More on Warren wealth tax:

[applegrove]

Link to tweet

[at140]

1. The problem with excessive wealth in individual hands is.....

it gives those individuals excessive power and power can lead to corruption in many cases.
It is far better to strengthen the middle class by tax breaks because stronger the middle class is,
stronger the country becomes.

One of the main reasons I support Warren for president.

[Hoyt]

2. Wealth tax is great, but Warren's plan barely raises one-fourth of current annual deficit, much less

paying for healthcare, child care, climate change response, education, college debt relief, jobs training, bolstering social security, etc.

The problem is everyone knows things aren't going to paid totally by the wealthy, but populists keep trying to promise us everything as if it won't cost us. Just be honest.

[PETRUS]

4. Just to be honest, as you suggest:

Your subject line expresses something that is entirely beside the point.

Your second sentence is half true. Many of the things that are being proposed would relieve people of out-of-pocket expenses, and while taxes may have to increase, the tax code can be written in such a way that 80-90% of the population would come out ahead.

[Hoyt]

5. That's speculation and assumes that taxing the other 10% -- see you are not

even going after the 1% now -- can pay for everything long-term. It can't/won't.

Believe it or not, the threshold for the upper 10th percentile income is about $117,000. She going to have to increase much further down the line than that to do what she's promising. It's all good stuff, would love to see it happen, but she's promising a lot, especially claiming only a few people are going to fund all this.

That's the truth, that she ain't telling.

[oldsoftie]

6. Try as you might, they just will not listen to the truth.

As you point out, to get any meaningful numbers you gotta go WAY below the 1%ers. Even then, it still wont raise a trillion. And thats still not enough.
I just dont get it.

[boomer_wv]

7. This

is the next dearly held position that Warren will run from faster than you can spell it.

[dansolo]

8. And she is fudging the cost estimates

Many studies have been done to estimate the increased cost to the government for M4A which placed it at around $32 trillion figure over 10 years. Even Bernie agreed with those estimates. When she claimed that her plan would only cost $20.5 trillion over the same amount of time, I knew she was not being honest. But it was all a smokescreen so she can try and make the claim that it can be paid for without any tax increases on the middle class.

[CTyankee]

11. Paul Krugman seems to think her ideas are solid. Krugman has given her econ ideas his blessing.

I am not given to disputing anything related to Economics with Dr. Krugman. One course in Econ in grad school was enough for me to avoid reading/debating the subject ever again. Hence, that and Dr. Krugman's excellent columns in the NYT every Tuesday, have given me sufficient information for me to operate in my daily life.

Try reading his columns. They are really excellent (oh, and Joe Scarborough hates him)...

[PETRUS]

9. I don't think you followed what I was saying.

I'm not suggesting that a significant expansion of public services wouldn't be accompanied by tax increases on the bottom 90% of the population - realistically, it probably would. What I'm saying is that with a highly progressive tax code, the increases for most of the population would be more than offset by the savings. If your taxes go up by $2,000 to support public services that were costing you $4,000 to purchase on the the market, you'd be coming out ahead.

But yes, of course it's speculation (who knows what laws will actually be passed) and I agree that not everyone is being entirely forthcoming.

[Hoyt]

10. I get what you are saying, but Warren's "Everyone but super rich will be better off"

isn’t believable for a lot of people.

I’m not convinced it is going to be cheaper to pick up all un- and under-insured, dental, all copays/deductibles, etc., will result in reduced costs.

I am convinced we need to do something to make coverage affordable for everyone,especially those in lower income levels, and I think the Public Option is where you let people choose. If that is as good as we think, going to MFA will be easy.

[CTyankee]

12. is there any other educated democratic nation that DOESN'T have some form of MFA?

Otherwise known as "socialized medicine." These people don't WANT our health care system. Don't you think they know something we don't know?

[Hoyt]

13. Our biggest problem is that we didn't go to a universal system 70+ years

ago like those countries. Here, providers and patients expect too much from the healthcare system. Heck, even in Canada prescription drugs aren’t covered in the universal system.

Hope we figure out a way to catch up to other countries. But, I believe running on MFA is a loser in general election and puts Congress in risk.

[CTyankee]

14. There is a risk because most people aren't aware of anything better...when they get something

better i.e. Obamacare they like it.

re Canada's drug prices: why is it that Americans travel to Canada to get their prescriptions filled?

[Hoyt]

15. Because the prices are higher here. Weirdly, part of that is because

insurance coverage makes it easier to charge higher prices.

Whatever we do with MFA or expansion of ACA, we need to do a better job of controlling drug prices.

[PETRUS]

16. Well, I have little control over what you and others "believe."

But there's plenty of evidence from past and foreign experience and modeling that economists have done to suggest that would in fact be the result.

[Hoyt]

17. Good luck. There are economists, including one Warren throws around, who are

are not supporting MFA.

And the polls are clear, it’s a loser in general election. When she’s exposed for misleading public on taxes, it’s over.

[PETRUS]

18. I wasn't talking about political considerations.

M4A might be a liability in a general election. Then again, it might not - if a unified Democratic party made a strong case for it, combined with an aggressive GOTV campaign, I could see it going the other way quite easily. I don't see that happening, however, so I think your instincts are probably correct. But that has nothing to do with my general point, which was about economics. If the kind of policies like those advanced by Warren/Sanders became law, most of the population's material circumstances would improve substantially.