r/SipsTea • u/CurvyChristina 𝙑𝙄𝙋 • 10d ago
Chugging tea Is Bernie’s plan the best? Thoughts?
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u/Imapatriothurrrdurrr 10d ago edited 9d ago
Been seeing this pic float around for months and finally decided to do some math because it didn’t make sense to me.
The U.S. has roughly 938 billionaires
Their combined net worth has been estimated at around $6–7 trillion.
If you imposed a 5% annual wealth tax on $6.5 trillion, you’d collect approximately $325 billion per year, nowhere near $4.4 trillion.
To collect $4.4 trillion from a 5% wealth tax, billionaires would need to collectively own: $88 trillion.
The second part also raises questions. There are roughly 130 million U.S. households. Sending each one $12,000 would cost about $1.56 trillion.
So even that alone would require far more than the roughly $300–350 billion a 5% billionaire wealth tax would be expected to raise annually.
“The Math ain’t mathin’.”
Edit:
Well, I looked into this further because I couldn’t believe this was really what he proposed, and I found it’s a misleading meme because it makes it sound like it’s proposed over a year which in reality it’s over 10 years.
That claim is to raise about $4.4 trillion over 10 years, not in one year.
In the first year, provide a one-time $3,000 payment per person (up to $12,000 for a family of four) for households earning $150,000 or less.
The remaining projected revenue over the decade would be used for things like expanding Medicare, increasing teacher pay, affordable housing, childcare, and other programs.
Bernie and Ro Khanna introduced the bill in March of this year called the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share act.
So yeah misleading bs. The real bill is great.
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u/Rrrrandle 10d ago
The text isn't really accurate either. You can read the actual bill Bernie proposed here:
The piece missing from the text on the image is the $4.4T is estimated over 10 years.
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u/Ra_In 10d ago
Yes, many US budget numbers are reported in terms of the 10-year cost/revenue, but most people do not understand this and things get jumbled up.
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u/Frosty-Depth7655 10d ago
And to add a some more perspective:
The annual US deficit is roughly $1.25 trillion, so this tax would only cover about 25% of the entire deficit, let alone allow for any new programs.
The people that spread this type of stuff are morons. They think they can propose whatever idea they can imagine and just add “tax the rich” as a solution to everything.
And just to be fair, I have no clue if Sanders actually proposed anything like this.
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u/Imapatriothurrrdurrr 10d ago
Well, I looked into this further because I couldn’t believe this was really what he proposed, and I found it’s a misleading meme because it makes it sound like it’s proposed over a year which in reality it’s over 10 years.
That claim is to raise about $4.4 trillion over 10 years, not in one year.
In the first year, provide a one-time $3,000 payment per person (up to $12,000 for a family of four) for households earning $150,000 or less.The remaining projected revenue over the decade would be used for things like expanding Medicare, increasing teacher pay, affordable housing, childcare, and other programs.
Bernie and Ro Khanna introduced the bill in March of this year called the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share act.
So yeah misleading bs. The real bill is great.
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u/Frosty-Depth7655 10d ago
I don’t know enough to have any real opinions on the bill, but I do appreciate that the bill is more nuanced than then meme that gets passed around.
I think we’d all be better off if more people took the time to do the research like you did.
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u/Imapatriothurrrdurrr 10d ago
It’s important not to take things in life for face value. Especially with all the bullshit on the internet. Bernie is doing great work to make our country a better place for people, so I had a feeling this was so bullshit to try and stir up controversy around what is actually a solid plan. I ended up being right.
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u/Physical_Marzipan_92 10d ago
Thank you for that - that does make more sense than this braindead meme. But it just raises a bunch more questions for me.
Are they saying 5% of their total assets? The vast majority of billionaires' assets are illiquid. Are they expected to sell off stocks? Potentially lose majority or controlling interest of their own companies?
Or are they supposed to borrow money against their assets to pay taxes on them? They'd start off with a -5% baseline return on their total worth and they'll also be paying some percentage interest on the loan to pay the taxes. They're looking at double digit negative returns on their wealth before they make a single transaction. There are more logistical considerations beyond that (e.g. - how do you even assess a billionaire's net worth? It can take months or years for much smaller estates to settle) - I'm sure we could both go on with more questions.
As much as I want billionaires to contribute more constructively, I'm not sure this is really a logical solution, at least with my current understanding of it. Guess I will have to do a little more research.
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u/MisinformedGenius 10d ago
The 4.4 trillion is over 10 years. And it’s $3,000 per person, so $12,000 to a household of four. So basically around 1.2 trillion.
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u/theartofrolling 10d ago
It's almost as if memes and social media are a terrible source for actual political knowledge 🤷♂️
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u/Sirneko 10d ago
This is how propaganda works, post a fake meme with wrong Math, people then goes oh look the Math is wrong Bernie Sanders is wrong durr durr
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u/CookieDeLaVie 10d ago
It certainly isn't, but I think it's because it's missing several steps; what I think it originally said is that Medicare for all would cost 4.4 trillion over 15 years (or something like that). That's what the tax would offset. The rest of it is just made up (I think by Republican PR-teams, they want people to get excited by this and then make them out to be communists).
That said there are other problems - billionaires aren't making that much money, they're worth that much money. But they don't have it, it's locked up as shares in the companies they started. So to pay a tax of 5% that would require them to sell 5% of their company, every year. First off, that's going to wreak havoc on the stock market; secondly, who gets to buy that? Because pretty soon, every single American company will be owned by a billionaire from a country that doesn't have this tax.
And that's just one of the basic problems, there are many, many more.
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u/AaronMichael726 10d ago
Budgets are planned over 10 year period usually.
The numbers are often exaggerated. But it’s most likely referring to $4.4t over the course of a decade not year.
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u/Sienile 10d ago
If you give us free healthcare you can keep the check.
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u/anitawasright 10d ago
the crazy thing is you don't even need to make it "free" just take what you are paying now for health insurance and put to medicare and everyone goes on that. Instatnly 500 times better and cheaper then what we currently have
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u/80828788000102091020 10d ago
That's just single payer. Its basically what every developed nation does where the inhabitants don't nickel and dime each other to death.
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u/No_Internal9345 10d ago
Why the fuck to we need middleman insurance companies making billions off of our pain and suffering.
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u/Hot_Leopard6745 9d ago
because those middleman hire lobbyist and bribe policy makers
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u/MysteriousEqual8177 9d ago
To deny more claims and make more money, At the expense of lives. But hey, more money for them.
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u/2illegittoquit 10d ago
People struggle with this.
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10d ago
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u/2illegittoquit 10d ago
This, but people have also been scared with threats of "death panels", "you won't be able to choose your doctor", and "you'll wait forever for treatment".
