Senator Wyden’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea: taxing unrealized gains
[Please also see the ADDENDUM at the end of the post for further details.]
Just when you think Democrats can’t get any worse, along comes an idea like that of Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon:
Under current policy, capital gains, such as increases in value for held stocks, are only taxable when they are “realized.” In other words, if you own stock that increases in value from $1,000 to $1,500, you’re only liable to pay taxes on the $500 increase in value if you sell the stock at $1,500 and “realize” the $500 gain.
Wyden’s idea, on the other hand, would replace this simpler system with one in which capital gains would be taxed annually whether or not they were realized. In other words, if a stock you held increased in value from $1,000 to $1,500, you would still be liable for that $500 gain even if you didn’t sell and the value only changed on paper.
Wyden would counter that this is an oversimplification, and to an extent he would be right. Long-term capital gains, or capital gains on assets held for more than a year, enjoy a substantial zero percent bracket. Yet short-term capital gains, or capital gains on assets held for less than one year, are taxed as ordinary income. Without changes to this structure, Wyden would be imposing a tax on every new asset a taxpayer acquires that gains any value at all during that year.
In addition to all its other flaws, this would be difficult to carry out because the values of many assets are hard to pinpoint until they are sold. And of course, values that rise can fall, and indeed they often do. You can bet your bottom dollar (apt expression) that if an asset’s value declines by the time a person sells it, the IRS isn’t going to refund all those tax dollars paid out over the years.
So this amounts to a tax on the imaginary or at least potential value of assets. Hey, why not? It’s all in the service of making the rich poorer. And Wyden is quick to assure us that this will only affect the rich, the really really really rich, not you and me, so what the hey?:
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, announced on Tuesday that he is working on a mark-to-market system that would tax unrealized capital gains on assets owned by “millionaires and billionaires.”…
This levy, assessed annually, would kick in at the same rate as all other income, Wyden said. Currently, the top marginal rate on ordinary income is 37 percent.
In comparison, long-term capital gains are taxed at a top rate of 20 percent.
And capital gains are now taxed only when assets are sold and the gains are realized and not just on paper.
More:
“Everyone needs to pay their fair share and the best approach to achieving that goal is a mark-to-market system that would require the wealthy to pay taxes on their gains every year at the same rates all other income is taxed,” Wyden said in a statement.
Yeah, the wealthy aren’t paying their fair share, according to Wyden and the Democrats—even though the top 1% are actually paying 37.3% of all income taxes in the US. Unrealized gains are not income at all, they’re imaginary and/or potential. Just ask anyone who’s ever lost money in the stock market after seeing a stock’s value rise and then fall, or invested in some antique or collectible that later goes out of favor with the public:
Mark to market is attractive [sic] when the market is going up, but what happens to revenues when it reverses?
My guess is that the government would then say the equivalent of “Too bad, sucker.”
And of course, being a millionaire isn’t quite what it used to be. A million dollars in assets (not to mention unrealized assets) doesn’t go very far at all in places with a very high standard of living.
This particular idea may not be quite as awful as the Green New Deal, but it’s up there. It’s another attempt to spread the wealth around, but this one is especially stupid/pernicious. Here’s the rationale behind it, ostensibly:
Wyden’s proposal would tax assets as soon as the price goes up, rather than when the asset is sold. The logic behind this is simple — paper gains represent real wealth, since you could sell the asset and get cash any time you want. Waiting until the asset is sold in order to tax it allows the wealth to compound untaxed, which causes wealth inequality to accumulate.
At the risk of repeating myself), I will say that as far as “wealth” goes, paper gains represent potential wealth, wealth that is only made actual if and when the asset is sold. The thing itself has no stable value—the wealth it generates depends on what it actually does generate for the seller at the exact time it is sold. What’s more, an unrealized capital gains tax goes against what I understand to be the entire basis of our income tax laws, which is that they are a tax on income both earned (wages, etc.) and unearned (interest, dividends, etc.).
I’ve said many times that finance and economics are not my forte. But I don’t think a person needs to be an expert to understand (correct me if I’m wrong—I know you will!) that there are different kinds of taxes. Many of them involve the use or purchase of something, or the import of something. Some are local, such as sales taxes. Some are federal. There are many kinds, but as far as I know they all involve paying when there is some kind of actual transaction in the real world, except for property taxes, which are on unrealized gains when revaluation occurs but property is not sold (although California’s Proposition 13 modified that somewhat by limiting such increases; see this; also that’s one of the main objections to the “tax/penalty” on not buying into Obamacare).
But property taxes are local, and locally determined. The federal income tax is a different kettle of fish, and far more broad in its reach and scope. To change that from realized gains to unrealized ones is a big big deal, and a big big change rather than a small one.
Oh, and about those millionaires and billionaires, the only ones it will supposedly affect? That’s the sort of thing that was said in order to get the 16th Amendment passed to have a federal income tax in the first place—that it would only apply to the very very rich. Ha, ha! Who got the last laugh?
[NOTE: About the history of the federal income tax and how it was originally sold and perceived:
At first, few thought the income tax amendment had much of a chance surviving a vote in Congress. But the unpopularity of high tariffs eased the amendment through both the Senate and the House. In just a few days during the summer of 1909, the proposed 16th Amendment was approved by the Senate (77-0) and the House (318-14).
Thirty-six state legislatures had to ratify the 16th Amendment before it could go into effect. The public and most newspapers seemed to favor it. The main argument for ratification was that the amendment would force the wealthy to take on a fairer share of the federal tax burden that had in the past been largely carried by those earning relatively little. Only a few critics spoke out forcefully against the amendment. John D. Rockefeller, one of the country’s richest men, stated: “When a man has accumulated a sum of money within the law. . . the people no longer have any right to share in the earnings resulting from the accumulation.”
Ratification moved slowly but steadily through the state legislatures. Some of the states had already passed income tax laws of their own in seeking new ways to finance public schools and other social needs. Surprisingly, the income tax amendment drew widespread support in cities and in rural areas alike, from both Democrats and Republicans, and in all geographical regions. Even New York ratified the amendment despite the state’s reputation as the capital of “money power” with numerous millionaires among its residents (including John D. Rockefeller). By early 1913, 42 states (six more than needed) had ratified the income tax amendment. Only six states rejected it.
