The six members of the Walton family of Walmart in 2010 owned the same amount of wealth as the bottom 41.5% of ALL AMERICANS. This fact has been pointed out many times by candidate Bernie Sanders.
A simple question for each Democratic candidate: are you proposing any policy to address this appalling and unsustainable inequality? This question deserves an answer.
I remain undecided. Will this question to be answered?
Please share widely!
More progressive taxation and raising the minimum wage come to mind.
But that’s not the point. The point is that we don’t even ask them for answers.
Transparent post.
It’s a legitimate question, even if the OP leans towards Bernie Sanders.
N/T
I am not sure that I agree that the answer should be “yes” but it is certainly a legitimate question for a Democratic candidate to answer.
calls it the “economic challenge of our time” and notes top CEOs earn 300X more than a typical American worker. She would raise middle class income to reduce inequality by :
*reforming the tax code so the wealthiest pay their fair share
*impose accountability on Wall Street
*reform capital gains taxes to encourage investing for the long term instead of the short term — focus on long term investments not short-term profits
*encourage companies to share their profits with their employees
*raise the minimum wage and expand overtime
*support unions and collective bargaining
*guarantee college affordability and expand job training
Fair and sustainable economic growth means if you work hard you should be rewarded. Makes sense to me.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Ms. Clinton calls attention to “top CEOs” who earn three hundred times the salary of a typical American worker.
In another thread here, I showed that the wealthiest eight people in Massachusetts — Abigail Johnson, Edward C. Johnson 3rd, Amos Hostetter, Jim Davis, Robert Kraft, Phillip Ragon, Valentin Gapontsev, and Set Klarman — together realized an average increase in net worth of more than THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS per year in the last two years (using data published by Forbes).
That is more than TEN THOUSAND TIMES the income of a Massachusetts family grossing $31,000 per year. Do you think those eight wealthiest people paid 10,000x the TAXES that that Massachusetts family paid? If you do, then I have a great deal on a bridge in Brooklyn for you.
I’m glad that Ms. Clinton is talking about CEOs and their inflated income. I think a 300x multiple is obscene. What is our response, then, to a TEN THOUSAND TIMES multiple? That’s more than THIRTY times the multiple that Ms. Clinton is already — thankfully — talking about.
If we were talking about public health, it’s like talking about how to prevent the tragic deaths of one hundred Massachusetts residents from some chronic disease, while ignoring a death toll of ONE MILLION from some other equally preventable cause.
It is time we also talk about our WEALTHIEST people, and how their taxes compare to the taxes paid by the rest of us.
vis a vis the gross disparity in Massachusetts income. That is why I have always supported a progressive income tax for the Bay State to reform the current flat 5% system. And I was interested to learn from our editors that this change is NOT prohibited under Article 44 of our State Constitution.
Can that information be confirmed and, if true, does that strike you as a practical first step in addressing the issue. Changing to a progressive income tax structure, that is ?
Fred Rich LaRiccia
When taxing the very wealthy, I think we must focus on wealth, rather than income. The two are very different, especially at the very top of the wealth distribution.
I’d like to see the state publish some additional information, that I plan to detail in a separate post. In a nutshell, I’d like to see something along the following:
For the wealthiest 100 (1,000?) people (as reported in ALL the tax return information filed, including depreciation schedules and such), I’d like to see an aggregate of:
1. The average change in reported assets from the previous to the current year.
2. The average gross income reported on the 1040 and MA Form 1.
3. The average federal taxes due, as reported on page 2 of the 1040.
4. The average federal taxes paid, as reported on page 2 of the 1040.
5. The average state taxes due, as reported on MA Form 1.
6. The average state taxes paid, as reported on MA Form 1.
I’d like to see some hard data on what the feds and MA actually demand and receive in taxes each year from the 100 (or 1000) wealthiest MA residents.
If you can trow this info in there, I would like to see how much the net worth of politicians has increased in their time in office. Just re-read what Washington wrote when he was elected commander-in-chief. All he ever wanted to get paid for were his well documented expenses.
I agree that there might be some voyeuristic interest in that. I actually suspect that most of that information is already available because of the disclosure laws already in place for elected officials.
The information I’m talking is not available. Period.
is that little of the top 1% wealth comes from income– even capital gains.
So progressive income tax as a proposed remedy is a little like trying to get speeding under control by increasing parking tickets.
Thank you, CMD.
The focus on income and income tax is just another way that the very wealthy distract us from looking at the reality of:
1. Where the wealth of the rest of us is going
2. The obscenely small share of their annual increase in net worth that the very wealthy actually pay
3. The futility of addressing this through changes in income tax
I’m undecided. I just want to know what they are proposing. What if one of them said ‘the maximum income tax rate during the Kennedy administration was 70% (I think it was actually higher). With the inequality we now have in this country it’s time that we at least make the top right half of what it was in 1960.’ At least then we would have something specific to lead on and defend. So far it’s still the pole driven single ‘what won’t offend voters based on polling?’. I’m not opposed to that if it causes us to win – I’m just not convinced anymore that static polling is the best instrument to achieve political ends. Trump has to mean something other than confirming the trues and that we still have a crypto-fascist strain in our society a la Fr. Coughlin.
And called Ike a “fellow socialist” when endorsing that right in an interview this May. I think we shouldn’t be cautious at this stage about the general public, some Trump supporters also like what Bernie has to say, just as many Coughlin and Long supporters gravitated back to FDR once he responded to “Share our Wealth” with an expanded New Deal. It’s the populism-taking in the elites and the existing business and political establishment that is so often in bed with each other that people want this season.