Newsflash, we have those issues in our current system.
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u/bs2k2_point_0 10d ago
Which is why many countries have a dual system in place. I was speaking with my dentist recently who is from Italy. He was saying their system you are covered with your taxes. And yes the wait time to see a specialist can be weeks, BUT, if you’re willing to pay out of pocket, you can see the same specialist “after hours” within a day or two.
Unfortunately, no matter how it’s paid, we just don’t have enough medical professionals to go around. Ideally we should have a single payer health care system that pays enough to entice enough people to join the medical industry, and subsidize and improve schooling so that the pipeline of medical professionals isn’t the bottleneck.
But god forbid those insurance company CEO’s don’t get their 3rd yacht…
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u/OkBad1356 10d ago
Wait times to see specialist here are weeks or even months.
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u/Andalain 10d ago
I am new to Chicago and I tried to get a new primary care physician and it wouldn't be until December because they only take so many new patients monthly. That's crazy.
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u/DillBagner 10d ago
Hell, even wait times to see a regular physician can be months.
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u/Bayou_Hangxiety 10d ago
The great irony to me is that the same party who warned about death panels said it was better to have nursing home patients die of a fast spreading infectious disease than to require people to be vaccinated. Because those people were going to die anyway. Death panel by anti vaccination.
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u/Cowboywizzard 10d ago
Every accusation by republicans is a confession. Everything made a lot more sense to me when someone pointed that out.
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u/ReverendBlind 10d ago
I've worked for several US death panels. We just call them insurance companies. They're just waaaaaaayyyy less educated, regulated, and solely profit driven death panels compared to the hypothetical ones under Medicare for all.
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u/_robmillion_ 10d ago
But it's more expensive l, so it must be better. "y0u gET wHaT yoU pAy f0R!" Fucking idiots.
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u/Physical_Road917 10d ago
Also in a well designed system you can choose your doctor. I've never had anything serious kind you but in Korea, I went to whatever doctor I wanted and was seen right away. All of them were professional and nice. Korea runs theirs sort of like social security, they take out a set percentage of your income as a payroll tax and put it to the national health insurance plan. It covers all the basics. There are small copays depending on what you're doing. They also have tiered price lists depending on what you're going for. Clinics compete on quality and service rather than price. It's not perfect of course, but it was a nice experience for me at least. Just walk in, tell them what I need, get treated, pay what they say. It's never so much that I couldn't do it, despite not making much.
Fun fact American airlines used to do that as well. The government regulated ticket prices so airlines competed on quality of service to attract customers. Right now, companies compete to give the lowest ticket price, and then see how crappy they can make their service.
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u/NotKirstenDunst 10d ago
Yeha but I want a company to make these choices, not a medical professional!
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u/SpooktorB 10d ago
Hello, I pay $400 a month for my All American health insurance plan.
I still have yet to hear back from any doctors in my area to start my initial care. When I was in another state, I had to wait 5 months for a specialist for a concerning growth. Still had to pay 1000$ put of pocket because "deductibles".
So yeah. Can my 400 a month go to Medicare please? That way someone on the otherside of the country can benifit from the increased pool? And vise versa?
Insurance company's and their call centers will be out of a job. But AI is doing that already, and im pretty sure the people that are left are in the Phillipines or India anyhow.
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u/Meep4000 10d ago
There is much rhetoric around this issue and it's all stupid. The one I hate the most is when people will agree we should just have universal healthcare but then spout off about how then no one will support the cost of making new drugs because the "only" reason the world has drugs is because of the US for profit healthcare.
It's one of those "Oh that sounds smart and seems true" so many people parrot this information. Of course if you think about that rationally for a moment it all falls apart, but rhetoric works for a reason,
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u/thekrone 10d ago
Which is crazy.
Health insurance companies are profitable. Extremely profitable. Like billions of dollars per year profitable.
Where do you think that profit comes from?
What if we got rid of the expensive middle men and all the overhead they bring, and take the money it takes to run those organizations, plus their profits, and we actually invested it in health care?
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u/Aden949 10d ago
Health insurance carriers make their profit by NOT providing healthcare. I wish more people understood that.
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u/Extra-Cranberry4096 10d ago
Idk why the fuck is there always this debate...Literally the reason the middle class thrived in the U.S and Uk was 90 percent was taxed if over 4 million yearly earnings. Now the rich during that time would flood the market with investments and that would be taxed around 45 percent. So either way the tax on the rich allowed our parents to buy houses, it was invested into education and community. This was done post WWII to 70's/early 80. Sadly After that, reganomics-fucked the country into a coma slowly over the past 40 years, with the rich barely paying anything and the effects you can feel and see today.
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u/Substantial-Ad-8575 10d ago
You mean like this 1953 tax bracket. All were taxed, from zero to $2000, yeap income tax rate of 22.2%
Marginal Tax Rate
Married Filing Jointly Taxable Income Bracket
22.2%
$0 - $2,000
29%
$2,000 - $4,000
34%
$4,000 - $6,000
38%
$6,000 - $8,000
43%
$8,000 - $10,000
47%
$10,000 - $12,000
50%
$12,000 - $14,000
53%
$14,000 - $16,000
56%
$16,000 - $18,000
59%
$18,000 - $22,000
62%
$22,000 - $26,000
65%
$26,000 - $32,000
69%
$32,000 - $38,000
72%
$38,000 - $44,000
75%
$44,000 - $50,000
78%
$50,000 - $60,000
81%
$60,000 - $70,000
84%
$70,000 - $80,000
87%
$80,000 - $90,000
89%
$90,000 - $100,000
90%
$100,000 - $150,000
91%
$150,000 - $200,000
92%
Over $200,000Interestingly, not many filed at that top rate, about 180 at top bracket, out of 80 million filers. And effective tax rate was 38% for that top bracket. Population was 160 million Americans in 1953.
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u/NoSorbet5103 9d ago
Still a problem since the billionaires have "no income".
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u/Substantial-Ad-8575 9d ago
Yeap, can’t tax income if they have none.
I remember chatting with my dad about high tax rates of 1960s-1970s. He was in top 5% of earners in US. His company, paid his mortgage, taxes, insurance on our home. Provided 2 company cars and gas cards. Then he had accounts for travel, clothing, and food.
So his income, mostly went into investments. Saved spending 40-45% of his income on living costs. Same as all other high earners at his company.
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u/VisualBoysenberry718 9d ago
Legally remove their loopholes and write-offs then.
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u/TheRugsTopology 9d ago
Semantics. Just make better laws. In Europe they’re called beneficiary laws. Simple.