Rep. Cordell Hull introduced the first income tax law under the newly adopted Sixteenth Amendment. He proposed a graduated tax starting with a 1-percent rate for incomes between $4,000 and $20,000 increasing to a top rate of 3 percent for those earning $50,000 or more. The House Ways and Means Committee called upon citizens to “cheerfully support and sustain this, the fairest and cheapest of all taxes. . . .”
The first tax collection day under the new law took place on March 1, 1914. Since the average worker earned only about $800 a year, few people actually had to pay any federal income tax. Less than 4 percent of American families made an annual income of $3,000 or more. Deductions and exemptions further shrank the pool of taxpayers. Nevertheless, the federal government collected $71 million that first year. Millionaire John D. Rockefeller alone paid an estimated $2 million.
All in all, most Americans thought the new tax was a great idea. One taxpayer wrote to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, “I have purposely left out some deductions I could claim, in order to have the privilege and the pleasure of paying at least a small income tax. . . .”
We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?]
[NOTE II: The title of this post is a riff on this.]
[ADDENDUM: Just to clarify—I am pretty sure, although I don’t know the details, that a person still could claim a loss if he/she sells the asset at a lower price later on. But the amount of the deduction a person can take for such a loss is limited per year, and meanwhile the person has been paying taxes on gains that never benefited that person at all.
What’s more, an asset might go up for a while and then at some point start dropping, and yet I sort of doubt the IRS starts to pay back the tax by giving a deduction at that time, in a back-and-forth back-and-forth manner, getting money from the taxpayer in up years and giving money back to the taxpayer (in the form of deductions, I assume) in down years, all without any transaction occurring at all except between the IRS and the taxpayer. Although it’s certainly possible that the proposal contemplates just such a messed-up situation.
I’m pretty sure that at least the taxpayer wouldn’t have to pay additional capital gains taxes in the end if the asset is sold at a profit, except for the increase that occurs in that final year before the sale. I haven’t yet been able to find an article that explains these pesky little details in all their glory, but to me they are irrelevant because the principle of the thing is awful.
David L. Bahnsen calls it “extreme, silly, impractical, dangerous, and inane…inherently destabilizing, logistically farcical, and ethically unforgivable.” in National Review, and adds that “we do not tax theoretical income.” Indeed, we do not, except for property taxes (not a federal tax), as discussed earlier. Bahnsen adds about Wyden’s proposal:
…[T]he compliance costs would be the biggest boondoggle our nation’s financial system has ever seen. How in the world is illiquid real estate that has not sold supposed to be “valued” each and every year, let alone illiquid businesses, private debt, venture capital, and the wide array of capital assets that make up our nation’s economy but do not fit in the cozy box of “mutual funds”? What kind of drain to the economy would such an annual exercise in “mark-to-fantasy” represent, as professionals driven by an objective of tax efficiency are tasked with valuing an asset out of thin air?
But let’s ignore that deal-breaker of a problem for a moment. Let’s just assume we are talking about Microsoft stock, which has an easily definable market value and infinite trading liquidity: What should we do each year when the stock price has gone down?…The cluster-you-know-what that would be created in allowing people to take losses year-by-year on investments that have not been sold probably has the most sophisticated and tax-savvy investors salivating at the opportunity to game this mess of an idea to their own favor.
Much more at the link. Much much more.
By the way, let me add that Wyden is no wild-eyed youngster. He’s not only 69 years old, but he’s the top-ranking member of the Senate’s tax committee.
Ron Insana calls Wyden’s idea “beyond ‘breathtakingly terrible'”:
This is yet another full-employment act for accountants, tax attorneys and others who would then create a wide variety of tax avoidance schemes forged from whatever loopholes may arise from new legislation.
Further, unless one is a trader and not an investor (short term versus long term), this idea will add unnecessary volatility to the financial markets and cause pockets of weakness in them when it comes time to pay the piper each and every year…
The proceeds to pay taxes have to come from somewhere, and no investor will take out loans to pay taxes. They will sell stocks and bonds, thereby creating a season of tax harvesting that will depress prices as the bills come due.
Much more at that link, too. Whether Wyden is serious about this or not, it is a very dangerous development that he is talking about it at all, because it’s another sign of how far the Democrats have gone off the rails, making proposals that are obviously destructive to our entire economy.]
Do you get a refund if you take a loss?
Cappy:
That’s the “Too bad, sucker!” part.
Actually, I haven’t seen any in-depth discussion of that little detail and how it would be handled, if at all.
The defect of capital gains taxes is that the purchase price is not indexed. The first Bush administration for some peculiar reason promoted preferential rates for capital gains rather than indexing the purchase price. (A rarely heard complaint from liberals was that savings accounts were not indexed. Fine, we agree to define ‘interest income’ as ‘real interest income’ and we tax only real capital gains. Never happens).
It’s not difficult to imagine a system of direct taxes which is simple and holds the impecunious harmless. Congress just does not feel like instituting one.
Do you get a refund if you take a loss?
Ideally, you index the purchase price, apply the assessment rate to the gain or loss, and have a liability or a credit with the IRS. Not sure if such a system could be practically implemented.
I’m beginning to think Congress reps and Senators should be required to undergo a brain scan before they could run for office. Anyone found to have 10 or fewer brain cells should be disqualified.
If the rules are still the same, when you sell your home for a gain, you have a taxable gain. The important thing is to maintain records on any improvements to your home so there is an adjusted basis. If you sell for a loss, too bad, the loss is not deductible.
The Congress should be subject to insider trading rules – they are not, which is how so many of them get richer while in office.
I believe, actually, although I don’t know the details, that a person still could claim a loss if he/she sells the asset at a lower price later on. But the amount of the deduction is limited per year, and meanwhile the person has been paying taxes on gains that never benefited that person at all. What’s more, what year do you use to determine the extent of the loss? Let’s say you buy something at a price of $10,000, it increases in value about $1,000 each year, and you pay taxes on that each year. At the end of ten years it is worth $20,000 and you have been paying taxes all those years whether you have the money or not. If you sell it at that price ($20K) I’m pretty sure that at least you wouldn’t have to pay additional capital gains taxes. But let’s say you sell it at $16K because its value in that last year before sale decreased. How does that all get figured into the mix? This would certainly be a bonanza for tax accountants.
If the open borders, infanticide, no private health insurance, etc., policies haven’t convinced you maybe this will. Americans, the left hates you and wants you dead.
Dems WANT our money. Really really BAD.
