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Throw them in the garbage (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] -3 points 4 months ago (11 children)

If the US actually taxed someone like Bezos a fair amount to narrow the wealth gap, Bezos would just go to another country that will gladly accept his enormous amounts of money and help him move his assets & businesses over. The US would then lose a very large chunk of money, and as we all know, the US wants to be "The BEST country in the world", so that's not something they'd willingly let happen.

Maybe it's not that simple, but I think that's the general reason we haven't seen the ultra-rich tax increases we all want. The politicians like money, the rich like political power, and the US wants to be the biggest and bestest. Just like a peanut butter jelly sandwich, you can't seperate the peanut butter & the jelly once they're put together.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    The reason we haven't seen those tax increases in the ultra-rich is that they have a direct line to the legislators that the common folk don't have. They will spend a billion dollars if that will save them one dollar in expenses. It's cheaper for them to buy a senator than to pay a fair amount of taxes.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    That's exactly what I said but maybe I was misunderstood. Or maybe the peanut butter jelly analogy wasn't tasteful.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    What it sounds like you were saying was that the billionaires will leave with their assets and their businesses if they get taxed. That's not why they don't get taxed, it's because the people in charge get paid to make sure they don't have to.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    I mean that is definitely a part of the problem. There are a lot of factors at play. I think it's naive to think that politicians aren't worried about the possibility of the rich leaving if they introduced higher taxes on top of other risks,, because of the fact that they get a shit ton of money from them.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    This argument would make sense if tax rates didn't use to be much higher. They didn't flee back then.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    The rich has paid the politicians to make it this way, and I'm saying the reason it hasn't gone the other way is because the rich & the politicians are butt buddies. I feel like that's the core of my argument so I'm not sure how it doesn't make sense.

    Plus none of this is certain anyway, they might flee, they might deal with the taxes, they might just say fuck it and get away with it because if you have billions of dollars, what's stopping you from hiring a private task force/protective service of your own...?

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    The rich has paid the politicians to make it this way, and I’m saying the reason it hasn’t gone the other way is because the rich & the politicians are butt buddies. I feel like that’s the core of my argument so I’m not sure how it doesn’t make sense.

    Ah my bad. I completely agree with this take, this is entirely correct as far as I can tell. I thought you were saying that the owning class will flee if taxes go up, which is what my response is in reference to (it's also what this whole post is about).

    Plus none of this is certain anyway, they might flee, they might deal with the taxes, they might just say fuck it and get away with it because if you have billions of dollars, what’s stopping you from hiring a private task force/protective service of your own…?

    Nothing is ever certain, I don't have a crystal ball, pretty much anything at all can happen. But we can look at the past and see what the owning class ends up doing when confronted with higher taxes. When we look at the past, when we had higher tax rates, they didn't flee, so I don't consider that a very likely possibility.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    As long as they remain US citizens the tax laws apply. If they stop being US citizens make them register as foreign agents and publish all lobbying attempts. In addition we should make any organization that is not >50% owned by US citizens a foreign controlled entity and remove their ability to lobby in private. There are other changes that would need to happen like making it illegal not to be able to trace ownership of an organization to an individual but its better than nothing.

    At this point almost anything is better than what were doing now. Its getting really old feeling like we're a hostage to these people. If they are to tied to the economy as a whole that doing something as simple as making them pay a fair amount of tax they need to have assets stripped from them until they aren't a theat any longer.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    If they stop being US citizens make them register as foreign agents and publish all lobbying attempts. In addition we should make any organization that is not >50% owned by US citizens a foreign controlled entity and remove their ability to lobby in private. There are other changes that would need to happen like making it illegal not to be able to trace ownership of an organization to an individual but its better than nothing.

    The problem I see with this argument is the "we need to do this, and then this, and then this". If it were that simple to make changes, the rich would be taxed fairly already. We're having trouble making one change, how would we accomplish a series of changes? I'm not defending the rich. I'm just saying how it is and arguing there's more to it than just "kick the rich out" and/or "tax the rich".

    I probably just took this meme too seriously. And like you said, I'm feeling a hostage to these people as well.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    I get what youre saying and I was just kind of thinking through loopholes to each idea. Not that it would ever happen but it would need to happen all at once with a very short time before it came into effect.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Lose what money? They're bribing politicians to make their tax bill zero, and that's on top of the money the government pays them to "do business." Billionaires are a money pit. They are a drain on the communities they inhabit. And dont even get me started on the job creator bullshit.

    The reason they dont move to another country is because the united states itself is a tax haven. Other countries either demand more taxes than the US or are much more insecure because of all the economic inequality caused by not taxing rich people.

    Let them go.

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