From the technological Olympus of Silicon Valley to the urban canyons of Wall Street, a narrow club of vastly wealthy plutocrats sits on a ballooning share of the nation’s resources. One percent of Americans at the apex of the economy are hoarding over 31% of the nation’s total wealth, a cool $55tn in net worth.
Getting them to share with the rest of society, to fund redistribution or pay for public goods, is proving pretty much impossible. Their ability to move resources around, hide profit across jurisdictions, and minimize income to hoard wealth until they die appears to put them beyond the reach of taxation.
One recent research paper found that the country’s richest 384 oligarchs paid only 24% of their economic income in 2025, compared with 30% for the average taxpayer. And not all of them are getting top notch tax advice. Reporting by ProPublica revealed that some of the richest Americans – like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Michael Bloomberg – live largely tax free.
Linked proposal would have 0 employment income taxes up to $100k, and 0 payroll taxes. 5% increment surtaxes on sliding scale incomes above $100k. Investment income would have base 25% tax. Taxing the income that is derived from wealth (investments) at equal rate to employment income (the 0 income tax is a gimmick based on not deducting employment expenses from employer) is both the right fairness balance, and high revenue raiser. The far greater benefit to 90% of population, overlapping the employee class, is freedom dividends. Over $36k/year in US per adult can be afforded when we stop thinking of just wealth taxes to fund a larger nazi empire by the oligarchs for the oligarchs.
The one big way is borrowing against investments. A $1m-$5m limit would go a long way to eliminating the loophole for ultra rich. Trusts can be taxed more. The loopholes can be fixed.
The race to the bottom in US, is based on piecemeal “populist emotional” local measures, that just as Corporate investments shop arround for biggest local tax breaks, threats of leaving when “fair tax local” proposals/policy pass is a weak attempt at not fixing anything.
Instead of taxing wealth as a principle, I do support financially zeroing out those who sponsor speech of nazi economic fraud, and zionazi theft of American prosperity. But, essentially, everyone is/should be encouraged to get as rich as they want as long as they STFU and pay their taxes instead of corrupting government to make them richer.
Ineffective, half measure that achieves nothing by itself. Rearranging deck chairs on the titanic doesn’t fix the problem that the existence of billionaires is itself an abomination of a broken economic system. Some inequality is inevitable. Inequality that extreme is evidence of dysfunction. The emotional appeal is simply a tool to build public support for a naturally healthy check on systemic abuse. I’m not taking your bait of deriding emotion. People should be passionate about economic justice. Right wing fear mongers wield emotion like a cudgel while whining like children about the left being bleeding hearts. Enough. You are claiming to be “Rational” while ignoring that a tax on wealth is the only way to re-balance a system so far from free market it makes the excesses of feudal mercantilism look nearly egalitarian. If you believe hard work should count for something, wealth concentration needs limits or you believe that human effort and skill don’t have value. Ironically, your investment income tax could be the most effective tool to deter capital flight if used right, but without a wealth tax, its just bread and circuses while human dignity is further degraded by the degenerate rich.
the broken system is direct evil corrupting social governance. Money=speech means money= fraud, theft, terrorism, genocide. But it is the latter application of money that is evil rather than money. It is cause for liberating the evil from their money. Your view is simply dead wrong.
The only path to wealth is accumulated propensity to savings. Extremely large yacht and epstein island orgy budgets, and MC hammer entourage hookers and blow, is wealth avoidance path. These lifestyle choices are the only path to trickle down, but you might hate them too, perhaps for the one trick “billionaire haters” hate.
I like how I’m the one demanding systemic reform, you’re advocating petty vengeance but I’m the one reacting emotionally. It is the imbalance of power and influence that money represents that is the fundamental threat. A system where one man can apply more economic pressure than a third of the country is inevitably going to corrupt, it’s not a question of who, it’s a question of how long it takes.
And yes, their indulgent excesses are in fact a net harm for humanity. It is the definition of gluttony, and it deserves to be shamed and derided. I’m not jealous, I wouldn’t live like that if I could, those people have abandoned their own humanity. They are animals without conscience, without ethical restraint, and without even cognitive empathy. A system that condones and tolerates that kind of behaviour is contemptible and either needs to be corrected or eliminated. They’re a festering wound on humanity and they need to be amputated.
punishing specific evil is less petty vengence than generalizing on savings accumulation choices.
You can play whatever semantic games help you sleep at night, but that does not change that the black hole grade market distortion created by that kind of wealth accumulation artificially inflates asset prices and creates and unjustifiable socioeconomic stratification that cannot help but corrupt a democratic society. Rule of law cannot withstand the Epstein class. Sic semper tyrannis.