I’ve tried, but failed, to find the answer to the following question:
Of the total income earned by Americans and those living in America, what percentage is earned by the top 1%?
This makes me so angry. Not just because of the theft, but because of the pretense. These power-mad officials make up absurd schemes like this, then give them a catchy name in full confidence that the know-nothings who look up to them will repeat it because they think that makes them look smart. Neither party in this transaction seems to give a hoot about the facts.
The abuse of language really gnaws at me. The made-up terms, the long-winded, circular explanations. “The logic behind this is simple…” No. There is no logic here, and it is dangerous and wrong to present such awful ideas as if they had merit. Thank you, Neo, for covering this and for explaining it so well.
“Let tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
Cause I’m the taxman…”
Most politicians want to picket your pocket for your own good. They are simply meddlesome thieves. However, I think Wyden’s idea is going nowhere.
Ira, The top 1% earned 20.65% of all adjusted gross income and paid 39% of all federal income tax (2015 data.) The top 1% paid more in federal income tax than the bottom 90%.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/
parker:
I agree it’s going nowhere at the moment.
But it’s an indication of something, as I wrote in the addendum I just added to the post. It’s an indication of how far gone Democrats are right now. It is alarming.
HOLY CRAP. Company stock was the majority of my husband’s “income” for the five years before the Great Recession and the follow-on downtown in oil in 2014. Then, in that downturn, his company “reorganized” and all that stock went to $0. We may NEVER be able to offset that capital loss with subsequent gains – but before that stock went to $0, at one brief point it was worth almost $8 million. If we’d had to pay tax on those pretend “gains” each year, we would have had to take out loans – we didn’t ever have that kind of cash, and he was almost never permitted to sell shares because the “window was closed” – insider trading concerns; if the company was trying to do a deal of any kind, which it always was, employees at his level were blocked from trading company stock.
So, in practical terms, if this awful idea became law, after the first year that his company stock went up and we had to pay taxes on it, he would have had to quit his job – he couldn’t have afforded to keep it. So more turnover of high-level employees, no incentive for employees to work on raising the value of the company, a serious conflict between company officers’ fiduciary duty and their personal incentive structures – disasters waiting to happen all around.
While your at it Ms Lawyer, could you point out where behavior control of the people by the servants is a valid use of taxes…
Consider the level of degeneracy that has been established over the past 60 years, and ask yourself how people would have reacted if it had been imposed all at once in the year 1959. – Moonbattery
This is painfully familiar to me…
anyone other than me realize the cross purposes stupidity of calling for higher taxes for women, benefits, pre-k (which doesnt work), tried for free tampons, lots and lots o money for women in school cause they are willing to compromise whatever branch of science they are in to make the outcome what they want, educational programs, social programs (of which most are women), and a huge list…
break it down, you will be surprised where it goes..
and since WE ARE NOT EQUAL, those replacements they are importing to prop up the population, they are not as educated, and rather than support, they are becoming wards of the state, to which, they need to pay for that..
cant go back to people starving in the street like other countries do or have done in the past..
go check out how much money they been dumping into the SBA8A program… which anyone can use except white males… but if your a woman, boy do they have a system for you…
Generally, to be approved into the 8(a) BD program and become certified, your small business must be owned and controlled at least 51% by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals who are American citizens.
the advantages kill competition from those with no help..
but i think they put another half billion there (was advertised on subway)
Planned Parenthood Raked in $1.5 Billion in three years
which i guess is all part of the new world where you spend that much and forbid other things
i know, i know, all you ever hear is no money spent on women and their issues
but in truth, huge amounts are spend and nothing can be done without being examined through the impact on women…
9 percent of the federal budget in 2017, or $357 billion, supported programs that provide aid (other than health insurance or Social Security benefits) to individuals and families facing hardship
in less than 5 years those people coming over are going to start popping publicly funded babies, and they are already being told that SocSec will be available to them even though they never put in.
lets look at these programs and since now women get the kids over 90% of the time, and start the proceeding too, the economic impact on business creation and more is devastating over the years..
Earned Income Tax Credit
Child Tax Credit
Supplemental Security Income
SNAP (food stamps)
School meals
low-income housing assistance
child care assistance
help meeting home energy bills
NYCHA
There are seven federal health agencies specifically for women. Not one for men.
salaries and pensions after 20 years have to be paid..
39 of the 50 states have an office of women’s health, only six have one for men.
[they also have more than 24 forms of birth control while men have three, and one of them is not to be with anyone]
A search of more than 3,000 medical journals listed in Index Medicus found that 23 articles were written on women’s health for each one written on men’s
you know how much money they spend on studies with almost predermined outcomes or they drop it, and do another.. (im serious).. they have poisoned the social sciences to the point they are quite useless for a lot, but useful for the image necessary to make government policies and validate ideologies
funding for breast cancer research is 660 percent greater than funding for prostate cancer research
that has a high cost too… but now its a lifestyle not just a cause….
and then you have the money to boost even more women into business…
they need daycare, and mentors, and free education, and even lots of grants..
[the number of women-owned businesses, 2007 to 2018, grew by 58 percent]
cause of all the tax money given to falsely make those numbers happen, take away the money, and then what?
They really really need your money because they all want to be elected and rich, and in control, and to do that, they need pet projects to wave around, and the more people in politics, the more money they need to do the waving
but also, in a hyper political heading to the left, you want to be an official of some sort
in socialist states who does the best till the bitter end?
wait, they are going to try to top each other with dumb ideas which grab lots of money and they hope one of them will be likeable to a public getting dumber and dumber as the majority discuss things and let it happen… funny stuff..
The change they want would turn people into overnight short term traders…
like day traders.. close out, get real value (or not).. dont hold overnight..
not that it matters they want to also tax transactions…
cause a small person needs 1000 transactions to get their shares over time
and a larger person can get that same amount of shares in one
HOLY CRAP. Company ,,,
+10
…but before that stock went to $0, at one brief point it was worth almost $8 million. If we’d had to pay tax on those pretend “gains” each year, we would have had to take out loans. If we’d had to pay tax on those pretend “gains” each year, we would have had to take out loans – we didn’t ever have that kind of cash, and he was almost never permitted to sell shares because the “window was closed” – insider trading concerns…
Jamie: True. Back in the nineties and before the dotcom bust, when tech IPOs stomped the earth, it was a frequent, cruel possibility for employees with stock options to get buried, if they exercised their options, but held the stock because they expected further returns.
