Many People Say Trump Started The California Wildfires As A Kind Of Sick Revenge

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier represents a district (CA-11) northeast of San Francisco and Oakland-- most of Contra Costa County: Walnut Creek, Concord, Pittsburg, Danville Antioch, Mount Diablo-- where people are always vigilant to the dangers of wildfires. Mark sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and on the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials. This morning, as the California wildfires continue to cause devastation, he reminded us that "California has some of the strongest environmental laws in the country, but the effects of climate change are causing fires to intensify, and the anti-environment policies enacted by the Trump Administration are only making matters worse. Trump’s attacks on California’s leaders are baseless, and he is grasping at straws to gin up support from his political base. If the President acts on his threat of stripping funding from California, it will be met with fierce opposition."

The California fires are no laughing matter, but Trump is a joke, albeit a tragic one. How predictable is it for him to try blaming the raging California fires on... Adam Schiff and on other Democrats he doesn't like. The L.A. Times covered it over the weekend. James Rainey wrote that "Autumn in California now comes not only with fierce, wind-driven wildfires but with routine claims from President Trump that the state’s leaders are to blame for the disasters, followed by assurances from experts that the president doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The cycle renewed again Sunday, when Trump tweeted that Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) had failed to properly manage the state’s forests, causing a string of recent blazes. Newsom 'has done a terrible job of forest management. I told him from the first day we met that he must clean his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers,' Trump said in an early-morning missive on Twitter.

A few hours later he concluded a slam on Democrats for their impeachment inquiry against him, concluding, “Corrupt Adam should clean up & manage the California forests which are always burning!”

The president tossed in a shot at the state for its “ridiculously closed” water distribution policies.

The missives drew a combination of incredulity and anger from many Californians, in part because the vast majority of the acres consumed by fire since early October were grasslands and chaparral, far from the forest.

Residents also remarked on the president’s failure to express sympathy for the thousands of people displaced from their homes in recent weeks.

The online fracas did little to illuminate the realities of forest or water policy in California.

Of the 33 million acres of forest in the state, 57% is controlled by the federal government and even the timber industry-- which Trump appears to be trying to support-- has slammed the U.S. for doing too little to manage those vast holdings.

California’s leaders have acknowledged the need to reduce the fuel buildup in the forest the state does control. Gov. Jerry Brown signed a series of bills last year to streamline regulations for thinning forests in fire zones, allow limited removal of some larger trees and force cities and counties to plan better defenses for homes and communities. And Newsom has continued fire threat-reduction initiatives since he took office in January.

“You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation,” Newsom responded to Trump via Twitter. The governor later issued a statement: “We’re successfully waging war against thousands of fires started across the state in the last few weeks due to extreme weather created by climate change while Trump is conducting a full on assault against the antidotes.”

The state government’s expanded commitment to wildfire prevention under Brown included a $1-billion pledge over five years to clean up thousands of acres of deadwood, scrub brush and forest — California’s biggest-ever program to reduce fire fuels.

That $200 million-a-year annual commitment and other spending are helping the state by “reducing fuels in the forest, increasing forest health, and defensible space around homes,” Newsom’s office said.

Countering Trump’s contention that the governor is in the thrall of environmentalists, his office said he had waived environmental regulations to fast-track work on 35 critical fire breaks to protect 200 of the state’s most vulnerable communities.

Newsom’s office contrasted California’s stepped-up efforts with what it said was the federal government’s slashing of spending on the same kind of work.

The U.S. Forest Service has reduced the forest it plans to “treat” through thinning, controlled burns and other measures to 220,000 acres, from the previously promised 310,000 acres, Newsom’s office said.

And California said Trump’s 2020 budget cut $40 million from hazardous fuels reduction.

But that discussion is all about forest land, while the fires that have bedeviled California for several weeks have mostly ignited far away from the tall timber.

The most destructive of the wildfires broke out in brushland near the 405 Freeway on L.A.'s suburban Westside, not far from the Getty Center museum. It was similar terrain that sparked the Easy fire, which threatened the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

The Hillside fire began in national forest land in the San Bernardino National Forest, before quickly burning downhill into a San Bernardino neighborhood.

Although the massive Kincade fire in Sonoma County burned some forest, it also shifted into grass and scrub country alongside vineyards.

