American Consequences - October 2019

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

It is an axiom of American politics: If you value individual liberty and economic freedom, always pick the candidate with fewer ideas. So, this month, let’s go “first with the worst” and examine Warren’s ideas. And, gosh, does she have a lot of them. Just using the simple WBS metric, Warren is 68% more alarming than Biden. If that’s enough for you, consult the June 23, 2019 New York Times Magazine cover story by an admiring Emily Bazelton, titled “Elizabeth Warren Has an Answer for Everything.” The second column of the piece includes this chilling passage: “As a presidential candidate, Warren has rolled out proposal after proposal to rewrite the rules... On the trail she says, ‘I have a plan for that’ so often that it has turned into a T-shirt slogan.” As scary words go, “I have a plan for that” is right up there with, “Hold my beer and watch this!” Warren thinks we can improve our economy by returning personal and corporate income taxes to Clinton-era levels. Are higher taxes good for the economy? U.S. per capita GDP, adjusted for inflation: $44,314 in 1998, $57,821 now. Question answered. “ It is an axiom of American politics: If you value individual liberty and economic freedom, always pick the candidate with fewer ideas.

Warren also wants to impose a wealth tax on the net worth of individuals – 2% on net worth above $50 million and 3% on net worth above $1 billion. The current yield on 2-year U.S. Treasury bonds is 1.5%. For a conservatively invested billionaire that means a 200% tax on income on top of the income tax he or she is already paying. In anything except politics we’d call this “stealing.” And what about a modestly middle-class retired couple, living on Social Security, who, years ago, just happened to buy a little cabin and some land in a place that has been gentrified all to hell such as Aspen, Colorado? Now they’re worth $100 million whether they want to be or not. They’ll owe the IRS $1,000,000 a year for the rest of their lives. But don’t try to take the money and run. Warren proposes a 40% “exit tax” on expatriation of wealth exceeding $50 million. The island that Wall Street’s moneyed elite will be living on won’t be Grand Cayman, it will be Riker’s Island. Warren doesn’t seem to like rich people very much. (Never mind that, according to public financial disclosure forms, she and her husband have a net worth of between $4 million and $11 million.) But who Warren really has it in for are big corporations – maybe just because they’re big corporations. Nobody feels attraction to or affection for big corporations. Dissing them is, politically speaking, like swiping left on Matt Lauer’s dating app. Warren supports breaking up the tech giants – Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. And these particular big corporations are even more

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October 2019

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