Then crash! The stock falls through the floor and they are on the hook for the big capital gains when they sold. But they can’t pay because the stock they held onto is worthless.
The wisdom, or at least my wisdom, was when you exercise, you sell. Walk away. Turns out I left money on the table, but I knew I was in over my head. I had been lucky and I knew better than to push it.
By the way, let me add that Wyden is no wild-eyed youngster. He’s not only 69 years old, but he’s the top-ranking member of the Senate’s tax committee.
He’s held public office without interruption for 38 years. Before that, he was the staff director of a couple of NGOs. Of course, he has a law degree. Interestingly, his wife runs a bookstore in Manhattan, a viable family business she inherited from her father.
“Just when you think Democrats can’t get any worse…”
Of course things can get worse; reeducation camps, gulags and the killing fields await.
“The goal of socialism is communism” Vladimir Lenin
There is no lie too big to which the Left will not resort in furthering their agenda and, as the 20th century demonstrated, no depravity too low with which they will not foul themselves.
Steve57,
They wish for accepting enslavement to our ‘betters’ but will ‘grudgingly’ accept the slaughter as many as needed to accomplish that task. And though many will dispute that assessment as hyperbole, their silence in the face of their leadership’s implicit support for infanticide, tells us that the majority have now fallen prey to evil.
Unless the Dems and the left are willing and able to redefine the words, this is exactly a federal wealth tax, which is unconstitutional. Income tax OK; Wealth tax not.
The phrase that comes to mind (again) is “impossibly stupid.” Ron Wyden really?! I kept reading the Neo’s post looking to the tax percentage for the unrealized wealth, expecting something like 1 or 2 or 3%. But 37% !!! It’s just imbecilic and I’ll show you why.
Here’s a “thought experiment.” Let’s suppose a weird but very oversimplified capital gains example. Rich guy John invests $10M in one purchase of some stock and holds it indefinitely. Over night the stock doubles in share price, and the price stays there forever, so he’s got an unrealized $10M cap. gains.
With the Wyden tax, he’s got to pay $3.7M in taxes on his first year tax return after the bought it, leaving only $6.3M in unrealized cap. gains. But then the second year’s tax return rolls around, and he’s got to pay another $2.33M “Wyden tax,” leaving only $3.97M of the original $10M in cap. gains. See how rapid this is? In several years he’s only really left with his original investment.
Here’s the formula: Unrealized Cap. Gains = (Initial Cap. Gains)*0.63^Y
where Y is the number of years that the investment has been taxed.
In 5 years he’s got 10% of his original gains left. In 10 years he’s left with only 1% of his original gains. 1% !!
It’s just theft, but they’ve tarted it up with some math.
Neo:
Taking your example of a possible sale at $20,000:
1. it would be a gain of $10,000 minus all the taxes you’ve paid over ten years
2. even if you sold and did make a $10,000 gain, you probably still haven’t kept
pace with inflation and the gain is worth only $5000 (if that) in buying power.
3. Senator Ron Wyden is probably taking economic advice from A. Ocasio-Cortez
4. If this should pass (unlikely), I’m returning to school at 78 to become a
accountant.
5. Please tell me: why do the Socialist-Progressives hate people who’ve gotten
up early, worked hard (7-7 and Sat too), and put money away for their old age.
5. Please tell me: why do the Socialist-Progressives hate people who’ve gotten
up early, worked hard (7-7 and Sat too), and put money away for their old age.
Gary D.: As the bank robber Willie Sutton is reputed to have said, “That’s where the money is.”
“The defect of capital gains taxes is that the purchase price is not indexed.”
Nah. The defect is that capital gains are taxed differently than any other income. Perhaps there was a justification for it when our financial markets were much, MUCH smaller and less developed. But I don’t think there’s any reason now why someone who makes money investing should be taxed any differently than someone who makes money working.
Mike
“I’m pretty sure that at least the taxpayer wouldn’t have to pay additional capital gains taxes in the end if the asset is sold at a profit.”
Oh, I wish I had your optimism, Neo, I so wish I did. I don’t think for a minute that they wouldn’t consider such a “double taxation” and find some way to justify it.
While schemes like this often go nowhere; the fact that they are suggesting them and no one is saying “WHAT?” in the media tells us how far we are gone as a society that values other people’s property rights.
The CNBC link makes it clearer to me, and yes they do intend redefine the meaning of wealth and income. This mark-to-market mechanism would set your net wealth for each tax year. Then any increase in your mark-to-market wealth in the next tax year attributable to cap. gains would be taxed as ordinary income.
So in my previous example, John would have to pay a one-time tax of $3.7M. He would get to keep his $6.3M indefinitely, until they dream up another new tax.
The plan is an attempt to redefine increases in mark-to-market wealth as income. This is based on estimates of what people might pay for the stuff you own.
_____
Just guessing here, but I think this one might wake Chief Justice Roberts from his cut-the-baby-in-half reveries, and he would kill it; if it got that far.
“The defect is that capital gains are taxed differently than any other income. — ” MBunge
MBunge goes on to say that markets are big now and there’s no need for incentives to invest.
It’s a popular and arguable point of view, but not one I agree with. This is from Investopedia,
I believe a decade or two ago or so, the Chinese savings rate was 50%.
I think some U.S. people think that investing is a scam or that it doesn’t pay off, and to a limited extent they are correct. Here is an article written by Harvard econ prof. Greg Mankiw in 2010.
Mankiw’s hypothetical is $1K invested in a company that grows 8% every year. If there were no taxes of any kind, then in 30 years the investment would grow 10 fold to $10K. That’s the baseline. If he harvested his 30 year investment in 2010, his net take, after all of the state and federal income, corp. and investment taxes is only $1.7K.
So something like 92% of his potential gains are eaten by government. And that was when the top long term cap. gains tax rate was 15%. Now it is about 25% when Medicare add-ons etc. are factored in.
Neo, do we have a source for the original speech or whatever in which Mr. Wyden advanced this proposal? I didn’t see a link to such in the sources to which you linked – I want to be sure this isn’t an exaggeration or maybe something the man let fly on the 1st at a comedy club or something.
But yes, with the other commenters I agree, to the effect that the very fact that an idea like this can exist at all in the mind of a supposedly responsible member of the United States Senate at this point in history without its exponent being immediately institutionalized is horrifying.
