Tag Archives: political parties

One More Step

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Thomas Savidge, of the American Institute for Economic Research, in his letter in Wall Street Journal‘s Letters section, wrote about Washington State’s addiction to spending and its use of increasing taxes—even when they’re unconstitutional under the State’s own constitution—to feed the addiction. He offered a solution to the addiction from Washington’s own history:

Governor Gary Locke (D) in 2002 introduced the “Priorities of Government” strategy of ranking programs based on public value and essential government functions. This approach closed a $2.1 billion budget gap, just under $4 billion in current dollars, without raising taxes.

That, however, was an incomplete solution, for all that it “closed” that budget gap one time while pairing tax increases only with the lowest priority spending.

The complete solution, short of a State constitutional amendment to make more permanent the process, would have been to identify the revenue known to appear for the relevant fiscal year, then to run down the list of priorities, funding each one in turn until the expected revenues have been consumed, and then cut off further spending rather than raise taxes to cover the remainder.

But spending discipline is inconceivable to Progressive-Democrats, as it is today to too many Timid Republicans in DC.

Tax Flight and Iron Curtains

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Progressive-Democratic Party-run jurisdictions keep raising taxes, and those being taxed keep taking their incomes and assets and leaving those jurisdictions. Indeed, [S]tates with the highest taxes continue to lose the most income to States with far less onerous taxing regimes (including no income tax at all) as this graph, based on IRS data, illustrates.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts’ Progressive-Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren and a couple of her syndicate confreres are proposing an IRS/Party iron curtain against the Evil Rich leaving our nation altogether: a 40% tax on all assets, not just income or savings or investment accounts, as the price of leaving.

The bill, called the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act of 2026, would impose an annual 2% tax on the net worth of households and trusts over $50 million, and an additional 1% tax on the wealth of billionaires. To deter the ultra-rich from leaving the US to avoid the new tax, the bill also proposes a 40% “exit tax” on anyone worth more than $50 million who renounces their American citizenship.

California already has an exit tax of sorts, a mix of…aggressive residency and sourcing rules (which can keep you on the hook for California tax if you still have strong ties or California-source income).

The government men of the late Russian SSR were financial pikers in comparison.

This is Party’s platform: raise taxes, and you will like it, or else. And don’t dare try to leave; you won’t like that.

If It Moves, Tax It

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California Progressive-Democrat Congressman Ro Khanna has just clearly articulated his Party’s ideology regarding the valuables held by American citizens.

What I’ve said—and what Bernie Sanders [I, VT] said—is that we need a modest wealth tax on these billions of dollars that aren’t being taxed. They are just sitting there without ever paying income tax, and that funding could pay for the healthcare, childcare, and education of all Americans.

Contra Ronald Reagan, if it’s just sitting there, tax it, too. That money, that asset, that value—as Progressive-Democrats define it—belongs to a Progressive-Democratic Party-run government. That government will leave in us average Americans‘ hands what those men and women deem appropriate, and they’ll appropriate the rest.

Reducing Federal spending and reducing government’s overregulation of healthcare, childcare, and education would do far more for making those things, to coin a phrase, affordable for us average Americans than would raising taxes, confiscating ever more money from our pockets. And yes, those Evil Rich are Americans, also.

This is what we can expect from the reign of Progressive-Democrats.

Typically Progressive-Democrat Distortion

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Recall the brutal murder of Sheridan Gorman, a young college student of Loyola University, allegedly committed by Jose Medina, an illegal alien from Venezuela (whom the Chicago Tribune dishonestly called a “migrant”). Chicago Progressive-Democrat Alderman, Maria Hadden, representing Loyola’s neighborhood of Rogers Park, said this:

The big question from people is always the “why.” And this why seems to have just been a senseless wrong place, wrong time tragedy.

She was referring to Gorman, the victim, as having been in the wrong place, wrong time. This is an especially perfidious, cynically offered distortion. Gorman wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time; she was where she was at the time she was there. Full stop.

The person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time was Medina who, as an illegal alien (guilty of the crime or not), had no business being there or anywhere else in the United States at that time or at any other time.

Full stop.

Taxes

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Progressive-Democrats’ limiting factors for Evil Rich’s fair share and for how high to raise taxes are converging to: all of it. Pay everything you have.

Here’s an enumeration of what they’re demanding currently, courtesy of the WSJ‘s editors:

  • California: Service Employees International Union affiliate is seeking to qualify a referendum for the November ballot to impose a 5% wealth tax on residents with more than $1 billion in net worth. This includes stocks, illiquid stakes in private companies, artwork, patents, and family trusts.
    The tax would even be levied on illusory assets. Silicon Valley investors who own super-voting shares in a company would be taxed on their voting rights, rather than the value of their shares. A startup founder could be required to pay tax on the 25% of voting rights he controls even if he only owns 5% of shares.
  • Washington: Democrats have passed a 9.9% income tax on millionaires, despite a state constitutional ban on a graduated income tax.
    [I]n 2022…Democrats enacted a 7% tax on capital gains exceeding $250,000…[l]ast year they raised the rate to 9.9% on capital gains over $1 million. Now they’re extending the 9.9% tax to all forms of income.
  • New York: Albany…Assembly wants to raise the top state-and-local income-tax rate to 15.9% from 14.8%, and the Senate to 15.3%. Democrats also want to raise the state top corporate tax rate and let New York City raise its rate. That would make the top business tax rate nearly 20% in New York City.
    New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani…wants to increase the estate tax to 50% from 16% and impose a two percentage-point city tax surcharge on incomes over $1 million. That would raise the top individual rate in the city to 16.8%. If Democrats in Albany don’t deliver, he’s threatening an across-the-board 9.5% property tax hike.
  • Rhode Island: [Progressive-]Democratic Governor Dan McKee is pushing a 3% surtax on income over $1 million, which would raise the state’s top rate to 8.99%.
  • Virginia: One bill would impose a 3.8% tax on investment income of taxpayers making more than $500,000, which would raise the top rate to 9.55%. Another bill would create two new individual top tax brackets of 8% (starting at $600,000) and 10% (more than $1 million).
  • Congress: Maryland [Progressive-Democrat] Senator Chris Van Hollen wants to add three new tax brackets on high earners, which would raise the top federal rate by 12 percentage points to 49%. New Jersey [Progressive-Democrat] Senator Cory Booker is proposing to raise the current 35% tax bracket (starting at $256,226 for individuals) to 41% and the 37% bracket ($640,601) to 43%.
    …
    This [also] is a gigantic tax increase on small businesses that pay taxes at the individual rate—$1.01 trillion over 10 years for the Booker proposal, according to the Tax Foundation.

This, and much more—dangerously more—is what we can look forward to when the Progressive-Democrats resume their reign over our republic.