CNBC host Joe Kernan clashed with Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday over her tax the wealthy to death tax that would bring in an estimated $3 trillion dollars in ten years.
Her tax would require the wealthy to pay a 2% to 3% tax on wealth, not income. That means after you p0ay your corporate taxes and your income taxes, you would also need to pay this boondoggle tax.
Take Elon Musk for an example. He is worth $167 billion dollars, so his wealth tax would be $5 billion a year on top of all of the other taxes.
Over 10 years he would have to pay $50 billion dollars. This is his “fair share?” That means he is being taxed on the same money year after year.
Where is the incentive to grow your business if you don’t get to keep the rewards? Tax shelters would become popular again.
Kernan kept pressing Warren on the tax asking her why not raise it to 10% and 20%. It will lead to inflation and a lower GDP as the wealthy try to protect what they have left after paying taxes on their income.
The wealthy do not sit on their billions, they invest it. That creates jobs and those jobs pay income tax.
Warren admits that the wealthy did not become that way by breaking our laws but she still wants them to pay through the nose.
Kernan began by verifying that Warren didn’t think the rich people she wants to tax had “broken any laws to accrue all this wealth” and that the tax proposal wasn’t “punitive.”
He then asked why the tax rates weren’t more “progressive” and set at higher rates if it was decided that those subject to the tax had already “crossed the rubicon” into having “more money than you can ever spend.”
“Why not make it truly progressive and do 10% at a billion? Do 20% at a billion. Why not do it that way? … What would be the problem?” he asked.
Warren responded by saying that she’s “just a girl from Oklahoma” and that “$3 trillion actually sounds like a lot of money,” referring to the amount she says the tax would raise. She then said that the 2% and 3% weren’t “punitive” and those people paying the tax can still “grow their fortunes.”