“These fires are not burning in forested landscapes where you could go in and do anything to alter the forest,” said Glen MacDonald, a geography professor at UCLA and expert on climate change and wildfire. “These are scrublands and grasslands and a discussion of forest management is completely not applicable.”

Trump’s statements also fail to acknowledge the amount of work California has done to correct a legacy of fire containment that has left some forests overgrown and loaded with fuel, said Jay Ziegler, director of policy for the Nature Conservancy in California.

“California’s pace and scale of action in addressing this issue at the end of the Brown administration and now under Gov. Newsom is really unprecedented,” Ziegler said.

Trump’s slam was the latest in a series of attacks on California, coming after his attempt to reverse the state’s stringent fuel efficiency requirements for cars and trucks and his blaming of government for the exploding homeless population.

The White House issued no official statement on wildfires, but it appeared the president may have been responding to an interview in which Newsom accused Trump of “a full-on assault” on the state’s attempts to rein in Earth-warming greenhouses gases.

Trump concluded his string of three tweets on California’s wildfires with his attack on the state’s water regulations.

“Also, open up the ridiculously closed water lanes coming down from the North,” he wrote. “Don’t pour it out into the Pacific Ocean. Should be done immediately. California desperately needs water, and you can have it now!”

That embraces the position of some of the state’s farmers-- that too much water is being allowed to flow into the San Joaquin and Sacramento River delta to support salmon, other fish and endangered species.

But it belies the fact that greater snowpack in 2017 and 2019 allowed bigger water allotments to Central Valley farmers, Ziegler said.

“It’s really misleading to tell farmers they could do better and get more water in future years,” Ziegler said, “when we are right at historic export levels because of the big winters we had in 2017 and 2019.”

Trump’s latest broadside comes just short of one year since he attacked California for “gross mismanagement of the forests.”

As with his most recent tweet, he then threatened to withdraw funding from the state, saying “Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

Among those chastising the president then was the president of the California Professional Firefighters. Brian Rice called Trump’s message and threat to withhold aid “ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines.”

A couple of months before that, Trump had used Twitter to claim that wildfires were “being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized.”

Again, experts closest to the scene corrected him. “We have plenty of water,” said Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “We are not having any issues with a lack of retardant or water.”

In his latest message Sunday, Trump said that the yearly pattern of fire in California was routinely followed by the state “coming to the Federal Government for $$$ help.” He added: “No more.”

That pronouncement particularly infuriated those who had read just three months ago how Trump had told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the U.S. stood ready to send aid to fight massive wildfires in Siberia.

Tweeted one disgruntled American on Sunday: “You forgot to send your thoughts and prayers to those affected by the fires....but of course we in California didn’t help get you elected so you don’t give a damn about us.”

In 2016, Hillary absolutely pulverized Trump in California--  8,753,788 (61.73%) to 4,483,810 (31.62%). And two years later, just in case Trump didn't get the idea about how the state feels about him, half of California's Republican members of Congress were defeated by Democrats-- 7 out of 14. Orange County was once to the GOP what Bavaria was to the Nazi Party in Germany. Now there is not a single federally-elected Republican left in the county-- 4 having gone down in the 2018 midterms. Next year, a competent DCCC would take down the rest of the California Republicans or at least win the LaMalfa, Nunes, Hunter and McClintock seats as well as the open Cook seat... but there hasn't been a competent DCCC in decades. You can help turn California bluer by clicking on the 2020 California thermometer on the right and contributing what you can to the progressives running against LaMalfa (R), Nunes (R), Republican-lite Blue Dog Jim Costa and one other very special California Democrat who opposes Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal.

Rep. Barbara Lee, like most people in California, is angry at the way Trump is approaching the fires. "Trump," she told her supporters, "is threatening to pull federal aid for those affected. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes while thousands more watch the radar in fear as new areas fall under critical threat. For Trump to threaten to pull federal aid for those desperately in need makes me sick. My heart is with all those impacted by these terrible wildfires. I’m so grateful for the first responders who have been working tirelessly to keep us safe in California." She asked people who would normally be contributing to her to give what they can to the California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Relief Fund to help all those impacted by the California wildfires.

Will Trump Shut Down The Government Again-- Or Rescue Himself By Stealing Money From California And Puerto Rico?