If Wyden‘s idea was passed by congress everyone with paper assets would rush to dump them before a POTUS could sign it into law. 1929 deja vu.
Philip:
No, I don’t have a source. I don’t think he’s formally released a lot of details. There were quite a few articles about it, though, and one was in the WSJ. I don’t have a subscription, but if you do you can take a look at it.
Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
Don’t ask me what I want it for
If you don’t want to pay some more
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
And you’re working for no one but me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0zaebtU-CA
Something like that happened during FDR’s administration when tax liability for some of the wealthier Americans exceeded income for a year or two during the war. The Democrat Party response was a shrug.
Of course, nothing is too outrageous or lunatic for those progressives who are convinced that you somehow belong to them.
Some may remember the imputed rental income trial balloon they sent up a while back. The money you might have realized from renting out your home if you were not living there is imputed to you as income, and the notion was, that it might be made taxable.
A furor ensued and we were all reassured that it was to remain just a bookkeeping device for assessing how well Americans were doing. For the time being at least.
The imcome tax became a slush fund that allowed Congress to meddle in more things than the Constitution allowed, just because they had the money to do it without having to ask the public overtly for the funding.
When they ran out of money from the tax funds, they started borrowing.
We’ve gone downhill ever since.
Property taxes are a local wealth tax, but they are really a proxy for non-imposed local income taxes.
Senator Wyden has earned immediate induction into the Bad Ideas Hall of Shame.
Farmers and ranchers would be bankrupted by this.
This proposal shows the Dems are truly insane; if there was any doubt before.
These Demoncrats get these ideas because it lets them do insider trading to make the big money. They will be needing a lot of cash to visit foreign sex pots and child trafficking rings, you know.
Can’t do all of that on a Congress critter’s salary.
TommyJay on April 9, 2019 at 10:24 pm at 10:24 pm said:
Actually it is the Chinese that predominantly think investing is a scam. They put their money into real estate, hence the ghost cities.
Americans have a better idea of how capitalism and mutual funds work. They use money to make money, sort of like banks but not as easy.
The lower interest paying saving accounts might as well be you paying the bank for giving them your money to play around with in “services”. Online saving accounts have far higher interests: 2.2% Annual.
Stocks pay 5%, 15%, 25%, or over 100% per year.
“Waiting until the asset is sold in order to tax it allows the wealth to compound untaxed, which causes wealth inequality to accumulate.”
Waiting to eat the cake until the cake is eaten allows cake inequality to go stale, or something.
What is the fair rate for the rich to pay?
Is there any way to reduce inequality?
The Dems have been talking about inequality a long time, but without much focus. This proposal is part of their increased focus.
Despite my agreement with Neo that this amounts to a tax on the imaginary or at least potential value of assets. , most of the arguments above against this tax do not discuss the purpose of the tax. To reduce inequality in after-tax income.
Gov’t is the social mechanism of using force, to protect property from thieves, both private & gov’t property, especially land throughout history, but also shares of stock. The rich get far far more protection from the gov’t, including protection from revolution, than do the workers.
My idea of a more “fair” society is one where the AGI at the 50% level rises AS FAST, or faster, than that of the top 1%, or top 10%. That’s the way to reduce inequality, over time, according to this measure; I haven’t seen many other measures so clear. The “Gini” coefficient is less useful and far more opaque.
Do those who oppose this bill oppose it because they oppose the goal (reducing gross income inequality)? Or is it mostly this particular idea balloon? (tax on mark to market value? Maybe just of shares?)
I think there are other ways that might be better, but I’m now far more on-board with the goal of reducing income inequality than I was even 10 years ago. Certainly one way of doing so is to treat realized capital gains as “ordinary” income. This might well reduce, slightly, the amount invested in risky ventures. But the rich who don’t invest to profit, are just consuming more and thus reducing inequality from a reduced investment side.
US Savings rate is low, and is going to stay low, because of Social Security and housing — working people with SS will “have enough” to live on in retirement. In the meantime, most folk have equity in their homes, and that’s where the savings were invested. Despite low savings, there is a huge amount of capital available to invest, if attractive high Return On Investment (ROI) projects are on offer.
The deep state / college admission & placement corruption, and reduced meritocracy in todays businesses, makes me doubt sincerity when “free market” is invoked by the rich. It’s not to help lower prices for the buyer so much as to increase profits for the already rich owners, and usually with explicit support of obscure regulations (regulation capture).
I want to reduce the inequality advantages so many rich have so much of. Not sure what the best way is. I’m not yet sure the actual details of this are worse than no change, and it might be better than nothing.
Nah. The defect is that capital gains
Again, no. Income is received within a given year. It is a flow. Capital gains are realized at irregular intervals in regard to assets (a stock, not a flow) which are held for years and even decades.
The purchasing power of a dollar on 1 January and the purchasing power on 31 December differ only by modest amounts (about 2.8% in a typical year). My family owned a house from 1978 to 2005. The purchasing power of a dollar declined by 59% in that interval. If it had been sold for 2.45x what we paid for it in nominal terms, it would have been a wash in real terms. Taxing nominal gains is taxing what are commonly phantom improvements in your utility, which is why it should not be done.
Rockefeller’s memoirs talking about how he was part of a New World Order set to rule you humans as livestock was… telling.
Two of the richest, most powerful, opponents of the federal reserve died on the Titanic before the Federal Reserve was confirmed ratified by Wilson. That’s also… telling.
The Cunard White Star company owned the Titanic and HMS Lusitania. It would be interesting seeing who the shareholders, board, and owners were.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/01/lusitania-salvage-warning-munitions-1982
“Successive British governments have always maintained that there was no munitions on board the Lusitania (and that the Germans were therefore in the wrong to claim to the contrary as an excuse for sinking the ship),” wrote Noel Marshall, the head of the Foreign Office’s North America department, on 30 July 1982.
“The facts are that there is a large amount of ammunition in the wreck, some of which is highly dangerous. The Treasury have decided that they must inform the salvage company of this fact in the interests of the safety of all concerned. Although there have been rumours in the press that the previous denial of the presence of munitions was untrue, this would be the first acknowledgement of the facts by HMG.”
This is a slightly thorny subject because the British made a side deal to get America into the war on their side. Using… various methods.
Americans don’t generally like to be publicly humiliated and used, not even by NATO which was created by the USA along with the Allies. The idea that Wilson lied America into a war with his British progressive buddies to help the British with their war, instead of American interests, isn’t necessarily something Americans like to think about vis a vis WW1.
