Democrats oppose taxing the rich

We've all heard that Democrat's are now calling for a 120% tax on the rich.  But it's all a sham.

When the Republicans, led by Trump, cut taxes for the vast majority of Americans they actually did increase taxes on the rich. While the marginal rates were reduced the rich lost a huge amount of deductions.

For example under the Trump punish the rich tax cut people could only deduct the first $10,000 in state taxes that they pay.  That clearly only impacts people who are doing a lot better than the American middle class even in grossly over taxed California. But Democrats are furious about it.

You'd think that a highly progressive tax increase like that would be just what people like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez want but instead what we hear is that it's unfair to Democrats because blue states tend to have very high taxes and as such less rich people will be hit than will be hit in responsibly run states; i.e. Republican run states.

Essentially what's happening is that the uber rich in states like California have been sending a higher portion of their tax dollars to the state government and so regular folk in other states have had to pick up the slack in terms of funding the Federal government.

What the Democrats are essentially saying is that they want to dramatically increase tax rates for the rich people who don't vote Democrat.

But the Democrats being upset about raising taxes on the rich isn't surprising because everyone who thinks about it knows that high marginal tax rates on the rich, like the 70% rate Ocasio-Cortez has mentioned, don't work.

First the rich don't pay those rates.  Those rates only apply to new money that is earned in a year so the rich will buy tax free government bonds or yachts rather than invest in risky things that just don't make sense when they know if the investment doesn't work out they lose all their money and if it does work out they have to give 70% of what they earn to the government.  Further we all know that the Democrats will put in special exemptions that will protect their buddies from really having to pay more taxes.

Second when the rich squirrel away their money it can't be used as working capital by our economy; essentially very high marginal tax rates will choke economic growth by drastically limiting the supply of investment capital.  We've seen this happen in the past. That's one of the reasons whenever the top marginal rate is cut, whether by JFK or Reagan, the economy boomed.

Hence unless the Democrats are down right economically illiterate they're push for higher marginal tax rates on the rich is just political theatre to try and convince hard working Americans that the Democrats aren't going to raise taxes on them.  But given that the vast majority of hard working Americans did get a tax cut under the Republican plan and given that the Democrats want to repeal that plan it's pretty clear that Democrats want to raise taxes on the middle class.

But their incessant talking about the rich is their way to help the #FakeNews media cover up the fact that every Democrat scheme, from Medicare to all to eliminating fossil fuel use, depends on massive increases in government revenue which has to include massive tax increases on the middle class.

Next time you hear a Democrat demanding we increase the tax rate on the rich ask their opinion of the Republican tax cut's dramatic reduction of deductions for the really rich; you'll put them in a tough spot and if they're just low information votes it might make them question the Democrats lies about who they really want to tax.