration is surging in the United States, it is high time to revive the estate tax, plug the loopholes, and make it more progressive. Sen. Sanders' bill is a bold and welcome leap forward in this direction," said Emmanuel Saez, professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

“One century ago, the US invented steeply progressive estate and income taxes in order to maintain the egalitarian and democratic legacy of the country. Today's US is becoming even more unequal than Pre-World War I Europe. The way out is stronger investment in skills, higher paying jobs and a more progressive tax system. Sen. Sanders' estate tax bill, including a 77 percent tax rate on estate values above $1 billion, is an important step in this direction,” said Thomas Piketty, Paris School of Economics professor.

One of the country's best political-economics reporters, Zach Carter took this on from another perspective yesterday. Carter wrote that "Socialism is having a big moment in America. After a surge in popularity during the financial crisis of 2008, the long-verboten political label at last lost its toxicity after Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run and the election of democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in 2018. Among self-identified Democrats, socialism is now more popular than capitalism, reflecting a trend that has been evident among young voters for years. Bankers and billionaires are, of course, desperate to reverse this political tide. Eyeing the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, the CEO of one giant bank recently told Politico that the party’s nominee “can’t be Warren and it can’t be Sanders.” To plutocrat Michael Bloomberg, Sanders is a “demagogue” preaching “unreason,” while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) will transform the United States into a “non-capitalistic” system where “people are starving to death,” like “Venezuela.” The rhetoric from the 0.01 percent is more than a little overheated. But for most people, Warren and Sanders hail from the same left flank of the Democratic Party-- both are supporters of enacting Medicare for all, breaking up the banks and dramatically increasing taxes on the very wealthy... Whatever Warren and Sanders say to establish their political brands, the two senators do in fact represent a very similar way of thinking about politics. That’s why billionaires hate them both.

All of these proposals transfer money and power from the super-rich to the not-rich. Take postal banking. About 32.6 million households rely on a check-cashing service, payday lender or other expensive, small-dollar financial bottom-feeder at least once a year, according to the FDIC. On average, these households earn about $25,500 a year and spend nearly 10 percent of their income-- $2,412-- on these sketchy financial products. That’s over $82 billion going from hard-up homes to predators every year. You can deal with payday lenders a lot of different ways: ban them, regulate them or, the preferred tack of Warren and Sanders, have the government make them obsolete. If every household can get a low-fee bank account with the Post Office, they won’t have to turn to legalized loan sharking to get by. That’s bad news for payday loan executives, like ACE Cash Express CEO Jay Shipowitz, who made almost $4.5 million in 2004 alone. Is postal banking socialism or reformed capitalism? Yes.

In America today, the super-rich not only control an outrageous share of the national wealth, they also exercise a degree of political power incompatible with basic democratic principles. The choice for Democrats in 2020 is not really about policy minutia-- it’s about power-- who has it, and who doesn’t. And both Sanders and Warren have proved they are willing to confront the powerful and attack their sources of power. We can call this socialism, New Deal liberalism or Jeffersonian democracy-- whatever the label, it’s a critical ideological test for anyone who wants to be the next president of the United States.

Running for re-election in 1936, FDR noted that the “economic royalists” of “business and financial monopoly, speculation” and “reckless banking” all counted themselves among his political “enemies.”

“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” Roosevelt said. “They are unanimous in their hate for me-- and I welcome their hatred.”

For today’s Democrats, that’s the ticket.

Yeah, that populist approach that Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson and Jeff Merkley are taking... not this: