Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT), who caucuses with the Progressive-Democrats, has joined the Progressive-Democratic Party’s race to the bottom. The President wannabe has proposed his cynically named For the 99.8% Act, which is targeted explicitly against the 588 Americans he hates the most: the 588 most successful of us. His bill would deny these few Americans their ability to pass on the outcome of their success to their heirs, their families; his bill would overtly punish these most successful—and their families—for their success.
It’s a bill that’s borne of personal animosity and rank envy. It’s a bill that would
establish a 45% tax on the value of an estate between $3.5 million and $10 million; a 50% tax on the value of an estate between $10 million and $50 million; a 55% tax on the value of an estate in excess of $50 million; and a 77% tax on the value of an estate above $1 billion….
Sanders rationalized his punitively confiscatory tax by claiming that what’s really needed is
stronger investment in skills, higher paying jobs, and a more progressive tax system.
He is ignoring the fact that the more progressive our tax system, the more it and the purveyors of progressivism punish success. He is ignoring the fact that folks like the Walton family, the Kochs, and Jeff Bezos—from whom alone he would confiscate some $304 billion—have created more jobs and more higher paying jobs and have done more investment in work skills than anything Government has done.
Sanders is ignoring the fact that that money doesn’t sit in some vault as cash or gold bullion. It’s invested, plowed back into the economy to create innovation, businesses, jobs, philanthropy, educational opportunities—even health coverage plans—all things Government cannot do as well, if at all.
For all Sanders’ and his Progressive-Democrat cronies’ rationalizations to the contrary, this bill and its ilk are nothing but the actualization of their mindless resentment of the achievements of others.