If It Moves, Tax It

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

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

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.

CBC Arrogance

The Congressional Black Caucus has demonstrated its collective arrogance in spades in the aftermath of the Illinois primary election of Progressive-Democrat Governor JB Pritzker’s preferred candidate over that of the CBC. Congressman Gregory Meeks (D, NY), CBCPAC Chairman:

We don’t need to reach out to the governor. Others are going to have to reach out to us[.]

Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D, OH):

Keep in mind, the Democratic candidate for president that prevails has to go through [our CBC]….

This Progressive-Democrat attitude of “do it my way, or—wait, there is no “or”—is what we can expect should Party regain power.

This is Idiotic

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R, SD) is putting the SAVE Act up for a vote this week, but he opposes using a talking filibuster to get it passed. Aside from not having the Republican votes and support for that—he’s right on that score; there are far too many timid Reluctant Republicans presently in the Senate—his rationale includes this bit:

In the end, you’re family and this is a team and we need the team to succeed, and you have differences of opinion along the way, and you know, you don’t always get 100% of what you want[.]

This is the idiotic part. The Progressive-Democratic Party Senators don’t agree that they’re part of any Senatorial family, nor are they members of any team but their own. They’re holding themselves apart, attempting to dictate to the Senate and impose their demands, regardless of what any other Senator—or us average Americans—might think. It’s only necessary to see their behavior vis-à-vis their shutdown of DHS over their personal demands regarding ICE to understand this.

When half the Senate believes itself not part of any family, when that half holds itself out as their own team, it’s idiotic for the other half to act like the whole is a family or that there’s some sort of teamwork available.