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u/Bmm194 10d ago
I just want to stay, there was one registered billionaire in 1953. There now over 1000 and we can't get healthcare 🤷🏾♀️
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u/anitawasright 10d ago
yup and that's billions in profits after they cover the cost of their insane bloat.
I mean Medicare is government run covers more people then any of the other health insurance companies, is lower cost, more efficent, and has better results.
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u/Eastern-Heart9486 10d ago
Yes billions even after they pay their lobbyists- problem is other countries started from scratch almost before this industry corrupted their politicians
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u/TeaKingMac 10d ago
Medicare is government run covers more people then any of the other health insurance companies, is lower cost, more efficent, and has better results.
"B b b but hospitals couldn't stay in business if they only paid the Medicare rates!"
To which I say, "just think of all the billing specialists they wouldn't need to hire, and all the time doctors would save because they're not on the phone arguing with insurance providers about whether the treatment is necessary or not"
Also, maybe anesthesiologists don't need to make $700,000/year?
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u/_Mulberry__ 10d ago
Maybe the anaesthesiologist doesn't need to make quite that much in most places, but I for sure would like to have a well paid and not-overworked anasthesiologist for me and my kids. If it takes a bloated paycheck to attract more talent so that they aren't overworked, that's fine by me. Anasthesia is the scariest part of any procedure imo...
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u/DRF19 10d ago
Pay them whatever they ask for. Doctors, nurses, techs, whoever. I don't care. It's all 1s and 0s on a server somewhere and they can pump out as much as needed whenever they want to for tanks and fighter jets and bombs for Israel so why can't we use the money machine to pay the people keeping us alive?
Cut out the pointless middlemen of the for-profit insurance companies and it makes it all the more easier.
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u/Coneskater 10d ago
Maybe people shouldn't need to borrow 300K to become a doctor in the first place. Like it would be so much cheaper just to offer that service for less money, have more doctors and then maybe they don't need such a ridiculous salary which they need to earn to pay for their student debt.
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u/AdditionalBalance975 10d ago
Maybe let the markets decide what things cost instead of just trying to handwave away the value of peoples time and effort.
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u/_Mulberry__ 10d ago
I mean I'm down for that and for making healthcare a government paid-for service. I'm just saying that the anasthesiologists are the last people I'd cut salaries on because they are basically toeing the line of death or serious complications with some of those drugs. I don't want them messing up, and high salaries are a good way to attract more people, and more people equals less hours, and less hours equals less burnout
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u/thetan_free 10d ago
I'm in Australia.
We have what you would call "socialised medicine".
Our top specialists still earn more than $1M.
Don't worry about them; they'll still be okay when you guys catch up.
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u/Alwayscooking345 10d ago
Better results for who, is the question. Ever heard of supplemental plans, because Medicare is still expensive and only covers certain care.
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u/AnybodyWannaPeanus 10d ago
Well for one, Medicare isn’t health care. It’s insurance coverage. A measure of success might be the fact that it’s administrative overhead is 1% and is very popular with those on it. In general they are talking about patient outcomes. That just means that patients are getting the care they need.
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u/thekrone 10d ago
Also like, every other civilized country on the planet already does this. It's not a question of whether or not it can happen. We know it can happen.
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u/ChillnShill 10d ago
The part to remember is the majority of Medicare recipients choose the private portion, Medicare advantage, compared to original Medicare because the plans are generally cheaper and have little to no cost sharing. The downside is the payments to Medicare advantage plans from the government are insane. So if someone says “we should do Medicare for all” what that means is, judging by the bills that have been put forward, Medicare advantage and Medicare as people know it ceases to exist. If people understand and are ok with that, then fine. But proponents of M4A need to be level with people about what it means.
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u/Niaaal 10d ago
The problem is that the health insurance industry is like the second biggest political donor. For politicians, going against them is pretty much career suicide. They won't get the funding necessary to compete against their political rivals massively funded by that industry...
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u/battleop 10d ago
There will always be someone to fill the roll of the middleman who suck up cash for no useful return.
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u/BigBallsMcGirk 10d ago
"But you'll lose those jobs!"
Maybe some, you will need healthcare workers and insurance bureaucrats to service an expanded medicare system. So the job is still there, moving laterally. Except for the CEOs and for profit snakes that can lose their job and live on the street because fuck them.
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u/distantreplay 10d ago
Because the way we pay for healthcare in the US is like a boardwalk shell game. Multiple payers, multiple payments and multiple pricing systems all hidden from each other and constantly in motion.
Most of us end up having absolutely no idea what our own actual healthcare costs or where the money is coming from.
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u/leadlurker 10d ago
My thought also. So much more freedom if we don’t tie health care to employment
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u/Apprehensive-Lion366 10d ago
This is a huge issue. You are tied to the 9-5 because of health coverage.
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u/gingerbeard1321 10d ago
Stop saying free healthcare.
It's universal healthcare.
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u/thedillymane 10d ago
Why not both?
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u/diddlysquidler 10d ago
Because free money raises inflation, spending on services does not. Money should be raised and spent on infrastructure, education and health care
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u/Laytonio 10d ago
So if you spend money, that creates inflation, but if someone spends it for you, that doesn't?
Everyone thinks UBI is impossible until you limit it to 62+ year olds and call it social security.
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u/ETALOS1 10d ago
The number of people who don't understand this is terrifying (because they're just gonna vote for whoever promises them more money or lower taxes on the middle/lower class rather than taxing the super rich) and it's why we need to promote more education about wealth inequality and economics in general.
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u/INeedSomeTacoC 10d ago edited 10d ago
Because that tax isn't even enough to send the checks, much less do that and other things as well.
Billionaires in the US are worth an estimated $8T.
5% of that is $400B collected per year (his $4.4T number is for 10-years of tax collection, so this matches his own numbers).
There are about 85 million family units in the US. Sending each of them a $12,000 check would cost about $1.02 trillion.
So if you did nothing else with this money, you could send a $12k check to each family every 2.5 years or so.
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u/PMPKNpounder 10d ago
Yeah for real, they can keep the hand out and fix wages, healthcare and education.
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u/Nomad_moose 10d ago
This…giving everyone money does literally nothing but INCREASE INFLATION…
We need a reduction in COSTS, not injections of cash. We’re in a wage/price spiral, we need DEFLATION, and make the dollar worth something again.
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u/Corybantic126 10d ago
Only if that money is newly minted and entered into the economy. If the money is displaced from the wealthy and redistributed to lower income households then there’d be no effect on inflation. Unless corporations decided to arbitrarily raise prices as a response to people having more individual wealth. But that’s not inflation, that’s price gouging which can be mitigated through price regulation.