UPDATE: Trump caves again-- won't shut down the government. Earlier this morning, beaten like a dog, Trump was reported by CNN to be preparing to sign the bill to keep the government open without any money for his foolish vanity-wall. The deal falls far short of all his demands but he's knows he's been beaten and has no choice, despite the rantings and ravings of Ann Coulter. CNN also reported that "Even as lawmakers haggled over details of their agreement, the White House had been planning behind the scenes to secure the funds for the wall unilaterally. The White House says Trump is continuing to weigh his options to fund a border wall, which still include taking executive action to secure funding for a wall. It's not clear which combination of actions the President might use, and the topic has been under debate for weeks."

Audrey Denney, a progressive congressional candidate in northeast California (CA-01) made a video Trump ought to watch before he goes on spouting his ignorance about Climate Change and before he tries stealing money Congress allocated for hurricane disaster relief in Puerto Rico and wild fire relief in California to build his vanity-wall. When Trump started threatening to take away the crucial money, the Republican rubber stamp who represents the most burned part of the state, Doug LaMalfa, Audrey's opponent, said he trusts Trump to do the right thing. Audrey doesn't and she was incensed by Trump's comments which she said "make it clear that he does not have a grasp on the science of climate change, the complexities of forest ecosystems, or the basics of fire prevention. Last November we were experiencing weather patterns and dryness levels that mirrored peak fire season (July). High winds and these extraordinarily dry conditions led to a creating the most devastating fire in California’s history. Our changing climate will continue to threaten lives and property in Northern California and across our country. Many of California’s forests are overgrown and need to be restored to healthy forested ecosystems. It is complex and important work that must be done. However, nearly 60% of the forests in California are under federal control-- it is the federal government who has chosen to divert resources away from forest management-- not California. As we look ahead to increased risks for people who live in urban-wildland interface areas, we need to devote resources to proper community planning, emergency preparedness, and innovative solutions for minimizing risks. We need leaders that understand the complexity, nuance, and science surrounding these issues." (Trump's idea of climate change has to do with deriding people who talk about Global Warming by pointing out heavy snows.)

On Monday, writing for Politico, Nancy Cook and Eliana Johnson reported that the Regime is firming up plans to shift federal dollars allocated by Congress for unrelated purposes build his wall. Clearly attorneys working on this unconstitutional endeavor should be disbarred down the road. For now, though, this planned executive order, which Mulvaney referred to on Meet The Press last Sunday, will be Trump's response to the bipartisan compromise Congress offered him to solve the impasse. "The emerging consensus among acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and top budget officials," according to Politico "is to shift money from two Army Corps of Engineers’ flood control projects in Northern California, as well as from disaster relief funds intended for California and Puerto Rico. The plan will also tap unspent Department of Defense funds for military construction, like family housing or infrastructure for military bases, according to three sources familiar with the negotiations."

Part of Ted Lieu's district, Malibu, also suffered severe wild fire damage. His reaction to Trump's threats was very much in line with what all the California Democrats had to say. "'Let's hurt military families and disaster victims,' said no one ever. Trump's latest scheme to raid federal funds designated for military construction projects and disaster relief in order to pay for his pointless border wall is not just irresponsible, but likely unconstitutional. Congress has the power of the purse and decides how federal dollars are spent. While it is true the executive often has a fair amount of discretion in how federal money is allocated, the President does not have the power to simply ignore the will of Congress and redirect funding as he sees fit. So to summarize, Trump is planning to steal from military families and disaster victims in order to pay for a pointless wall that he promised Mexico would pay for-- it's not the dumbest idea I've ever heard, but it is pretty darn close."

Mark DeSaulnier's congressional district (especially Antioch, Pittsburg and Bay Point) is immediately to the south of some of the hardest hit areas of the fire zone. Earlier today he told me that "Investing in disaster prevention and recovery is proven to be effective in the long run, both at reducing damage to life and property from disasters and economically. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is no analysis that suggests that President Trump’s border wall would be worth a single penny we invest in it. We should go where the facts lead us, not the President’s political biases."

Alan Grayson, whose old district in the Orlando Metro has one of the largest Puerto Rican populations of any on the mainland. "Trump," he told me this morning "seems to think that highly absorbent paper towels are the best form of hurricane recovery. But honestly, the Democrats deserve some of the blame, because they could have prevented it. There have been something like 20 appropriations bills passed since Trump took office. How hard would it have been to offer an amendment in at least one of them, saying no diversion of funds for a wall?"

