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Conor here: According to Bloomberg, Trump has gotten at least $24.4 million from 13 members of the Billionaires Index and Harris has received $12.8 million from 20 people. So maybe Kamala has already embraced billionaires?
I figure it’s safer to assume US politicians are working for the plutocrats unless they prove otherwise. Has Kamala done anything to indicate she’s not?
Has she committed to keeping on FTC Chair Lina Khan yet? AOC who’s embarrassed herself recently attacking Green presidential candidate Jill Stein and her supporters for not backing Kamala is still out there championing Khan, so there’s that:
Rep AOC kicks off the town hall with @linakhanFTC breaking down monopoly power in groceries, housing, healthcare. She introduces her as a leader who has used creativity and is genuinely working to address corporate power. Says she has not seen an FTC leader like her. 🔥💯 pic.twitter.com/zW2mwaGLLg
— Nidhi Hegde (@nhegde) September 13, 2024
By Sonali Kolhatkar, an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her most recent book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
The vast majority of Americans believe that the United States economy is unfairly rigged to benefit the rich. In the past few weeks, the Democratic nominee for president, Kamala Harris, has proven that this is an accurate assessment. She initially backed her own administration’s initiative to increase top earners’ total tax rate including on capital gains to nearly 45 percent. This was included in President Joe Biden’s 2025 budget proposal. But soon after billionaire donors made it clear they preferred not to part with any fraction of their wealth, she pivoted, announcing in September that she backed a significantly lower capital gains tax rate of 33 percent.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has made accusations of a “rigged economy” his signature phrase, explained Harris’s pivot: “I think she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”
Think about how hard it has been for climate justice activists to get Harris to stick to her original idea in 2019 to oppose fracking. In the recent debate with Donald Trump, days after scientists declared summer 2024 the hottest on record, she promised, “I will not ban fracking”—ostensibly to win over Pennsylvania’s undecided voters.
It’s been even harder for anti-genocide activists to win a commitment from Harris for an arms embargo against Israel in the face of mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.
Whether it is the long-term fate of our species or the short-term existence of a people, Harris—at least while campaigning for President—will apparently not budge. But on taxing billionaires? They say “hell, no,” and she asks, “How low?”
Capital gains taxes, which are taxes on the increased value of sold stocks, are currently capped at 20 percent. But what about the value of unsold stocks and other assets? Biden’s proposal is to tax billionaires on all their wealth, including “unrealized capital gains” at the rate of 25 percent. And on that matter, thankfully, Harris has backed Biden’s idea—for now.
The group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) estimates that “America’s billionaires and centi-millionaires (those with at least $100 million of wealth) collectively held at least $8.5 trillion of ‘unrealized capital gains’ in 2022.” These ultrarich people have lives that are completely foreign to the rest of us. ATF points out, “While most Americans predominantly live off the income they earn from a job—income that is taxed all year, every year—the very richest households live lavishly off capital gains that may never be taxed.”
Predictably, rightwing ideologues have piled on Harris, with one opinionator calling the 25 percent wealth tax rate, “so dumb it’s truly historic.”
New York Times pundit Peter Coy was less gauche, and in his September 6, 2024 column he began by calling unrealized capital gains “paper wealth,” and “gains that exist only on paper.” He revived the tired adage that higher taxes on the ultrarich could have a “potential negative effect on entrepreneurship,” and “could strongly discourage investors from putting money into startups.”
But the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities dispels the myth that it’s not real money, explaining that “wealthy households can use [unrealized gains] to finance their (often lavish) lifestyles… They can do so by borrowing large sums against their unrealized capital gains, without generating taxable income.” By borrowing money off this so-called paper wealth, they don’t owe traditional income taxes because it’s not seen as traditional income.
For years, the wealthiest Americans have held on to money that should have been extracted from them in the form of taxes. What could these taxes have paid for? Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee explained during a Budget committee hearing that, “The ultra-wealthy are avoiding nearly $2 trillion in taxes every 10 years.” That, he said, “is enough to keep Social Security whole till the end of this century.”
Political pundits and economists repeatedly perpetuate a fantasy that taxing billionaires stifles innovation. The real link is that taxing billionaires funds government programs that we collectively benefit from. Conversely, allowing them to remain rich, stifles our wellbeing.
And, it could even help Harris win the election. Economic inequality is, unsurprisingly, top of mind for voters. Data for Progress has found that more than 70 percent of voters are in favor of increased taxes on the wealthy. This includes a majority of Republicans. Nearly two-thirds of those polled support Biden’s and Harris’s 25 percent tax rate on all wealth held by billionaires—including unrealized capital gains.
Harris is facing the grim reality that voters are tired of their hard-earned dollars not going far enough. Four years of inflation, of seeing prices of food, rent, and other basic necessities rise faster than wages is enough to drive the fantasy that someone else—in particular Donald Trump—might do better.