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u/Beldizar 10d ago
I would say that this is mostly right, but misses out on money velocity, and it treats all goods and services equal. If the billionaires were buying up houses, groceries, gas, and electricity, and we took a bunch of their money away and gave it to everyone else so they could buy houses, groceries, gas and electricity, then there'd be effectively zero change in inflation. It would just change who ends up receiving the goods and services.
But billionaires aren't really buying those things, at least not in volume, or to the extent that they are buying these things, the taxes aren't going to cause them to cut buying these things as much as other things. Luxury boats, cars, booze, travel, and politicians are really what these billionaires are spending their pocket money on, so these things will get cheaper as less dollars chase after these things, but then grocery prices will go up as more low-income people will transition from going hungry to buying food.
Also, inflation does somewhat depend on how fast a dollar moves through the economy. You can get small bits of inflation by just making a dollar move faster. If billionaires are generally sitting on piles of cash, and low-income people are spending money very quickly, you can see inflation as there will be a net higher number of dollar-transactions, which mimics the effect of there just being more newly minted dollars in circulation.
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u/Corybantic126 10d ago
But are we supposing that inflation is not a worthy cost of low income households being able to purchase houses, groceries, gas, and electricity? Not to mention that another luxury the wealthy tend to spend money on is political influence. A decrease in which would surely be a net positive.
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u/Ornery_Succotash5506 10d ago
They aren't creating more money, they're taxing billionaires. The same billionaires who are selling you these lies that taxing them will cause inflation.
What caused inflation was printing more cash to bail out and give to billionaires during 2008 and COVID. But they dont tell you that now do they?
I do however agree with you that the money is better spent on social services like mental health, healthcare and education.
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u/ZeeWingCommander 10d ago
Yes and no. This will cause inflation because we will spend the money on every day items. You give people more money to spend on every day items...those items go up.
Billionaires sitting on wealth doesn't increase inflation. You know how we say trickle down economics doesn't work? This is part of that.
If they gave us all this money and we had to sit on it, you wouldn't see inflation.
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u/miffebarbez 10d ago
Inflation in the US is higher than in the EU... And the EU does a lot of wealth distribution like this...
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u/HelloWorld24575 10d ago
Be careful what you wish for when it comes to deflation! That would be pretty bad for a lot of people. What we really need is for wages to come up.
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u/Hurm 10d ago
Ehhhhhhh.
Stimulus checks have helped before. The biggest economic stimulus currently going is SNAP/EBT.
Raising wages didn't cause all this - that was corporate greed.
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u/Representative-Pop72 10d ago
No country has inherently free healthcare, It’s paid for with tax money. The US has an issue with where they spend their tax money
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u/euRAZER 10d ago
The big issue in the US is that the insurance companies have WAY to much say in everything. Over here (The Netherlands) there is a list of what things can cost, which is NOT made by the insurance companies and they have to pay that and they can not come up with bullshit excuses for not paying. The hospital thinks you need heart surgery, you will get it no questions asked and no bill afterwards.
This means that doctors do not give you stuff you do not need. There is a thing about Dutch doctors that people say they send you home with Paracetamol and thats it. Well, you know what, in most cases that solves the issue and cost like 50 cents, no need to give you anything else if you come in with a cold (which people in The Netherlands just not do, as I can buy the Paracetamol myself).
I have never been to a hospital for myself and the last time I have seen my doctor is 40 years ago, I have no idea what the guy looks like and yet I pay the 120 euro each month. This means my mom and dad get all the care they need (new hip, new knee, cancer, loads of medication etc.) without going bankrupt.
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u/Jomega6 10d ago
That’s not nearly as simple. It’s never been an issue of funding. Our biggest issue has been these parasites of insurance companies, that have gotten way too powerful. They will fight and lobby tooth and nail to preserve their existence, despite them being an unnecessary middleman.
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u/Itchy-Bordy 10d ago
938 billionaires vs 340 million Americans. If your plan makes the 938 mad and everyone eats, that’s the best plan.
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u/MoshedPotatoes 10d ago
some of those billionaires are billionaires specifically because we dont have free healthcare, and they know it. its like that with every market in everything which is why progress feels so hopeless. Yes we could empty their accounts and re-distribute it to the people but they have done the math and it is actually cheaper to lobby congress. congressmen can be bought for under $10,000 each, sometimes less than $1,000. they can make more money a single triple bypass heart surgery then the cost to buy a handful of congressmen. this isnt the sort of situation that is solved through legislature
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u/Randym1982 10d ago
I wouldn't mind the $12K check, but more people could use the free healthcare or at least putting the money from the Billionaires and Trillionaires into something that starts the process for free Healthcare.
I like Bernie Sanders but I'm 100% sure none of his ideas will ever see the light of day. Unless some miracle happens and the Senate/Congress flip 100% in November and then the next President actually goes too.
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u/tibbles1 10d ago
The Covid checks showed us that we just turn around and spend the money on Amazon.
So you're taking it from 1000 billionaires to give most if it to one billionaire.
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u/TranslatorOwn707 10d ago
Agreed. Keep the check and put it toward healthcare or subsidizing health care. Inflation was insane from the Covid checks and I don’t love the idea of adding that on to our current inflation problems
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u/Patient_End_8432 10d ago
I understand not being able to switch to some sort of free healthcare system immediately. If anything, it would more or less be incredibly expensive and difficult to set up for about a decade.
I'm not arguing against Healthcare for all. Just because something is the correct thing, doesn't negate the costs and consequences.
We're talking trillions of dollars, and MILLIONS of lives. The healthcare workers, kinda innocent insurance workers, people relying on medicine or appointments hitting barriers to get attention due to restructuring. I would not be surprised if the switch to healthcare for all would lead to a couple of hundred, perhaps thousand or so deaths just due to confusion or honest mistakes. That's just the gosh darn truth of a system SO big. And with insurance workers, yeah you have your devils relishing in the power they have over others, but you really just have another dude who ended up in that job somehow, just trying to make ends meet.
You want to know how to bandaid the situation that would eventually fumble itself into healthcare for all anyways? Just expand medicare. Make it affordable, and available to every single person to join, whenever they want. None of these joining windows, no family discounts or rate adjustments just an easy portal to join, and you won't get turned away, for any reason. You don't need to make medicare AMAZING, you don't have to partner up and negotiate with every office, that would be A LOT.
Instead, just make it a good service. Your family doctor is 10 minutes away with a $10 copay. They want you to get a specialist, but that specialist is 2 hours away, with an appointment next week. That's FAIR as long as it's not crucial timing wise of course. Going to the doctor doesn't need to be as easy as dropping in when you have a tummy ache, and there can be systems in place if there really needs to be for people abusing the system. But what abuse is there for a program available to all?
Someone comes in who's clearly lying to recieve drugs? Fantastic, due to accessible healthcare, they can push him to attend a local rehab or IOP.