But the strategy is far from a cure-all for a president with no good options, and it has already sparked debate within the White House. Moving funds by executive order is virtually certain to draw instant court challenges, with opponents, including some powerful members of Congress, arguing the president is encroaching on the legislative branch’s constitutional power to appropriate funds.

Some Trump officials, including those aligned with senior adviser Stephen Miller, have argued internally that the gambit might be even more vulnerable to court challenges than a national emergency declaration. And in a sign of the political fallout, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee has argued that tapping military construction money would hurt the armed forces’ potential readiness.

Until now, Trump officials had focused on the drawbacks of a possible national emergency declaration. But as the alternative option of moving money by executive order has come into clearer relief ahead of a Feb. 15 deadline for a spending deal with Congress that could avert a new government shutdown, so have the risks of that alternative option.

“It will create a firestorm, once you start taking money that congressmen think is in their districts,” said Jim Dyer, a former staff director for the House Appropriations Committee. “You will cause yourself a problem if that money was directed away from any type of project or activity because I guarantee it has some constituency on Capitol Hill.”

Inside the White House, the president’s lawyers have for weeks grappled with the question of how to defend Trump should he choose to assert broad executive powers to build the wall. While the phrase “national emergency” has an extreme ring, some administration attorneys note that it is a well-established power under a 1976 law that has been invoked 58 times by past presidents. They call it uncontroversial that presidents have broad discretion to declare a national emergencies and similarly broad authority to deal with them.

“President is on sound legal ground to declare a National Emergency... this is hardly unprecedented,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, quoting comments by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA)

Like LaMalfa, McClintock is taking his political life in his hands by backing Trump on this. His region will also be a loser and independent voters in Truckee, Auburn, Placerville, Lincoln, Roseville and in the suburbs north of Sacramento. McClintock's district also includes Yosemite, the Stanislaus National Forest, the John Muir Wilderness, the Sierra National Forest and the Ansel Adams Wilderness. Trump won the R+10 district with 54% of the vote and last year McClintock under-performed his previous wins, beating under-funded Democrat Jessica Morse 184,401 (54.1%) to 156,253 (45.9%), with very close margins in the 2 biggest counties, Placer and El Dorado. In another wave election-- which looks likely-- Trump on the top of the ticket will be deadly for both LaMalfa and McClintock.

This morning, Audrey Denney told us that her "home county was ravaged by the most deadly and destructive wildfire in California’s history. We are still reeling from the effects of the fire. Around 30,000 people have been displaced. Many residents have moved away permanently because there is no available housing to accommodate them. We are mourning the loss of 85 of our community members.  Residents are grappling every day with how to piece their lives back together when everything they had was taken away traumatically and instantly. Homeowners are grappling with whether or not to rebuild, where to live in the coming years, and wondering how they will ever get fire insurance again. Renters across our county, myself included, are having to move in with friends because there are no rentals available and the pre-fire housing crisis in Butte County is exponentially worse now." She continued, passionately:

Three weeks after the fire I had the privilege of leading a delegation of Camp Fire survivors to D.C. to lobby for the federal aid we need to help our broken communities recover. I got to watch as the heroic nurses from Feather River hospital told their story of evacuating the most vulnerable to safety before being trapped in the flames and nearly perishing. The representatives and senators who heard the testimonies of those heroes were moved with empathy for the loss and struggle in our county. My question is this: Where is our President’s empathy?  How can his conscience allow him to use the citizens of Butte County as pawns in his political war? The lives and livelihoods of Americans must come before his partisan political games. Recovering from this disaster is going to take billions of dollars and many years-- we need help-- and we need leaders who will fight for us.

The recovery of our communities is entirely dependent on receiving this Federal disaster funding. This is not the time for the President to cause more uncertainty while we try and move forward. This is not the time for our Congressman Doug LaMalfa to be content to stand by idly while his constituents are further harmed and traumatized by these political games.