The HMS Lusitania was a warship registered and given to the Germans. Everybody knew, except America.
The registration information was given to the Germans. They warned the US media that this warship, if sighted, would be torpedoed. Did the media tell any of your AMerican boys and girls this? Nope. Not news fit to print.
Americans are still the whores the world uses to wage wars. Trum just got tired of pretending otherwise.
The imcome tax became a slush fund that allowed Congress to meddle in more things than the Constitution allowed, just because they had the money to do it without having to ask the public overtly for the funding.
Uh, no. The changes in patterns of federal expenditure since 1929 which have had the largest magnitude have been the advent of Social Security (financed with payroll taxes), the advent of Medicare (financed with payroll taxes), and the increase in the ratio of military expenditure to national product from a bedrock value of 1% prior to 1940 to a bedrock value of 4% after 1940. There’s nothing unconstitutional about military expenditure. Medicaid is a constitutionally dubious program financed with income taxes, but given that the advent of income taxes preceded the advent of Medicaid by about 50 years, it’s odd to assign cause and effect that way.
The Congress elected to not enact general sales taxes or value-added taxes to finance the federal government. That was a policy choice. A federal sales tax of about 18% (exempting only rent) could replace all the revenue currently collected by the personal income tax.
When they ran out of money from the tax funds, they started borrowing.
Uh, no. Congress after 1960 (and especially after 1970) elected to not balance revenue and expenditure. They were perfectly capable of so doing (as it had been done during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations), but the Just.Did.Not.Feel.Like.It.
The personal income and ss taxes are easier for the IRS to collect, since most people are corporate wage slaves that get paid a W-2, and the businesses are required by law to WITHOLD your paycheck. Heh.
Thus the IRS gives you a “refund”, if you are an employee if more was withheld than your tax credit or what your tax accountability or rather the part of your income that should have been taxed happened to be less than the withheld totals. (Due to income tax credits and other shenanigans)
Capital gains taxes are fun. If you have turbotax and the brokerage will upload the electronic files. Putting in capital gains and losses by hand? Insane, even for small time traders.
As for the mega mutual funds, they sell stocks in excess of 2 million, which can be 500 million to 2 billion, in a single stake option. A difference of even a cent or 10, is substantial profit loss to their clients. And themselves. They have to go LONG, to reduce capital gain taxes.
Small timers or those able to take more risks, can short pretty much everything, up to and including Daytrading if you have 25k capital and up.
Anyways, the feds have a hard time tracking capital gains, cryptocurrency, and sales tax, without Americans from both sides, providing the IRS this information.
The reason the Tea Party fund raisers became vulnerable to the IRS is because the IRS was threatening to audit them or actually auditing them. This allows the IRS to gain information on the donors, target the organization, and break them. Much as they did to Al Capone.
you, Americans, are Enemies of the State, when the State deems it Right and Just for you to become one.
They use the intimidation and setting an example factor. Do you want to end up being audited? If not, shut up and let us mess up this other small minority that you won’t care about. Then they rotate around like the mafia loan sharks.
Btw, stocks are quite easy to make money from. At least, compared to working. It’s almost as good as banking or Soros style manipulations.
While one can’t easily quit one’s day job, because the stock markets have volatility and will crash at times (when the elites decide to take out their money and make you pay for it, while advocating socialism), you can get quite the “capital gains” from a small stake.
Takes business IQ however. I like it though. It is fun. It’s more profitable than paying for your mobile games at least.
While the masses play CandyCrush and watch adds non stop so the app makers get money, a good solid trade that might last a few hours, a few minutes, a few days, or a few weeks, can net 10-30% gains, if not more, vs the initial start up stake capital.
“The Cunard White Star company…”
Hmmm….
Thanks, Dave!
“Uh, no. The changes in patterns of federal expenditure since 1929 which have had the largest magnitude have been the advent of Social Security (financed with payroll taxes), the advent of Medicare (financed with payroll taxes), and the increase in the ratio of military expenditure to national product …” — Art Deco
The advent of the income tax is tangled up with WWI to some extent. I have a chart of fed. spending as a percent of GDP from 1890 to 2010.
1890 – 1914…Steady at 2.5% of GPD
1919…….Peaks at 24% (WWI spending)
1926…….Levels off at 4% (60% higher than before income tax)
1933 – 1940…10% (FDR’s NRA spending ramped up)
Social Sec. started in 1935, but I don’t think it was very expensive then because most died before age 65, and those that collected didn’t live much longer.
Military spending in 2017 was just under 15% of fed. spending. Hardly small, but not huge either.
______
Art Deco on April 10, 2019 at 9:14 am. Topic: Inflation.
I loved that post. Exactly correct.
Social Sec. started in 1935, but I don’t think it was very expensive then because most died before age 65, and those that collected didn’t live much longer.
My mother told me that in the 1930s, her employer paid the SS tax as a fringe benefit as it was so small. She lived to 103.
Tax Justice is a feminist issue: call on governments to act
We celebrate International Women’s Day today by reaffirming tax as a feminist issue.
whatever they want… right? of course…
otherwise, your oppressing them
We call to governments for tax justice to advance women’s rights and economic equality, which we share here:
• Recognise tax as a feminist issue and raise domestic revenue to invest in the gender-responsive public services, social protections, and infrastructure required to fulfill the human rights of all women and achieve gender equality.
• Raise taxes through progressive and gender-just policies and practices, with emphasis on direct taxation of income, wealth, and high net worth individuals, and ensure that multinational corporations pay their share.
what could go wrong that all women are this way?
[the ones that are not dont count, and count less that they are not up in arms opposition letting it all happen with a minor stop dont a la Willy Wonka]
You want to bet that these pushes to tax are doing what they want above, but NOT ASCRIBING any reasons to who is pushing for it, and why – or else what?
thats not all thats coming (not like i havent been warning you half decades ahead of this crap, but hey, the verging moment is the right time, worked for no one]
• Practice gender budgeting to ensure that tax revenues are raised and spent in ways that promote gender equality; reform tax laws so that they do not discriminate against women; and, uphold the right of all women to have an equal say in how public money is spent.
• Carry out tax impact assessments by gender to identify the direct and indirect effects of taxes, paying attention to the impacts of both taxes and public spending on the poorest women.