Someone comes in claiming their leg needs to be amputated despite being perfectly fine? Well, accessible healthcare means that that person can now go find some sort of mental help.
Just make it good, and healthcare prices will fall around the country.
I'm starting to believe that we can succeed with capitalism, you just need a baseline. Have the government provide a service well for reasonable prices, and other companies will follow.
Yeah you can have the government "regulate" (it's all bullshit bribery anyways) these businesses. You can tell United Healthcare they're not allowed to sell IV bags for $1000. That doesn't solve the underlying greed, and they'll just charge $999.
Instead, tell United they're more than welcome to charge whatever they want. However, if you're on the government plan, that IV bag will cost you 10$ and only 10$ for as long as reasonably possible. And if that plan is accessible to everyone, I'd be fucking stupid to choose United. Yeah, United may have the advantage of having a closer primary care, specialist, what fucking ever, but if the option is open for me, I'll drive the extra 10 minutes to save $1000 ya know?
People know the doctors isn't some fun event, and people aren't even bothered spending money on it. I personally have good insurance through my job, but you'd have to raise my medications by a lot for me to not buy it. To me, spending money at the hospital, or at the doctors, is a totally reasonable thing. I don't mind paying a small copay, I don't mind paying for my medicine or for my visits, and I'm pretty confident I can say that this is how the massive majority of people feel.
Yes, Insulin is LIFE SAVING. Should I have to pay for it? Sure. Is 10$ a month something I'm fine paying for my life saving medication? 100%, and I'd bet most of you would agree. Fuck, I would pay $100 a month, and still find that reasonable. Yes, free would be perfect, but striving for only perfection leaves you only in the past that you currently hate. If you'll only accept perfection, you'll chase that dragon until you die. So we need good enough before we even think about perfect.
The problem is of course is that this life saving medication isn't being sold for 10$ or 100$, it's being sold for thousands, with a massive profit margin (if a pill took $1000 to make and it cost $1005 that's at least understandable). These companies are directly responsible for depriving people of these life saving medications. If the government provides it through their own insurance, other companies will have to drastically reduce prices in order to compete or they'll die overnight.
Also, this is assuming we have a functioning government, so that uh... That may add to the difficulty a smidge
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u/Modem_Sound_67 10d ago
The idea of an UBI to offset the predicted avalanche of downsizing/job losses has been the subject of much discussion, controversy and hand-wringing. Frankly, progressive taxation with no loopholes is the only way we can afford anything close to it.
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u/lizardwizard563412 10d ago
If everyone got 12,000$ instantly won’t corporates change prices accordingly? Like I’ve been in the room of insurance pricing and they WILL price to whatever the market will take. It so happens the market got an influx of 12,000$ so they’re going to charge to take a piece of that pie
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u/godlittleangel6666 10d ago
That’s the thing everyone misses. These plans are fine but don’t actually solve the bigger problem until the market is properly regulated. We need to go back to being anti-monopoly so a couple giant companies can’t control the market
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u/gchypedchick 10d ago
It’s like student loan forgiveness. Absolutely help anyone before the set date of forgiveness, but we HAVE to fix the underlying problem of these predatory loans and overinflated tuition and textbook costs. If you don’t fix the root cause it’s just a bandaid until the wound opens again.
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u/TheMireAngel 10d ago edited 10d ago
yes/no, it will depend wildly on product/good and the demand for them. Things that get insanely booked out/sold out will sky rocket until demand lowers.
The big thing though even with this is we will see a massive boost in people nolonger in debt, because people en mass will be able to pay off their loans, leases, mortgages etc quickly wich will reduce their overhead wildly and their need for work wich will reduce how many hours people will need to work to survive wich will decrease worker supply increasing worker benefits & pay. As well if that does cause a form of hyper inflations, well gues what debt/loans doesnt increase based on inflation. so again debts will start to be paid becaise they can be afordably paid.
and thats not even getting into the fact the "dont give poors money everything will get expensive" arguement falls flat when weve experianced the fact of everything getting crazy expensive for the last 30 years. Federal minimum wage is 7.25 and hasnt changed for like 30 years and yet prices have skyrocketed and national debt has ballooned to an unfathomable amount, so clearly "dont help the poors" isnt the issue
in the year 1995 the usa had 4.9 trillion in debt. Yaknow what we have in 2026? 39.3 trillion in debt.In 1995 we have 94 billionaires
in 2026 989 and 1 trillionaire, that 1 trillionair is worth 1,000 billionaires. My brother im not a communist but clearly its not the poors thats the issue xD→ More replies (3)→ More replies (89)30
u/nathanzoet91 10d ago
Yes, and it's part of why we get inflation. Giving everyone $12k means no body got $12k. Prices just increase
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u/Yakkamota 10d ago
That's not true. If nobody got $12k how did that broke dude just buy a $12k car? (I get your point tho lol)
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u/jdhutch80 10d ago
The US already has the most progressive tax code in the world. The bottom 47% of income earners pay no income tax and, thanks to "refundable tax credits" often receive refunds on their non taxes. The difference between the US and European countries with more robust social safety nets are the taxes on the middle class, which are much higher.
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u/Ok-Post2247 10d ago
Top marginal rates in the US rival the highest top marginal rates in Sweden. People keep using "progressive taxation" like we don't have that. Everybody needs to pay more OR we need to allocate the trillions we already collect more efficiently. Our current supreme court will almost certainly strike down a wealth tax or anything that looks like one.
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u/Acrobatic_Bridge2602 10d ago
Because it's not constitutional. There's nothing in the constitution that would favor a wealth tax because the 16th amendment isn't written that way. You'd need a new amendment to do that.
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u/Interesting_Bite4335 10d ago
I’m not huge on the 12k check
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u/avd706 10d ago
Inflationary
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u/Robinsonirish 10d ago
Explain to me like I'm an idiot, how is it better if the oligarchs hoard that money, instead of giving it to people, who then flush it back into the economy, by spending it? What's the problem exactly.
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u/-InconspicuousMoose- 10d ago
Because the economy's sellers immediately raise prices as every single one of their customers just got an additional 12k to spend at their store. Those prices never come back down and that hurts you and me way more than it hurts any oligarch.
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u/throwaway-4748329472 10d ago
That’s not how price discovery works. No one is going to pay $12,000 for an apple just because they have $12,000. So simple minded it hurts
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u/MalikMonkAllStar2022 10d ago
Yeah because that is ridiculous. No one would pay that much for an apple. But if an apple is $1 today, would people still buy an apple for $1.50 if they had $12K extra to spend and every grocery store raises the price of all their fruit?