Blue America has an ActBlue page specifically designed to send contributions, directly, to progressive Democrats running in the Golden State. Last year, conservative establishment-oriented Democrats with big money connections moved in rapidly to make headway in crowded California primaries. The Democrats flipped 7 seats, but-- and it's a big but-- only one, Mike Levin, is showing any kind of consistent support for the progressive values they all ran on. Levin has signed on as a co-sponsor of Medicare-For-All and the Green New Deal resolution. He's the only California freshman who has. Meanwhile Gil Cisneros-- who never stopped vowing he was a progressive-- joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems, as did Harley Rouda, Josh Harder and Katie Hill. Worse yet, many who pledged over and over and over to chew PAC money-- watch Cisneros here-- are now scooping up the slimiest sewer money in DC hand-over-first, counting on their constituents being to stupid or preoccupied to notice. That's why it's so important to back-- and back early-- dedicated across-the-board, working class progressives like Audrey Denney. Please consider tapping on the thermometer on the right and chipping in what you can. $20.20 would be nice, for example. But $5 and $10 contributions are what power these grassroots campaigns.

Meanwhile, in crazy-land Trump's base hates the compromise. Coukter called it the "Yellow New Deal" and Hannity called it "garbage" and threatened Republicans who back it.

Trump's Wealth Tax Plan Is A Billion Times More Radical Than Ocasio's Marginal Tax Rate Proposal

As I've been explaining, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 60-70% marginal tax rate on all annual income over $10,000,000 would struggle be be called moderate. It's actually quite conservative. How many people have annual incomes of over $10,000,000? And those very few people who do, would only have to pay the 60-70% rate on the income over $10,000,000. That threshold is absurd and should be down around $800,000 (with perhaps a 40% rate) then rise to a million dollars with a 50% rate and climb gradually (rates increasing) towards $5 million will the top rate-- 80% kicks in. That's a progressive tax plan. But there's something far more radical than the Howie Klein Tax Plan-- a Federal Wealth Tax, which I haven't seen any member of Congress propose... yet. This week the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy made the case for one-- making the point that "a federal wealth tax on the richest 0.1 percent of Americans is a viable approach for Congress to raise revenue and is one of the few approaches that could truly address rising inequality." The banksters would be carrying AOC around on their shoulder showering her with rose petals if her plan protected them from this one.

This plan would only impact taxpayers with networths of about $32.2 million. There would be an annual 1% tax on these peoples' wealth over the $32.2 million mark and it would raise around $1.3 trillion over a decade. In other words, if Joe Blow sold enough blow to have accumulated a net worth of $30 million, he would pay zero. If he had accumulated $33 million, he would pay $8,000.

Why the United States Needs a Federal Wealth Tax

The goals of raising revenue and addressing inequality will be difficult to achieve if federal tax policy continues to focus on taxing income almost exclusively.

One reason is that wealth inequality is much greater than income inequality. The 1 percent of Americans with the highest incomes receive about a fifth of the total income in the United States. In contrast, the top 1 percent of wealth holders in the nation own 42 percent of the nation’s wealth...

Likewise, the racial wealth gap is far greater than the racial income gap in the United States. According to Census data, median income in 2017 was about $68,000 for white households compared to $50,000 for Latinx households and about $40,000 for black households. The racial wealth gap is far more dramatic because it is a result of generations of compounded inequality. A recent report from Prosperity Now finds that in 2016 median wealth in the nation was $140,500 for white households but just $3,400 for black households and $6,300 for Latinx households.

Wealth inequality has grown dramatically in the past several decades... The share of wealth held by the very wealthiest 0.1 percent-- a group of just 160,700 families who all had net worth exceeding $20 million in 2012-- tripled from 7 percent in 1978 to 22 percent in 2012. By 2012, the wealthiest 0.1 percent held nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, who owned 22.8 percent of the total.

...Much of the economic income flowing to the very wealthy each year is entirely exempt from the personal income tax [unrealized capital gains]. The very thing that is driving inequality-- the rapid appreciation of assets held by the wealthy-- is itself nearly untouched by federal taxes.

One solution is for the federal government to tax that wealth directly. The following explains how a mere 1 percent annual federal tax on the wealth of the top 0.1 percent of households would work assuming it takes effect in 2020.

