Mercy me, looks like even most job creators want their taxes raised for the good of the nation:
This Wall Street Journal story on a new poll finding that 68 percent of millionaires support higher taxes on millionaires is getting a lot of attention today. As Steve Benen joked: “Can the rich wage class warfare on themselves?”
The vast majority of Americans want taxes raised on millonaires, a big chunk of Republicans want taxes raised on millionaires, and now this poll shows more than two-thirds of all millionaires want taxes raised on millionaires. Who exactly are our elected representatives representing?
Billionaires?
They are representing the Tea Party. It has demonstrated that it votes, and votes in a bloc.
And its ideology demands that taxes be eliminated if at all possible. No government – the ultimate anarchists. They just haven’t thought out the implications of that (surprise, surprise).
I think that there are few millionaires coughkochbrotherscough who don’t want taxes raised and are willing to pay (owe favors, promote shifting between government and industry, etc) to make it that way.
The rest of the rich want to pay taxes, but they aren’t willing to buy a congressperson to make it so.
It’s not even “millionaires” as a group that pisses me off. In fact, I find that most millionaires that I know live a fairly modest lifestyle and are generally decent people who generally create jobs in their field. What irks me is the financial industry and the investment bankers who make the vast majority of their money on gambling racket that they’ve rigged so that even when they lose, they win.
If they win, they only get taxed 15%, no matter how many billions they make. If they lose, they win even more because it’s tax payers that bail them out and they get taxed nothing (or even get refunds) because they technically “lost” money.
It seems a handful of conservative billionaire dynasty’s weild influence far out of kilter with their numbers, enough to win again and again, despite the wishes of large majorities. How many billionaires actually feel that way is unclear, I know of no poll which has distinguished that minute slice of the electorate and parsed them down. I’m also not sure if billionaires are even economically worth their financial weight compared to millionaires. A million in San Fran is not the same as a mill in South Carolina. But on average I’d wager millionaires probably buy a new car fairly often, they get premium treatment for medical issues, most own at least one home, many are small business owners employing dozens of people each.
Does a billionaire do all that times a thousand? Do they on average buy a thousand new cars every few years, or own a thousand homes? Do they consume a thousand times the medical services of a millionaire, or single-handedly employ a thousand times the people that a millionaire employs? Some would argue they do the latter, but much of the billionaire dollar level of wealth is inherited, it merely changes hands, and even for those who personally built huge companies and hit IPO gold, that kind of wealth is almost always driven by mass consumption deal. By definition LOTS of people cannot be in the top ten-thousandth of one percent, so any economic policy premised on serving that handful of people is doomed in an industrial, free market system.
This is something apologists for the zillionaires pretend not to get: they seem to think self made billionaires get to be billionaires first and THEN create the jobs, when it’s the exact opposite. Mass consumption creates jobs and jobs create wealth.
So if a billionaire gives, say, 200 million to people in 2 million dollar packets, then they will actually be doing more good to the economy than if they didn’t.
That actually makes sense. Billionaires have houses, cars, and TVs. But if you gave even $500,000 to 400 people, then they would each buy a car (or two), maybe a house, I know I have several business ideas that wouldn’t take more than a $100,000 to start up. They would probably buy a handful of electronics and then invest some (I hope).
I volunteer to be a part of this project.