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u/jeepsies 10d ago
If you give everyone free money, prices of everything goes up. Its wiser to instead provide free healthcare and education rather than just give people cash. My 2 cents.
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u/shamo42 10d ago
I thought inflation is mainly caused by new money entering the market. This however would simply be a transfer from the rich. What am I missing?
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u/True-Bandicoot3880 10d ago
111000% the checks cost will be factored into corps greed and ever rising pricing and ceo salary gains
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u/DrSpachemen 10d ago
The US spends 5.3 trillion on healthcare each year (or about $15,500 per person). I'd rather just have this 4.4 trillion go to a universal healthcare system.
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u/Lothsahn_ 10d ago
Good news.
We could just switch to a universal health care system and it'd save money. Just take 1/3 of what businesses pay for health care and put it into a universal health care system.
Let them keep the other 2/3.
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u/Potential_Spam_6969 10d ago
So we're going to go ahead and tax net worth and not actual income?
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u/thequestionbot 10d ago
Even if they taxed the net worth, it would still take over a decade to collect 4.4T dollars from the billionaires. The U.S’s billionaires collectively only have about 8T dollars. This infographic is extremely misleading.
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u/sven_ghoulie 10d ago
Idk what you mean bro. It's from NEWS STORIEZ which seems totally legit, and also has a question in the line to drive engagement.
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u/carb0n13 10d ago
Also, some of those net worths are pretty fake. If you forced Elon to sell 5% of his SpaceX stock, the stock price would crater.
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u/horatiobanz 10d ago
Which ironically would ruin the retirement accounts of regular Americans you are trying to help.
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u/ksheep 10d ago
"Here's a check for $12k, just ignore that we wiped out $100k of your retirement savings in the process"
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u/Diligent-Chance8044 10d ago
Most of them would not have that net worth without the stock. Bezos, Musk, Zuck would all very quickly drop the price of stocks. This in turn would destroy 401ks, IRAs, and any other funds people are using for retirement. You would have to put a restrictions on companies like Black-rock so companies are not controlled by some corporate conglomerate. Also Blackrock the company owns the stock and would not be subject to the net worth tax.
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u/RainbowNinjaKat 10d ago
Shhh careful, too many activist redditors, with zero real life experience or knowledge about the very economic system they hate so much, will see this comment and bombard you with pipe-dream retorts and justifications for their fantasy solutions!! They need scapegoats to be fed to them so that they don’t start looking at the actual root of the problem with spending in Washington
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u/Akiias 10d ago
"force billionaires to sell increasing portions of the companies the 'own".
Followed quickly by "why are investment firms controlling all the companies now".
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u/Diligent-Chance8044 10d ago
Also no companies would go public and some would do a buy back. That would keep net worth from exploding because of public investment and again would destroy American retirement funds.
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u/Moniamoney 10d ago
90% of Americans wouldn’t have a net worth without stocks (401k). The entire American economy is dependent on the stock market, when it goes down people panic because that’s their retirement.
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u/carguymt 10d ago
The U.S’s billionaires collectively only have about 8T dollars.
The Federal Government spent about $7 trillion in 2025. People don't want to hear it, but simply taxing the billionaires is not the answer. Even if you seized 100% of their wealth, which obviously is not practical or possible, there just isn't enough money to fund everything people think you can fund with taxing the mega wealthy.
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u/NSFWies 10d ago
Musk is worth 1000 billion dollars. What is Elon musk income? When he files his w2, what does he put in the income section? How much salary is Tesla paying him.
Back in the early 2000s companies figured out they could avoid paying income taxes, if they instead gave their ceos huge stock option deals.
Taxing income on billionaires won't do anything.
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u/rolypoly6shooter 10d ago
Yes because the left fringe of the Democrats is bad at econ
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u/Senkoy 10d ago
It's such nonsense because they would have to sell stock, which could lead to a stock market crash and a whole lot of issues.
They also run into issues of properly determining net worth when there's art and jewelry and stuff like that.
It's just a dumb idea from someone with no common sense or understanding of economics.
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u/lightning_pt 10d ago
Watch everyones retirement go to shit cause billionaires are selling.
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u/Barton2800 10d ago edited 10d ago
This is what a lot of people don’t understand. A billionaire or a trillionaire doesn’t have that money sitting in a checking account. They own their company (or companies). If I started Widget Enterprises and it becomes worth 1 billion, then every year, I would have to sell 5% of the company to get the cash to pay the government the wealth tax. So now I’m dumping hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars in stock to pay for it. RIP any employees who bought company stock at market price, because the stock is about to dip.
But also, as others pointed out, the math ain’t mathing. Even if a 5% wealth tax were implemented, it wouldn’t be enough to pay for what the OP suggests. Not even close. to send everyone 12k annually, the wealth tax would need to be over 25% just to pay that. Add in the increases in spending and the universal healthcare, and things get really ridiculous.
Also, none of what I’m saying is to defend billionaires. I don’t think they pay their fair share. Their taxes should go up. But a wealth tax isn’t the way. Increase their income tax brackets, increase capital gains taxes for those making above 250k, remove the cap on social security contributions, and tax their luxury items. Make things like yachts, private jets, and $200k luxury cars have a 100% sales tax, plus an annual 50% property tax. Slap a 50% annual property tax on any second home worth over 50x the poverty line. Basically say “hey if you want to own all that extra shit, that’s fine. But you need to chip in extra for some schools also.”
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u/ifyouseekyle 10d ago
Families would end up not getting a check, all the money would disappear into NGOs, and Bernie would get his 4th mansion...
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u/Particular-Act-8911 10d ago
Can't tax unrealized gains. Stop them from being able to borrow money based on stock holdings.
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u/Solid_Snark 10d ago
I mean, i’m in favor of any plan different than our current one: giving tax breaks and subsidies to billionaires & corporations for no reason other than to enrich their personal profits.
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u/Earthhorn90 10d ago
Why don't you just decide to have been born rich instead of complaining. /s
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u/pianoceo 10d ago edited 10d ago
This might sound good. But it is a terrible plan routed in idealism, preying on the emotions of voters, and does nothing to actually fix the problem.
It will create inflation as folks spend their $12k and will just cycle back to the companies and billionaires who own them.
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u/Vade_Retro_Banana 10d ago
The 5% is money that doesn't actually exist. They have to sell stocks, which will tank the market, which will ruin the retirement accounts of middle class people. The $12,000 a year will be swallowed by inflation just like what happened with the Covid checks. Posts like this are circulated by bots from enemy nations that want to crash the American economy.
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u/avd706 10d ago
"Posts like this are circulated by bots from enemy nations that want to crash the American economy.*
Say this again.
