This morning Richard Cohen takes automation as his point of departure, moves from there to technological unemployment and income inequality, and lurches into the real point of his column, taxing “the rich” to give the proceed:
What will make up the difference? President Obama is giving it a shot by proposing to raise taxes on the very rich and relieve the tax burdens of the middle and lower classes. This makes so much sense that the Republican Party recently rose as one to oppose it, denouncing the proposal, as always, as a nonstarter. The GOP’s monomaniacal mantra is always to lower taxes because that supposedly produces jobs (Oh, yeah, where are they?), as well as billionaires. (No problem finding them.) Many of the jobs currently being produced are part-time and low-wage, but even when the pay is good, the jobs are often evanescent — gone in a year or so.
to whom? Consider this NYT article on an Oxfam study finding that “the Global 1%” wealthiest individuals control an increasing proportion of the world’s wealth. (Hat tip: memeorandum) Progressive blogs leapt onto this information with squeals of glee that I think were a bit premature. Although Josh Marshall’s TPM post was blazoned with pictures of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, they’re more like “the Global .1%” or even .01%. Rather than being the ultra-wealthy the Global 1% is a lot closer to you and me. Let me put it this way: any Baby Boomer living in Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional district and owning his or her own home is probably among the wealthiest 1% of people in the world, at least as reckoned by the Oxfam study. Not the Kochs or George Soros or Bill Gates. Your doctor. Your accountant. Your dentist. Paul Krugman. And, at this point, probably Thomas Piketty.
What would be the practical results of Thomas Piketty’s global tax on wealth? Let me submit that the ultra-rich would escape the tax (as they do), it would fall on older upper middle class people here in the United States and throughout the developed world, and, rather than being redistributed to the poorest of the poor (a very large proportion of whom live in China and India) it would be redistributed to rich people in poor countries.
“What would be the practical results of Thomas Piketty’s global tax on wealth? Let me submit that the ultra-rich would escape the tax (as they do), it would fall on older upper middle class people here in the United States and throughout the developed world, and, rather than being redistributed to the poorest of the poor (a very large proportion of whom live in China and India) it would be redistributed to rich people in poor countries.”
Same as it ever was.
You know that. I know that. I can understand politicians peddling it for the political value, crass as their goals might be. But why a Piketty?
My understanding is the Obama is proposing TAX CREDITS to the middle class. If these are anything like the tax credits in his stimulus package, they’re going to be a boon to tax services.
(I still remember the shock I got in 2010 when I discovered I had miscalculated our taxes by $4,000. Hadn’t worked in 2009, either. I haven’t even bothered estimating our taxes since then, and I used to keep rather detailed spreadsheets for the task.)