...It is unlikely that the wealth tax would change the behavior of wealthy people in any consequential way. In theory, a tax on wealth could influence a taxpayer’s decisions about how much income to save or consume. Such a tax might reduce the benefit of saving and therefore increase consumption, or it might increase saving if the taxpayer needs to save more to achieve a set target for savings. However, this particular proposal is unlikely to have any significant effects either way because most of the taxpayers affected have so much wealth that there are few practical ways to consume it to avoid paying the tax.

Even assuming that the wealth tax does not change taxpayer behavior, it could affect the revenue collected by other types of taxes. But this analysis does not speculate on such effects because they would be very difficult to determine and not necessarily significant.

For example, if most of these taxpayers pay the wealth tax out of income that otherwise would have been invested in income-generating assets, then the affected taxpayers would have less dividends, capital gains, interest and other capital income in the future and thus pay less in income taxes. On the other hand, the money collected by the federal government through a wealth tax would be spent by the government somehow, which means it would become income to other people who would pay taxes on it. Also, in the case of a taxpayer whose net worth is great enough to be subject to the wealth tax but whose income in a particular year is low or negative, assets might be liquidated in order to pay the wealth tax (for example, corporate stocks might be sold) which would generate capital gains that would be taxed. In other words, a federal wealth tax could have both negative and positive effects on other types of federal taxes, so it is not clear what the net impact would be. It seems reasonable to assume that effects on other types of federal taxes will not significantly reduce the overall revenue yield of the wealth tax described in this analysis.

Fun fact: In 1999, Señor Trumpanzee proposed a one time 14.25% wealth tax on the net worth of individuals and trusts of $10 million or more. At the time, Señor T asserted that this would generate $5.7 trillion in new taxes, which could be used to eliminate the national debt, although not at the rate that he's been running it up since Putin installed him in the White House, of course. Currently several countries have wealth taxes, including France, Spain, Norway, Italy, Argentina, Holland and Switzerland.

Trumpanzee (version 1999): "No one has put forward a plan to make this country entirely debt free as we enter the next millenium. The plan I am proposing today does not involve smoke and mirrors, phony numbers, financial gimmicks, or the usual economic chicanery you usually find in Disneyland-on-the-Potomac... By my calculations, 1 percent of Americans, who control 90 percent of the wealth in this country, would be affected by my plan. The other 99 percent of the people would get deep reductions in their federal income taxes... Personally this plan would cost me hundreds of millions of dollars, but in all honesty, it's worth it. It is a win-win for the American people, an idea no conventional politician would have the guts to put forward."

After I had written this this morning, I read in the Washington Post that Elizabeth Warren is going to propose an annual wealth tax on Americans with more than $50 million in assets. She's being advised by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the two economists at UC Berkeley, on whose work the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy report is based. Jeff Stein and Chris Inhraham wrote that they've advised Warren to levy a 2 percent wealth tax on Americans with assets above $50 million, as well as a 3 percent wealth tax on those who have more than $1 billion.

The wealth tax would raise $2.75 trillion over a ten-year period from about 75,000 families, or less than 0.1 percent of U.S. households, Saez said.

Warren’s campaign declined to comment on details of the plan.

“The Warren wealth tax is pretty big. We think it could have a significant affect on wealth concentration in the long run,” Saez said in an interview. “This is a very interesting development with deep root causes: the fact inequality has been increasing so much, particularly in wealth, and the feeling our current tax system doesn’t do a very good job taxing the very richest people.”

Warren’s proposal includes at least three new mechanisms to combat tax evasion, according to a person familiar with the plan. Those are a significant increase in funding for the Internal Revenue Service; a mandatory audit rate requiring a certain number of people who pay the wealth tax to be subject to an audit every year; and a one-time tax penalty for those who have more than $50 million and try to renounce their U.S. citizenship.

Mark DeSaulnier is one of California's most progressive members of Congress. A member of the Education and Labor Committee and a senior member on the Subcommittee on Labor Protections, he told me this afternoon that "America has an extreme inequality problem. In recent years, inequality has reached pre-Great Depression levels. We must take bold action, like taxing big wealth, to right the ship and ensure that the rich pay their fair share. I’ve supported wealth tax legislation before and have included it as part of our Future of Work, Wages, and Labor initiative as a necessary step to addressing inequality and strengthening our economy."

And the last word goes to... Professor Stephanie Kelton, America's greatest contemporary economist, and the reason why enrolling in Stony Brook University is an especially good idea!