Turns Out Americans Actually Do Want to Tax the Rich

[applegrove]

Turns Out Americans Actually Do Want to Tax the Rich

New polls find big backing for taxing accumulated wealth, hiking income tax for “ultramillionaires”

By TIM DICKINSON at Rolling Stone

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tax-the-rich-786673/

"SNIP....

The proposals have plutocrats shook. Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York City mayor who is flirting with a run in the Democratic presidential primaries, invoked the spectre of Venezuela and suggested Warren’s wealth tax could lead to Americans “starving to death.” Billionaire Starbucks emeritus chairman Howard Schultz this week blasted Warren’s plan as “punitive” and “ridiculous,” and insists he cannot run for president as a Democrat because he doesn’t believe in steeply progressive taxation. “I no longer feel affiliated” to the party, he said, “because I don’t know their views represent the majority of Americans. I don’t think we want a 70 percent income tax in America.”

But Schultz — who stubbornly and wrongly insists he’s standing up for a “silent majority” — does not have the people with him. According to recent polls, wide majorities of Americans support both Warren’s wealth tax and Ocasio-Cortez’s top-bracket tax hike.

The proposal to tax income earned above $10 million-a-year at 70 percent is favored by nearly six in ten Americans — and even 45 percent of Republicans according to a recent HarrisX poll. And a new poll by YouGov, commissioned by the liberal group Data For Progress and reviewed by Rolling Stone, finds a wealth tax is even more popular: 61 percent of Americans support Warren’s proposal to tax the rich, including 44 percent of Republicans. (A near majority, 46 percent, “strongly support” the measure, while only 15 percent “strongly oppose” it.)

“The idea of taxing billionaires is extreme to the Beltway elite that takes their money, but not to voters,” says Sean McElwee, a co-founder of Data for Progress. “Meanwhile, ideas like Social Security cuts that billionaire elites love are despised by ordinary voters.” Politicians looking for “bipartisan solutions” McElwee believes, should start with “expropriating the wealth of billionaires.”


.....SNIP"

[guillaumeb]

1. "Even 45% of Republicans".

That sounds like bi-partisan agreement.

[riversedge]

2. wide majorities of Americans support both Warren's wealth tax and Ocasio-Cortez's top-bracket tax hi

........wide majorities of Americans support both Warren’s wealth tax and Ocasio-Cortez’s top-bracket tax hike. ....................

[roamer65]

3. 70 percent income tax was the norm in the 1970's.

That was the highest bracket during that decade. I see no problem with going back to it.

Hell, the top bracket in 1982 was 50 percent. We absolutely should go back to that rate.