They Wouldn't Leave

givemewanderlust asked:

"Hi! Question! I was talking to my boyfriend about taxing billionaires and Warren’s tax plan, etc. and his question was “why would they stay here if they’re going to lose that much money?” I’m wondering what you’d say to that argument? Because I was kinda stuck. Thank you in advance!"

odinsblog answered

"They wouldn’t leave. It’s a bluff that no one has called, iMho. Think about it: America is where a shit ton of money is because we have so many markets that are integral to the world market. The US dollar is still the defacto currency of the world. If congress did it right, with no loopholes—I know, that’s a big if—but if they did it right, and threatened to take away access to the US markets, and denied said billionaires the ability to conduct business in the US, they couldn’t leave. 

What kind of greedy snot avoids paying their fair share of taxes just because they’re going to lose such an infinitesimally small portion of their wealth that even their grandchildren’s great-grandchildren would still be millionaires?

America built the interstate highway and other crucial infrastructure when the tax rate was a whopping 91 percent. I’m not saying we need to go that high again, but we aren’t going to be able to repair our infrastructure by making poor people and middle class people pay higher taxes. And someone has got to pay, so it might as well be the privileged 1%. 

Remember: if the tax laws were written to say, “we are going to tax millionaires and billionaires,” the tax is on every dollar AFTER a certain amount. For example, a 51 percent tax on $500,000 means that the 51 percent rate doesn’t kick in until that person makes $500,001. Every dollar AFTER $500,000 would be taxed at the 51 percent tax rate. If someone made “only” $499,000 a year, then they wouldn’t get hit with a 51 percent tax rate. If they made $500,000 they still wouldn’t get hit with the 51 percent tax rate. It’s not until they exceeded $500,000 that the tax rate kicks in – and then it only kicks in on the dollars that go OVER $500,000.

I think that’s the part everyone misses, right? So if I made $500,002 (that’s five hundred thousand + two dollars), then only that extra two dollars is taxed at the rate of 51 percent.

Anyway, it’s a bluff. And we need to call it. But we gotta do it the right way and make it painful for them." 

Dear Republicans: You Didn't Object...

Dear Republicans:

.
You didn’t object when you heard Donald Trump say he likes to grab women “by the pussy.”
.
You didn’t object when he kicked the American media out of the Oval Office and handed two Russian spies classified data entrusted to him by one of our allies.
.
You didn’t object when he likened our intelligence community to “Nazis.”
.
You didn’t object when he stood before the Memorial Wall of Stars at Langley and told lie after lie about himself and the election.
.
You didn’t object while at the Helsinki Summit, he met behind closed doors with the Russian President.
.
You didn’t object to him banning the American Press from covering that meeting.
.
You didn’t object when he emerged from that meeting and sided with the Russian President over the findings of our own intelligence community.
.
You didn’t object when the Trump campaign admitted to accepting Russian offers to help him defeat SecState Clinton.
.
You didn’t object when he stood before the cameras and said; “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find 30k e-mails that are missing.”
.
You didn’t object when the Russians responded that VERY DAY with stolen emails.
.
You didn’t object when it was confirmed that the basis for the Trump Tower meeting was a total fabrication. That it had nothing to do with adopting Russian children, and everything to do with swinging the election.
.
You didn’t object when it was revealed that Trump himself floated the cover story of adoptions from Russia.
.
You didn’t object when it was confirmed that his campaign staff had met with Russian agents over 150 times, after claiming they had never met with them at all.
.
You didn’t object when the Trump campaign declined to inform the FBI about the Russian advances.
.
You didn’t object when Trump’s campaign manager gave internal data on four key battleground states to agents working for Putin.
.
You sure as hell didn’t object when those very same four battleground states miraculously shifted towards trump on Election Day.
.
You didn’t object when Trump kicked his Attorney General out of the room and asked the FBI Director to let his National Security Advisor off the hook for lying about his contacts with Russian agents.
.
You didn’t object when Trump fired that FBI Director for declining to let Flynn off the hook.
.
You didn’t object when Special Counsel Robert Mueller said he couldn’t establish a conspiracy, largely because so many of Trump’s staffers lied during their interviews, and because Trump himself refused to submit to a live interview.
.
You didn’t object when Special Counsel Mueller cited no fewer than ten instances of the president himself obstructing justice in his report: an impeachable offense.
.
You didn’t object when it was revealed he cheated on his wife with a porn star.
.
You didn’t object when it was revealed that he paid off that porn star to the tune of $130,000.00 to buy her silence just prior to the election, an illegal attempt to hide relevant facts from the electorate.
.
You didn’t object when he withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA, which was the first and ONLY treaty that’s successfully kept Iranian nuclear ambitions in check.
.
You didn’t object when he pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords.
.
You didn’t object when he scuttled the Obama administration’s clean air and water standards.
.
You didn’t object when he opened up vast tracts of protected wilderness to his friends in the oil and mining industries.
.
You didn’t object to the myriad of cases of violations of the emoluments clause.
.
You didn’t object to the recently-discovered military stopovers at Trump properties in Scotland.
.
You didn’t object when after mass shooting after mass shooting, he wouldn’t lift a finger to protect even little school children from gun violence.
.
You didn’t object when he started putting tariffs on everyone from China to Turkey, which have undeniably hurt millions of people around the world and shaken the stock markets.
.
You didn’t object when he gave the corporate farming industry $26B in compensation for their losses due to his tariffs.
.
You didn’t object when he channeled $3.6B in Pentagon appropriations to his wall on the Mexican border.
.
You didn’t object when Trump called out against “Islamic terrorism” on multiple occasions, but never once for terrorism by white nationalists.
.
You didn’t object when he forcibly separated little children from their parents.
.
You didn’t object when he confined those children to chain-link paddocks.
.
You didn’t object when a whistleblower revealed the president had on multiple occasions said things that potentially undermined our nation’s safety and security.
.
You didn’t object when his personal lawyer, his personal consultant, and his army of sycophants at Fox News have repeatedly and consistently lied about ALL of the above for three excruciatingly long years.
.
So here’s my question for you: What about any of the above do you believe entitles you to the right to call yourselves “patriots?”

-Bruce Lindner