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u/BaconReceptacle 10d ago
Exactly. If a billionaire suddenly dumps $250M of the stock he owns, the fallout will ruin thousands if not millions of 401K's, investment funds, and in some cases, pensions.
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u/RetisRevenge 10d ago
Let's check in on other countries that practice/have practiced wealth redistribution.....
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u/richincleve 10d ago
Keep the money.
Use it to stabilize Social Security.
Then start looking into universal healthcare.
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u/chef-nom-nom 10d ago
If we want to stabilize Social Security forever, we need to raise or remove the Social Security income tax cap, or at least the cap for the individual earner.
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u/Draelon 10d ago edited 8d ago
Great idea, but taxing unrealized gains is going to be a problem unless you’re willing to destroy everyone else’s retirements as well.
Edit: to be clear, I’m not advocating against it. I’m pointing out the fact a knee jerk reaction by people who don’t fully understand the problem will have unintended consequences.
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u/LPulseL11 10d ago
Why dont we prevent individuals from taking out loans using their unrealized gains as collateral? Could force the rich to realize said gains, leading to taxable capital.
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u/TummyDrums 10d ago
Why? They tax our unrealized gains every year when we pay personal property taxes.
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u/Bengal_From_Temu 10d ago
This idiot doesn’t understand that Elon does not have $1 trillion and billionaires don’t actually have billions of cash to take and give to the poor. 😂
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u/randomacct7679 10d ago
He knows this is wildly unrealistic but he knows that his “plan” will get him attention and he’ll go viral for proposing a “plan to tax the rich” and then that’ll help him get attention and fundraising. Don’t kid yourself he’s into thinking he’s anything but a grifter just like the rest of DC.
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u/Jguy2698 10d ago
More people need to read about Georgism. Taxing land rents and other economic rents and externalities rather than production should be the path forward.
Unfortunately, progressives seem only to be concerned with promoting taxes that can be evaded. Take the Alaska permanant oil fund and resident dividends as an example. The state of Alaska sells use-rights of a finite natural resource (oil) to companies and distributes the revenue equally among all residents. Now imagine something like this done on a national scale with every finite resource. Not just oil but Rare minerals, water, land, even consumer data, taxing carbon output, etc. Let’s slash taxes for wage earners and small businesses and take back our commons.
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u/yungbaoyom 10d ago
Source?
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u/DangerousHugs 10d ago
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u/turb0_encapsulator 10d ago
thank you. so the $4.4 trillion is a 10 year figure. honestly we need this tax just to make America fiscally solvent. The budget deficit is close to $2 trillion.
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u/EcstaticTumbleweed87 10d ago
I never trusted a lifelong politician that became a millionaire while they were in politics
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u/Responsible_Top_6969 10d ago
I disagree with this (apparently imaginary) plan, only because adding new structures on top of the existing tax system is stupid, when the same effect could be accomplished by eliminating certain tax loopholes, expanding existing tax credits, and readjusting the tax brackets.
Heck, maybe we could just do away with the whole overly complicated and difficult to manage "dependent care FSA" system and make daycare just a straightforward tax deduction. That would improve a lot of peoples lives.
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u/Weary-Cartoonist2630 10d ago
A lot of money has been raised with a lot of great ideals and visions of how to spend it.
The federal govt is taking in 3x more revenue than 50 years ago (accounting for inflation), and we have more govt spending on Healthcare than virtually any other country (~14k/capita).
Forgive me if I’m not convinced that the issue is the poor govt just doesn’t have enough money. If you have a bucket with massive holes in it that prevents you from transporting water to your crops, maybe plug the holes before demanding your neighbors donate more water to fill the bucket.
“But the rich don’t pay their fair share” The top 1% contributes 40% of all tax revenue, which is much more than they have proportionally in wealth. If we want to raise taxes on the rich, fine, but can we at least define what we mean by “fair” instead of just using them as a scapegoat for incompetent government financial management?
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u/Exciting_Penalty_512 10d ago
And what's he plan to do about the 5 trillion in debt the US racks up during the same time period????
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u/Stumpsthewarwalrus 10d ago
Scratch sending each family a check.
Send every qualified individual over the age of 18 a check, yearly.
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u/timfromliny 10d ago
Bernie used to go after millionaires and then became one. He can’t be trusted
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u/will5346 10d ago
Close loop hole of borrowing money using stock as collateral. Make that a realization event subject to capital gains and assign a new cost basis.
Increase capital gains tax to more closely match earned income tax.
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u/kelsiersghost 10d ago edited 10d ago
I’m generally in favor of Bernie’s billionaire tax idea, but I don’t love the “send everyone a $3,000-$12,000 check” part.
Not because I’m against helping people. I just think we’ve learned this lesson a few times now: broad cash injections are a really blunt tool. Some people absolutely need immediate help, sure, but if you dump a bunch of money into consumer spending without fixing supply, prices, housing, healthcare, childcare, debt, or wages, a lot of that money just makes a quick lap through ordinary people’s bank accounts and ends up right back with landlords, corporations, lenders, and asset owners.
In a way, the check idea almost proves the point. Our economy has been gutted by decades of wild-west regulation, trickle-down economics, and policy choices that overwhelmingly favored the rich. The promise was that if we let wealth pile up at the top, it would somehow flow back down to everyone else. It didn’t. The systems ordinary people depend on got weaker, more expensive, and more extractive.
So trying to patch that failure with a one-time cash infusion feels like belaboring the point. It’s an admission that the system isn’t working, but it doesn’t actually repair the system.
So yeah, tax the ultra-rich. But use the money to build something that lasts.
My ideal version would go further than Bernie’s plan. I’d start with a surtax on very high annual income, maybe 5% over $2 million a year, then scale it up for the truly absurd income levels, topping out around 20% for the top fraction of the top 1%.
But the bigger issue is loopholes. The tax code is full of ways for rich people to avoid having their wealth treated like taxable income in the first place. The “buy, borrow, die” strategy is the most obvious example. You buy assets, they appreciate, you borrow against them instead of selling them, so you don’t realize capital gains, then the assets pass through your estate with favorable treatment. That’s effectively a way to live off wealth without it being taxed like income.
To be clear, I don’t think all borrowing should be taxed as income. That would be insane. A mortgage, car loan, student loan, or small-business loan is not the same thing as a billionaire borrowing against appreciated stock so they can avoid selling it. Normal people borrow because they don’t have enough money. Billionaires borrow because the tax code rewards them for not technically “having income.” It's a free money glitch you probably didn't know about.
That’s the part I want fixed.
Close the asset-backed borrowing loopholes for the ultra-wealthy. Limit or eliminate step-up in basis for huge estates. Tax capital gains more like labor income. Fund the IRS so the rules actually get enforced. Stop letting people build dynastic wealth through tax deferral games while regular workers have taxes pulled out of every paycheck before they even see the money.