• Ensure that national and regional tax and financial secrecy policies neither contribute to large scale tax abuse nor reduce public resources available to realise women’s rights in other countries.
• End harmful tax practices, illicit financial flows and regressive reforms to the global tax system that facilitate tax avoidance and are biased towards wealthy countries, corporations, and the rich elite.
• Support the establishment of an inclusive intergovernmental UN Global Tax Commission where all countries have a seat at the table and equal say in determining international tax rules.
The world will not be able to achieve women and girl’s rights, gender equality or the Sustainable Development Goals without taking action for tax justice.
Too bad neo wont discuss the force BEHIND politicians
ie. who they have to listen to or have what happen to them?
the feminists tell them what to do claiming to represent over 1/2 the population.
duhhhh
there are literally thousands of groups following this kind of thing pressuring the politicians, who will NOT listen to any reasoned arguments, who would want to get th Trump Kavenaugh, etc treatment?
get ready to goosestep to the beat of a dictatorship… nothing can stop that…
THos interested in the groups and such that are fighting for women to take the biggest salary jobs AND pay the highest taxes in history..
It’s Not Just the Tampon Tax: Why Periods Are Political – The New York Times
[Casey Hartnett spoke at a “Period Party” that included storytelling and poetry in honor of World Menstrual Hygiene Day, at the New Women Space in Brooklyn this year.]
yeah, they make more sense than men did, right? cause if the men tried to use the public funds the way women use the public funds of their famiies to their detriment, we would be where instead of where?
Tax Reform and Feminist Theory in the United States: Incorporating Human Connection
Why Dirty Money Is a Feminist Issue
Economic Inequality and Taxation are Feminist Issues
When corporations do not pay their fair share of taxes, there is less money to invest in public services, sustainable infrastructure and social protection, which are the key drivers for gender equality
“Why tax policy must be dealt with by the feminist movement”
Global Alliance for Tax Justice
Why national budgets need to take gender into account
Designing fiscal policies to support gender equality is good for growth
[assumptions unproved, lets experiment!!! mengele was too open]
“Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion.”
AWID is an international, feminist, membership organisation committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women’s human right.
By looking beyond the relatively tiny fraction of funding that goes to social issues…..
[tiny fraction?]
TONS More… so much more, you wouldnt look at it…
The $67 Billion Feminist Tax that Women Primarily Pay
[and just think how much they lost they want back by other means… ]
so far so good… right?
after all the point of feminism was to free women, not turn them into statist cattle to produce taxes, right?
[their egos would say no – but marx said so, to get their industry… the ugly ones too]
We discussed this years ago, in the mens areas where no one cares to listen as the women tell other women what we think..
we sat there laughing that now 20%-30% of their prior labor is now taxed and they get to not spend time with their kids and have the state take over and all that…
and FOR LESS!!!!
consider this.
marx wrote about this, this is the reason behind feminism and marxism (not the reason behind the suffragettes, and so on… they were trying to get th votes they had back from woodrow wilsons tax changes)
women entered the work force to be tax slaves
and the more you get rid of the guys, and the women work, and the other women are now workiing to raise taxes and more… to milk cows for money to keep doing this!
oh… and the biggest joke on the “geniuses” is they work more, have less, are more miserable, and so on… but they believe what they are told over what they know… so they believe there is tiny money for social services, or that its ok for them to take the top jobs and top pay while at the same time paying higher and higher taxes as they take kids away like they do to cows…
but look at Amy? her kids grow up, and the girls dont want men, and the boys dont want a woman like mom… (so much for old songs)… they want nothing to do with each other except platonicly
Amy kids are not family or close, they are never in a family moment..
most like amy are not happy, are worked too hard, and their kids do not have good lives..
they grow up not being able to function, missing all the skills family used to teach..
[this is by design if you read the old stuff no one wants to read]
if Amy is out doing all these things, how does she take care of her house and her children?
Simple, she doesn’t. She pays somebody else to do it. She outsources all these things.
Uh ohhhhhh!
and these prices these women have to pay, have now gone UP!!!
you know you have to pay at least mimimum wage..
and unlike burger joints, mom cant work if she dont pay..
so she funds the underclass, their kids, housing extras, aid to dependent children and more
no wonder so many women from so many countries want to come here
where else can you earn 10-25 an hour doing what you do for free back home?
and get public assistance, free medical, and more..
so to correct this issue that they did to themselves they now want to change the taxes to fix this imbalance… by of course, taxing the men more than women… but the men are alreayd losing the higher jobs (except the elite and their women)… and we are already at record low fertility
the women created a world where the best most able people cant have children
talk about the ultimate PROmote reGRESSIVE policies!!!
women trapped themselves…
and first they had to get rid of everyone in their local sphere that cared
and then follow strangers who had ulterior motives and uses (and say so)
my the lawyer or Kelly the engineer would be one thing in that the economic argument could be made that in outsourcing their traditional housewife duties, they COULD make more as an engineer, pay somebody else to maintain the home, pay the extra “feminist tax” on those transactions and STILL come out ahead. They and their husbands could make bookoo coin
so why isnt that so? because women make choices that dont let that happen
which is why they now want equal pay for “unequal work” to have equal outcome!!
another rube goldberg fix on top of the other fixes to make the unworkable work
Genius… and the reward is Democide your population and power, out of existence!!!
https://www.the-niceguy.com/forum/index.php?/topic/73360-he-67-billion-feminist-tax-that-women-primarily-pay/
One of the benefits of being a tax lawyer is that you have the United States Congress working night and day to keep you in business. As a tax lawyer and breadwinner, I applaud Sen. Wyden’s proposal; as a citizen, I deplore it.
FYI, securities dealers are are already required to mark-to-market each year, and securities traders, commodities dealers, and commodities traders may elect to do so. Gains and losses are treated as ordinary income, which means losses are deductible with no limitation, although the new rule disallowing net operating loss carrybacks and reducing the maximum use of NOL carryforwards to 80% of taxable income will affect that. (Isn’t being a tax lawyer fun!)
Well at least AOC should not feel unique in the Democratic Party when it comes to economic idiocy.
“Again, no. Income is received within a given year. It is a flow. Capital gains are realized at irregular intervals in regard to assets (a stock, not a flow) which are held for years and even decades.”