Trump has embraced the billionaire agenda, promising that he would “make life good” for Musk and other wealthy people. He has promised oil executives he would do their bidding in exchange for campaign contributions. More billionaires are backing Trump than Harris. And yet, financially insecure people are more likely to support Trump than Harris.
So why isn’t Harris going all in on higher taxes overall? Even when accounting for the electoral college, which forces presidential candidates to tack toward the center to win slivers of undecided voters in a handful of “swing states,” Harris could win by leaning into higher taxes for billionaires. Data for Progress found that expanding the federally funded program of Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing, would help Harris the most in swing states. The second most important position backed by voters was raising taxes on the wealthy. What better way to expand Medicare than to tax the rich to pay for it?
It’s going to take a lot on Harris’s part to beat the faux populism that Trump exudes. Within such a context, it’s not a good look that Harris is giving in to any pressure from billionaire donors—in spite of Senator Sanders’s claim that it’s an election ploy. Money is the best tool that billionaires have to protect their wealth, so it ought not to surprise us that they are harnessing it in their defense. It doesn’t mean Harris should give in—not if she wants to win.
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Because she’ll be labelled a “tax and spend” democrat and we can’t have that…
But Harris grew up not only with families, but with people, too, who were proud of their lawns with aspirations and were also Americans. And if any of that doesn’t make sense, it will edited by the MSM so that it seems like it does.
Not for nothing, but if I were Lina Khan I still wouldn’t turn my back on AOC. I don’t see her bucking the Pelosi/Jeffries wing of the party when Khan’s sacrifice becomes a requirement for enough major donors.
As for Harris, she has been quietly genuflecting to the rich and powerful most of her career. She has proven that she knows just when to pull her punch so that any showy support for the people over monied interests goes nowhere.
Agreed. Mooning over Khan polishes one’s “progressive” reputation at low/no risk/cost. I’d wager that tweet is a clear indicator that Khan’s days are numbered.
AOC and Bernard Sanders are busy “fundraising” and making excuses for using our public resources to arm and fund genocide. And they are the most “progressive” in Congress? In our Election Derangement Syndrome, folks done forgot about the health care crisis, housing crisis Genocide etc.
Of course not. She’s a ride or die Dem. To be anything else wouldn’t be “pragmatic”.
Obama promised hope and change and then kept everything the same in addition to crushing Occupy Wall St and gaslighting the residents of Flint Michigan among other things. Americans are dumb and have short memories, so she should just promise the moon and go back on her words later. It’s a win win scenario for her, she gets to win the Presidency and afterwards she will be well taken care of by people like Reed Hastings. I mean you can already smell a multi million dollar Netflix contract 10 years down the line.
Trump promised to roll back Obamacare and that didn’t happen and it has not hurt him, so she can always say later that she’s tried really hard to raise taxes, but the evil Republicans will only consent to do so if immigrants were to stop eating dogs, ducks, people’s pets, etc.
Americans should listen to the pope and choose the “lesser evil” whatever that means. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/pope-francis-trump-harris-lesser-of-two-evils
The pope is not a ciitizen of USofA and trying to influence elections as a 501c-3 non profit, which is illegal. I am trying to think if he was Russian what would be done….Jail? Sanctioned?
“Lesser evil”, is there anybody here who can confidently identify the lesser evil of our two main candidates? Americans might want to consider voting for Jill Stein. I’m pretty sure she’s not evil at all.
I think that the holy father, as an example of choosing the lesser evil, means protecting and hiding sexually abusive clergy from the state’s punishment for their crimes. This is an unfortunate necessity owing to the scarcity of the clergy population. Fewer and fewer people are entering catholic religious life. Put another way, fewer shepherds are tending the church’s flock. It’s not a healthy situation to be in, but the pope must believe that concealing a priest’s sexual depredations must be weighed against the same good that a priest does day in and day out. It might be likened to the situation of an endangered wolf; yes, the wolf preys on others, but it all balances out, for good, in the end.
Of course this is entirely my own speculation of what keeps Pope Francis up on those lonely nights in the Vatican. But from what I see, I’m certain scant attention is paid to the genocide going on in Gaza, and the nuclear rumblings from Ukraine. After all, what can anyone expect, realistically, a Pope to do to a catholic president of the USA who’s wholly in on each? His holy father’s hands are tied.☹️
“Lesser evil” means that God has forsaken you.
Oh come on. God’s been dead for years.
I am thinking of moving to the Vatican. They need more religious diversity. We shall see how supportive of my migration he is.
Harris is the ultimate embodiment of Groucho Marx’s quip, “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
Disappointed otherwise with the “pay for” and “taxes to fund programs” errors in this piece regarding US Federal spending — still much work to do on public awareness where US monetary operations are concerned.
Trump should roll out LBJ’s mushroom cloud ad!
Harris’ memorable line in the debate had to do with no end to defending “rules and norms” around Ukraine boundaries!