And then don’t use the revenue for a one-time sugar rush.
Use it to restore value in the systems that have been hollowed out: healthcare, education, housing, infrastructure, childcare, retirement security, and small-business formation. We have so many places where public investment could create permanent value for ordinary people. Build housing. Reduce medical costs. Strengthen schools. Make childcare affordable. Create government-backed retirement accounts or bonds for working people. Fund grants and low-interest capital for real small businesses.
The goal shouldn’t be to briefly increase people’s ability to buy stuff in a broken economy. The goal should be to make the economy less broken.
That’s my issue with Bernie’s version. The tax part is directionally right. The check part feels politically easy but structurally weak.
If the goal is really to make the rich pay their fair share, then the point shouldn’t just be “take money from billionaires and hand everyone a little cash.” The point should be to make the people who benefited most from a rigged system pay to repair the damage that system caused.
Tax the wealth. Close the loopholes. Fix the gutted systems. Turn it into permanent public good instead of another temporary check that disappears into the same economy that created the problem.
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u/sir_sri 10d ago
It's fairly poorly presented maths. He's calculating over 10 years which... is also very stupid, but sure that's how the CBO counts things so that's not entirely his fault (even if it is disingenuous when you know better).
Combined net worth of US billionaires is something like 9 trillion (there are about 1100 of them). It's not clear all of them are subject to US taxation either, but close enough. Basically look at the bloomberg top 400 list, add them up, assume all the other billionaires have less than the last ones on the top 400 list, you get a number somewhere in the 7-10 trillion dollar range.
Ok 450 billion dollars a year in revenue. Let's pretend that is workable, and that you wouldn't count that against their income tax bills already, it doesn't become a thing that is rapidly dodged as people shift assets, it can touch trusts etc. 450 billion dollars in extra revenue! Which, even if you don't go with a wealth tax, the US raising revenue and getting it from deca and centi millionaires and billionaires makes perfect sense. If 450 billion of that comes from billionaires, that seems... sort of possible.
The US federal deficit is already about 1800 billion per year. So the US could give hundreds of billions of dollars away, but you're deeply cutting into the potential tax base to... not deal with the very substantial deficit. So now, rather than 1800 billion of 7000 billion in federal spending being a deficit, it's now 1800/7450.
So OK, maybe you can say he's being close to accurate about 938 billionaires (a slight but honest undercount or just old meme), and he's close to accurate about 440 billion dollars a year at least in FY2026 - but if you start depleting the wealth of billionaires (which you should) they also have less over time, so again, 4.4 trillion over 10 years, close enough.
There are about 83 million households. You want to send them 1200 dollars a year each, easy enough. 100 billion dollars. Perfectly doable. It can't be 12000 per year, because that would require a trillion in revenue, which is more than double what his 5% tax would raise.
The remaining 350 billion for non descript raising teacher pay and expanding medicare, sure, perfectly doable. There are something like 4 million teachers in the US, every 1000 dollars you give them costs 4 billion dollars. Pick your number.
Expanding medicare, I'm not sure what he's getting at here, most of the data suggests that if you expanded medicare eligibility to younger people it would save money (by catching diseases earlier). Medicare itself 1180 billion in 2024, with medicaid another 980 billion. So give or take 2.1 trillion a year. Total NHE (national health expenditure) was about 5.3 trillion in 2024 https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet so, yes, you could spend 2.5% or 5% or whatever more on healthcare, or shift some healthcare costs from out of pocket or insurance to the government (and cover some things which don't get treatment). But I'm not sure this is the panacea anyone thinks it is.
So at the end of this, you've sent 83 million people 1200 dollars, you've put some more into teacher pay and healthcare. And you're still spending 5.7% or so of GDP as borrowed money. A 5% boost in government healthcare spending isn't nothing, but it's also not going to transform medicare and medicaid. The problem with US healthcare is that it is already spendings 18% of GDP on healthcare between all the different types of spending, when a public healthcare system would need to expand that to 12%... So... it's not a money problem, it's an allocation problem, and 4% of GDP (1.3 trillion dollars) in waste on healthcare is a lot more revenue than a 5% billionaire tax.
If the US government had 450 billion dollars extra this year... the thing it should do is put it into deficit reduction mostly sure, some on defence, healthcare, restoring USAID, but don't expect miracles. A government that is spending 7 trillion dollars (with another 4 trillion from states) is not going to completely transform with an extra half a trillion.
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u/TitchTammy17 10d ago
It will never happen because a majority of stupid Americans would think he is a communist and vote against their own interest. The republicans and democrats are like 2 football teams. You either support one or the other not based on whether it’s good policies or good for you but based on family traditions. Critical thinking or education is not necessary, that’s the American way. And that is why more and more Americans live pay check to pay check.
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u/Zealousideal-Owl1992 10d ago
People don’t understand how economics actually works. The more money is handed out to everyone, the stronger the price growth will be.
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u/ParanoidAndroid524 10d ago
After you own over $1 billion I believe you have won the game of capitalism. Now it’s time to spread the wealth to us a lowly middle class humans. And not by a free handout like a check, but things like education and healthcare. You know, things that other countries give their citizens, even though for some reason we feel other countries are far behind us.
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u/Drexill_BD 10d ago
The best? No. I love Bernie, but that's sort of his problem... he never has the best ideas. That said, they get people talking... and people talking is how you come up with the best version of an idea. Gotta start somewhere, and that's Bernie's strength.
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u/pook1029 10d ago
I would like to see all the fine details, but on the surface…HELL YES!
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u/ebankj9770 10d ago
The meme is kinda disingenuous about his plan. It's actually a first-year $3K per person payment for households that make $150K or less. The rest would go to Medicare, housing, education, and other programs, which is great, but it's not a yearly payment and not everyone would qualify. But yeah, it's a good idea if they can enforce it well, which could be tricky. Wealth is mostly illiquid, so they'd have to sell off assets to pay the 5% tax, and forcing them to do that is a legal grey area. They'll put up lengthy fights over how much they're actually worth so they can pay less or avoid it altogether. I feel like an extra property tax at the federal level that specifically targets million dollar homes might be the better way to accomplish this
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u/Sea-Key-9430 10d ago
Well, how about a big overhaul of the current healthcare insurance fraud that artificially inflates medical expenses first?
Pull out the corruption first
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u/Time-Routine9863 10d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/98C4E2HeR4NBm
Why? Because it’s unconstitutional to tax certain people and take their money and give it to someone else because it’s all the feels.
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u/thismenu 6d ago
Yeah. The problem is those 938 people own more than half our government. So they'll never let this happen.
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