Suggestion to Warren (she is the only person with a D after their name who is doing this)

[Eliot Rosewater]

so I will only address her campaign.

Dont say "taxing the rich", it sounds too liberal far lefty, etc.

I am for it, in fact I think they should be taxed MORE than what she is proposing, but WORDS and phrases matter big time, just ask Frank Luntz of the GOP and why he told them to stop calling it Global Warming and start calling it Climate Change.

I dont know what the phrase could be, but NOT that.

"Lets Go back to the good ole days when rich people paid taxes!"

Maybe something like that?

[DrToast]

1. But she doesn't want to "go back to the good ole days"

She wants a wealth tax, something that never existed. If she was really smart, she would abandoned that idea and just focus on taxing the rich via income and capital gains taxes.

[BeyondGeography]

6. She is really smart, as if it needs to be said. Your proposed remedy is not so smart.

The wealth tax is a clawback from an ownership class that has been sucking up 94 cents of every corporate profit dollar for the last 15 years. Those are profits all workers help to generate. That is theft, and graduated rates on income and gains going forward won’t do anything to recover it and/or immediately fund the redistributive investments that she would make:

Over the last decade-and-a-half, firms have sent 94 percent of corporate profits out to shareholders, in the form of buybacks, as well as dividends, leaving companies to argue that there is little available for employee compensation or investment (Lazonick 2014). Specifically, William Lazonick (2014) examines the corporate practices of 449 companies that were listed on the S&P 500 continuously from 2003-2012. He found that companies used 54 percent of their earnings to buy back their own stock and spent an additional 37 percent on dividends of their earnings.

https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Stock-buybacks.pdf

And when you say it can’t work, the main reason it failed in France was 10,000 rich people left the country because they could drive a few hours to other francophone nations and live there without missing a beat. Hardly an option for our crowd.

[Eliot Rosewater]

10. You misread my comment, I said CALL it something else.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

29. Call it taxing the rich greedy mothafuckas... that's much better.

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[spooky3]

2. The phrase "let's go back to the good ole days..." has a very different meaning to persons of color

and to women, who well know that those were not the "good ole days" for them. So no matter what words follow that phrase, they are already turned off.

And I agree with Dr. Toast that she is proposing a wealth tax, not a higher income tax. By the way, even when the top rates were ultra high, very few people paid them, on very little of their income, because they had lots of deductions and exclusions before getting to taxable income.

[Gumboot]

3. Or perhaps she could say...

... "Let's go back to the Reagan tax rates of the early 1980s."

Which of course, will mean a tax increase for the wealthiest.

She might even win over a few younger Republicans with that, ha ha.

[dlk]

4. Fairness is a value to most Americans and it's time the rich pay their fair share of taxes.

Emphasizing fairness is usually a winner. Warren might want to connect with George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist at UC Berkely, or perhaps someone on her senior staff could. Lakoff wrote "The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic" and could offer invaluable information about framing the conversation/argument. It would be well worth her time.

[Magoo48]

5. I prefer,

tax the fucking greed diseased, idle-rich wealth hogs and hoarders back into a 1954 tax code.

[DCofVA]

7. That works for me.

But, it would be hard to fit on a bumper sticker.

[BlueMTexpat]

20. Love BOTH of

these comments!

[loyalsister]

8. I think she's exactly on the right track

Your advice is for yesterday's politicians who worried more about offending powerful white people than cared about how oppressed people were mistreated.

[Eliot Rosewater]

11. I said CALL it something else..

[loyalsister]

15. And I said that's yesterday's politics

It's time to move on from worrying about hurting the feelings of people who exploit and benefit from oppression.

[Eliot Rosewater]

17. You do realize MILLIONS of non rich people will not like the phrase "tax the rich?"

Including people WE need to vote for us?

[loyalsister]

19. We have been enabling powerful wealthy people and letting them exploit people for decades

I don't care if they get their feelings hurt by the possibility of having to give back a little after this entire country has been sacrificing for them to have loose regulations and tax breaks.

[Eliot Rosewater]

24. Are you purposely not understanding what I am saying?

You have to get people to vote for this.

Some of those people think taxing the rich is wrong or wrong maybe. CALLING it something else while DOING the same thing might get us MORE votes.

If you DONT CARE about getting more votes, enough to remove the fascist, then we have nothing to talk about.

[loyalsister]

26. There are ETHICAL millionaires who know better

If they still believe their sense of entitlement needs to be catered to in any way, they are not with us in spirit. We need to abandon the mistaken beliefs about wealth worship that has been upheld by both parties for far too long.

[Joe941]

9. The sooner America rids itself of millionaires and billionaires the better...

America will be.

[Eliot Rosewater]

12. Rid? Exactly how would you go about that?

I wont bother pointing out to you I was SUPPORTING the idea but thought we could CALL it something else.

[BuffaloJackalope]

13. The response, of course, would be like "I do pay taxes! I paid a million dollars in taxes!"

Conveniently leaving out they they got 300, 400 or 500 million in that same period.

[CTyankee]

14. Why not just say "I just want the rich to pay their fair share."

She's good at breaking it down: how the rich got their goods to market by using the highways we all pay for, went to public schools we all pay for, etc

"Fair share" is a good phrase. Most Americans can understand that.

[Eliot Rosewater]

16. I like it

[melman]

18. "just ask Frank Luntz of the GOP and why he told them to stop calling it Global Warming"

Yeah, maybe not the best example there. Luntz's idea was to make it less scary sounding so they wouldn't have to do anything

[betsuni]

21. Oh, melman, that's the point. Luntz's job was to rebrand things so that they don't sound scary and

nothing had to be done about them. Duh.

[melman]

23. lol betsuni

lol


I suppose you missed the part where the OP repeatedly said they were for the tax?

So, no that obviously was not their point. But again, thanks for your input...and the lols.

[Voltaire2]

22. Don't say it, shout it out!

[Eliot Rosewater]

25. Yeah, like with FRANK LUNTZ, what you CALL something will impact how it is supported.

CALLING taxing the rich something else like "pay their fair share" or whatever, RESULTS are the same but maybe you get more support.

Those who INSIST otherwise, like you and others here are doing, seem to me to almost WANT to have an all or nothing outcome, as in burn the house down if we dont win.

Very dangerous approach.

Lots of gay folks, POC, Latino's, Muslims, women etc who CANT afford that. They are targeted now and will be even more if the fascist retains the WH.

[melman]

28. What?

You're saying if you change what it's CALLED the level of support CHANGES but the RESULTS will be the same.


That makes NO sense.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

31. Zero... call it what it is: tax the fuck out of greedy selfish rich mothafuckas!!

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[Voltaire2]

30. It is your unfounded assumption that Warren's attacks on billionaires are misfiring.

I say they are resonating.

But do carry on. Democrats running away from their own beliefs do not do well at the polls.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

32. You can say that again, resonating is right... Warren's kickin' azz!!

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[stonecutter357]

33. Lets Go back to the good ole days. like maybe 1996 ?