American Consequences - April 2021

that due to the wealth tax, 10,000 people left the country over a 15-year period – taking with them 35 billion euros in net worth. The dubious tax was repealed in 2017 as France joined the majority of European countries that had experimented with a wealth tax before ultimately repealing it. Outside of Europe, other countries found similar administrative problems. India repealed its wealth tax in 2015... once again, not because of any affinity for the wealthy. As Indian Financial Minister Arun Jaitley noted when the tax was repealed, “Should a tax which leads to high cost of collection and a low yield be continued or should it be replaced with a low cost and higher yield tax?” Real-world experience demonstrates that wealth taxes simply do not work. Yet, this remains a high priority of the progressive Left in America. This is a clear indication that populism is a driving force in the current political arena. Indeed this same mentality has hatched other ideas intended to punish job- creators. These punitive tax measures include higher personal income tax rates, higher taxes on investment earnings, a new tax on financial transactions, an expanded estate tax, and much more.

with spending increases that would, on net, increase deficits by hundreds of billions of dollars. Warren’s wealth tax is intended to partially offset the cost of her government-run health care proposal – Medicare for All. By her own math, the wealth tax would generate $1 trillion in new revenue, which pales in comparison to the cost of her health care plan, which could reach $34 trillion. The federal budget is in complete disarray. Absent corrective measures, it will be out of balance for decades to come and future generations of taxpayers will be saddled with untenable levels of debt. President Biden and his progressive allies on Capitol Hill believe more taxes are the remedy. In truth, their proposals represent a toxic combination of bad policies – higher taxes that would slow the economic recovery and more debt that would exacerbate our fiscal imbalance. Instead of looking for more ways to raise taxes and expand the government, their time would be better spent reining in excessive spending and allow American job creators and innovators to help bring the nation out of the ongoing economic crisis. Brandon Arnold is the executive vice president of the National Taxpayers Union. He has testified on fiscal policy before Congress and has also appeared on several television and radio networks including C-SPAN, Fox News, Fox Business, and more. Brandon’s writings have been published in Politico, The Hill , the Seattle Times , the Pittsburgh Tribune- Review , and more.

THE GREAT FINANCIAL IMBALANCE

One might sympathize with these policies if the goal was to bring the national debt under control with a combination of revenue raisers and spending cuts, as Clinton did in 1993. But that is not the case here... Biden’s massive tax hikes are combined

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