Income is income is income. It is ALL received within a given year. As for your example, the average home price in the U.S. in 1970 (in 2000 dollars) was $65,600 while the average home price in the U.S. in 2000 was $119,600. That’s a MASSIVE increase in value for doing only the bare minimum to keep the place standing.
But you still haven’t answered the question: Why should one kind of economic activity be rewarded over another?
Mike
Art Deco on April 10, 2019 at 9:33 am at 9:33 am said: — lots of stuff.
Thanks for the information — always good to get something to counter the “received wisdom” that we imbibe through the atmosphere.
BUT perception is a far stronger governor of public thought than are the cold equations.
As Richard pointed out, most of the fine details are things only the tax lawyers know — and they probably know more than the “pass it to find out what’s in it” legislators.
So: Trial balloon or a real proposal?
And what are your bets that somehow the wealth of Hollywood, the press, and government officials are really not wealth-wealth, for purposes of taxation?
Income is income is income.
No, income is income and assets are assets.
That’s a MASSIVE increase in value for doing only the bare minimum to keep the place standing.
And you’re taxing the nominal gains just why?
But you still haven’t answered the question: Why should one kind of economic activity be rewarded over another?
One isn’t. The notion that one is is your confusion.
While we’re at it, the ‘massive gain’ is a gain of 2% per year in real terms. The sum of investment and proprietors income per household (in real terms) increased at a rate of 2.24% per year between 1970 and 2000.
Inflation of assets is not income. Why are Americans still graduating from public indoctrination thinking they are competent?
Or this another Anglosphere thing and world education thing gracing our door steps.
Artfl, above at 12:43 pm :
“World Menstrual Hygiene Day”
Good god.
Why be a Mother, cleaning your own kids’ diapers,
When you could be a Wage Slave, making glamorous PowerPoints?
The Feminist supported cultural move towards double income families was good for a burst of economic GDP growth, but not so great for families nor for society.
Richard Saunders, I flatly do not believe that Zuckerberg, nor Buffett, were paying income taxes on any ordinary income calculations of the huge increased values of their Facebook / Berk. Hath. shares which they kept over the years. Tho I also don’t know exactly how their taxes were calculated, I thought it more from dividends and from sales of shares, and these were at the lower capital gains rate (14%). That rate going up to equal the top marginal income rate sure seems like a Dem desire that would be popular.
The popularity of spending Other People’s Money is indeed frightening, and has been so destructive in Venezuela, among other places. It could happen anywhere.
In a parallel effort, I more strongly support a National Service Corps to hire everybody able to work, pay them 80% of an enlisted soldier’s pay, and put them to work. Under the commies, everybody had a job. One of the few things the commies did that were net positive.
In a Gulag everyone has a job, some of the “jobs” are just a bit better than others; it was a net positive. As a fish if it likes the net.
…as those happy go lucky Soviets, no doubt enthused with the “workers’ paradise” in which they were essentially incarcerated—Venezuelans would understand—used to joke (in all profound seriousness): “We pretended to work; and they pretended to pay us.”
On the other hand, they learned invaluable life skills such as appreciating intensely culture and the arts, reading “between the lines” of newspapers (and other media), waiting patiently on long lines without knowing if there would be anything left to buy when one’s turn finally arrived, and taking advantage of Capitalist principles whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Hmm.
Does anybody think perhaps the goal here is something entirely different?
There was no hope of the Green New Deal being passed; but it got paraded.
There’s no hope of this idea being passed; but it gets paraded.
Here’s my thought: I think the Dems have seen how Trump’s inclination (on any given policy-topic) to propose something outrageous coming-out-of-the-gate (as an “opening position”) tends to move the “Overton Window” on that topic in future discussions. I think the Dems are starting to mirror that tactic for their own purposes.
I think the idea goes something like this:
– Dem Pol: “We want to go back to a 90% top-bracket on high-income earners.”
– Adviser: “Can’t. That’s way outside the left side of the Overton window-frame.”
– Shrewd Adviser: “Get Wyden to propose taxing unrealized capital gains.”
– Wyden: “Let’s tax unrealized capital gains!”
– Sane people: “No!!!! You’re totally crazy!!!!”
– Dem Pol: “I think we should have a 90% top-bracket on high-income earners.”
– Sane people: “That’s a bad idea, high-income earners are the earners with the most easily-relocatable income streams.”
– Dem Pol: “Possibly, but there may be ways we can finesse those details. And, hey, it’s not like I’m proposing taxing unrealized capital gains!”
– Sane people: “Oh. Um, well, good point. I guess you’re the sane Dem. Thanks for not being Wyden. Tell us more.”
“…but it gets paraded.”
Ah, so there IS tactical wisdom in the Democratic party’s apparent need to “proclaim insanity throughout the land”….
(I was worried there for a moment.)
R.C.:
Yes, indeed. The idea is that you propose an outrageous idea and then any idea a little less outrageous will look reasonable. Then after that’s accepted, you keep edging closer and closer to the original idea.
It’s worked many times for them, but Trump has little to do with it because it predated him.
R.C. on April 11, 2019 at 11:02 am at 11:02 am said:
Hmm.
Does anybody think perhaps the goal here is something entirely different?
* * *
Mirror images – like having an Overton window into Alice’s Wonderland on Bizarro World.
The outrageous things President Trump proposes are very often — although not always — (1) already legislated but formerly unimplemented (wall, Jerusalem); (2) in line with the majority of the public’s desired, based on neutral polling; (3) at least potentially feasible.
The outrageous things the Democrats propose are almost always (1) unlegislated if not outfight illegal or unConstitutional; (2) fringe or low-popularity outside their rabid base; (3) not only infeasible, but very often destructive.
Caveat: sometimes one or the other seems to have an idea that looks like it belongs on the opposite side of the mirror; both sides think that what I’ve posited actually describes the other side.
“Just when you think Democrats can’t get any worse,” along comes the idea of letting working parents take parental leave paid for by Social Security, and offset it against their pensions later.
What could go wrong?
Lots of articles arguing against the bill, only one for it, so I’ll link that one.
But IMO even if he is right economically, it is wrong wrong wrong philosophically.
https://www.aei.org/publication/social-security-based-paid-parental-leave-is-worth-considering/
My radical idea: invent some novel fund into which people could deposit some of their wages as they go along, and use that when they need to quit work for awhile.
We could “pay for it” by reducing Social Security taxes (among others).
It could be called something catchy, like “savings accounts.”
Neo, the thunder woke me up. Now enjoying the rain.