This week Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren took her campaign of envy to new heights. In doing so, the Massachusetts Democrat exhibited the ugly underbelly of envy politics and unwittingly added a sprinkling of irony into the mix.
The Warren campaign released a new video Thursday in which she called out some of America’s wealthiest individuals, including Joe Rickets, who she denounced as one who “shovels money to GOP super-PACs,” and Peter Thiel, who she says is a “major Trump donor.”
“So here’s the deal,” she says. “You built a great fortune, good for you. I guarantee you built it, at least in part, using workers all of us helped pay to educate, getting your goods to market using roads and bridges all of us helped pay to build.”
Former President Barack Obama got in trouble making the same claim in 2012, that “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Both Warren and Obama ignore the fact that it’s a two-way street. Everyday folks rely on the super-wealthy just as much as the super-wealthy rely on everyday folks. And Warren proved that this week — whether she intended to or not.
As a part of her 'shame America’s wealthiest families' campaign, she’s now peddling a coffee mug that claims to contain “Billionaire Tears.”
Its description states, “Savor a warm, slightly salty beverage of your choice in this union-made mug as you contemplate all the good a wealth tax could do: universal childcare, student debt cancellation, universal free college, and more.”
The mugs are marketed by Shopify, an e-commerce firm founded by Tobias Lutke, its CEO. Lutke has a reported net worth of $2.8 billion. Maybe billionaires aren’t so bad after all, huh?
Incidentally, although advertised as being “made in the USA,” Shopify is a Canadian company. She couldn’t find a U.S. firm to market the mugs? I hear Amazon is pretty good at that.
Another point on the mugs. While similar items are sold anywhere between $5 and $10 apiece (presumably at a profit), she’s selling hers at the bargain-basement price of $25.
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh thought the irony was hilarious.
“Seriously, Elizabeth Warren charging 25 dollars for a coffee mug that makes fun of capitalists is just perfect,” he said.
Warren closes her video by telling the super-rich to “pitch in two cents so everybody else gets a chance to make it.” To be clear it’s not “two cents” — it’s two percent of any wealth over $500 million. It goes up to three percent on wealth above a billion.
A screen message claims that her tax would cover:
- Universal child care
- Universal pre-K education
- Cancelling student loan debt
- Universal free college
- And more
That “more” includes two biggies: Medicare for all (including illegal immigrants) and the pie-in-the-sky hard-left turn to socialism called the “Green New Deal.”
Warren claims her wealth tax would bring in $2.75 trillion over a ten-year period. She fails to understand, however, that once wealth is removed it may not be there the following year. So presumably the revenue her tax would take in would drop each year.
Also, any wealth that’s movable will most certainly be moved and placed outside the clutches of the IRS. The ultra-wealthy didn’t get that way by being stupid.
Finally, her wealth tax can result in some taxpayers being unfairly taxed twice on the same property within the same taxable year. Most wealth is kept in the form of non-liquid assets, including stocks and real estate. Any assets they have to sell off to pay the wealth tax could be subject to capital gains taxes as well.
FactCheck.org took a look at Warren’s plan and concluded that it couldn’t possibly pay for all the programs she claims, even using her own figures. The Warren campaign replied that it would at least provide a “down payment” on the larger ticket items.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and another Democratic presidential hopeful, released his own proposed wealth tax in September. His goes all the way up to 8 percent on any net worth that exceeds $10 billion.
He also has a message for the very wealthy: “Billionaires should not exist.” Up to a decade ago Sanders blasted millionaires as well. But then he became a millionaire himself.
TV host Mike Rowe said the politics of envy is as old as creation. Appearing on Fox Nation this week, he told David Webb, “It's not a new thing. It's as old as hate. You know, the trick is we just got to figure out who we hate this week."
Rowe was spot on. According to Genesis, Cain murdered Abel out of jealousy. Warren and Sanders want to punish the wealthy for the exact same reason.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to BizPac Review and Liberty Unyielding. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter, who can often be found honing his skills at the range. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
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