Already thought of yesterday-
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/links-9-14-2024.html#comment-4101846
But it was the DT regime who tore up the INF treaty. As if we can believe the lies politicians say.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-withdraw-united-states-intermediate-range-nuclear-forces-inf-treaty/
Re
The reason it makes sense to tax the wealth (however quantified) or income of the ultra-rich is not because the government “needs” the money, right? Extreme wealth is a blight and a hazard to a functioning society. Extreme wealth grants political power so far in excess of that available to ordinary citizens, that it disables any notion of participatory democracy. The desires of the ultra-rich are dictated to grasping politicians in exchange for the light and dark dollar contributions securing their election, and those desires include accumulating even more wealth (a viciously positive feedback). It has nothing to do with generating tax dollars to pay for Social Security. At the risk of playing Captain Obvious (as often done by me), isn’t this common knowledge?
A country with fiat currency can always “afford” to act on behalf of its citizens if the goods and labor to create goods that would benefit those citizens are available for purchase, period. Please correct me if this assertion is incorrect. In the meantime, I will make an overdue visit to the Tip Jar.
I’m sorry, but this is irrelevant. Harris – like Biden – is a cardboard cutout, a lickspittle running dog sock puppet whore to her powerful patrons. She will simply sign whatever is put across her desk no questions asked. What she says – what her spin doctors present her as – is of no more importance than the color of the paint on a can of soda. Happy happy, joy joy.
Trump, a fake populist? Not quite. Harris has committed base treason, in aiding and abetting a foreign invasion of this country. This has zero to do with morality, but is a vicious attack on the working class. This forced population growth will drive wages and living standards down for the many, and rents and profits up for the few. As such policies always have. Trump, for all of his many many flaws, actually did reduce net immigration. And as such, at the end of his term, rents were moderating, child poverty was down, and there was starting to be some upwards pressure on wages (the horror!). Now that’s all been reversed, exactly as planned. Why do you think the elites hate Trump so much? In so many ways he is a typical pro-rich Republican, except on demographics. Which is the single most important thing. Which is why I am voting for him.
Election Delusion Syndrome. The DT is part of the “elites” WTF? People will believe in fairy-tales if it lessens the cognitive dissonance: The DT will continue to use OUR public resources to continue the Genocide of Palestine. How very “patriotic” eh? Dude had 4 freakin years and he did bugger all. You can believe the empty promises and BS of politicians, but please don’t expect others to do so
Let’s just be honest. With the billionaires running the government, there will be no tax increases on the rich.
This is a misplaced response to TG’s comment above.
Harris – like Biden – is a cardboard cutout… She will simply sign whatever is put across her desk no questions asked.
Regarding the statement from Sen Sanders defending Harris’s hrrm flexible principles: “she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.” There you have it. Harris, like St Barack before her, will say or do whatever seems likely to get her elected. And if elected, she will be similarly unconstrained by all that political speech. I would also note that “pragmatic” was HRC’s word to describe her own “progressivism”. So the DNC is clearly committed to running the same playbook they have been accustomed to using. Bernie will obediently read the defense of their “lesser” evil that he has been given.
And regarding the pope’s statement on lesser evil referenced above, His Holiness should be able to recognize that at some point you have to draw a line: evil is evil, and enabling genocide is way, way over that line. In my opinion.
HRC had a stated policy of “private vs public positions” on some issues.
Maybe that is simply stating the USA political landscape, take a public position in a vacuous speech while privately assuring wealthy donors that “nothing will change”
Perhaps Harris will follow in HRC’s experienced footsteps?
His holiness seems to have a case of TDS.
This is gonna take more than three Hail Marys.
Groundhog day, the same ol’ BS happens every 4 years and it’s dead boring. Blah blah blah, empty promises, hollow rhetoric, emotionally-charged “wedge” issues. Fundraising, stage-managed, scripted, privatized “debates”. The oligarchy promotes kakistocracy: Two serially-mendacious, amoral, genocidal assholes are the best that the US can do.
After the contrived drama of Elections Inc. is finally over, the housing crisis, environmental crisis, household debt crisis, health care crisis, Genocide of Palestine, economic warfare, and provocations of nuclear war, etc. will continue to worsen. Forgive me if I can’t be sufficiently enthusiastic about the suicide-death cult.
There is also the fact that the Democratic Party’s top goal is fundraising rather than winning elections. There are many things that Harris could do in order to tilt the odds in her favor in terms of policy. However, like most DNC candidates, she would rather lose than risk drawing the ire of the Democrats’ corporate donors.
Instead, Harris is using the tried and true strategy of hoping that the voting populace is too stupid to notice that most of her “policies” are empty gestures or continuations of the Clinton/Obama/Biden disasters with some TDS thrown in for good measure.
Trump is bad, but the DNC has completed its political realignment into becoming Bush Jr.-era neocons. Harris’ endorsement by Dick Cheney is just one more bullet into irony’s decaying corpse.
And the DT doesn’t also tell transparent, intelligence-insulting lies? WTF is the difference again? genocide?