This week, Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(D-N.Y.) came up with the best reason to tax billionaires: They do not actually exist.
On a podcast, Ocasio-Cortez declared with all the certainty of a freshman in a Smith College political science course that the notion ofa self-made billionaire is simply a fantasy, because “you just can’t earn” a billion dollars. It is only the latest in a series of socialist fables that are being dressed up as economic facts.
The difference is that this fable, if told often enough, could become true.
In suggesting that true billionaires are a capitalist myth,Ocasio-Cortez is suggesting that people likeElon MuskandJeff Bezosreally did not earn their wealth and, therefore, it is really not their money.
“There’s a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned. You can’t earn a billion dollars. You just can’t earn that. You can get market power, you can break rules, you can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they’re worth, but you can’t earn that.”
In other words, you can only make a billion dollars through theft and exploitation rather than actual entrepreneurial enterprise. This statement comes as support builds for the California billionaires’ tax which, even before it has a chance to pass in November, has alreadycost the state trillionsdue to an exodus of these billionaires.
In my book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss common myths spread by the left to fuel economic factionalism.
One common myth is that the “wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes.”In truth, the top ten percent of taxpayers pay the vast majority of taxes in the U.S. In the book, I alsodispel the claim that most millionaires inherited their wealth or came from privileged backgrounds.
These myths are designed to make redistribution schemes more palatable. And Democrats are ramping up the “eat-the-rich” rhetoric ahead of the midterms in pushing both millionaire and billionaire taxes. Democrats from Washington to Virginia are pushing millionaire taxes, and the mere conversation has already set off a stampede of high-earning taxpayers to red states like Texas and Florida, which have no state income tax.
It was also evident in this week’s California gubernatorial debate.CandidateKatie Porter(D)said she opposesthe billionaire’s tax because it would not go far enough.Porter then pressed the only billionaire in the group,Tom Steyer,who has beenmoving to the far leftto grab voters in the wake of the departure of former Rep.Eric Swalwell(D-Calif.) as a candidate. Steyer said that he supports the billionaire tax but would want to go even further.
Source: ZeroHedge News
