I was looking at the list of the top 15 wealthiest in the U.S. and was just noticing how so many of them are so called philanthropists. Then there are the ones on it and a few below who have signed the Giving Pledge of their own concoction. How about if instead of the government, i.e. taxpayers, shelling out the billions to individuals if these people walk the walk they love spewing to others about giving, and in a few cases how they would happily pay more taxes, but the code isn't set up that way, so they don't. Especially the guy who loves talking about his secretary paying more taxes than he does. Didn't know you couldn't send the government more money than you technically owe if you really wanted. Instead they helped in the handout. Just throwing out random numbers, but if the top 3 or 4 dumped 20 billion to people and the next 11 dropped 10 billion we'd be up to a little over 1/5 of the amount the government is proposing and save some debt pain down the road. I actually think if you went to the top 20 and maybe reduced to 5 billion each under 30 billion down to 10 billion you really aren't putting a dent in their wealth and as markets come back they recover quite a bit if not all. This still leaves all of them more than enough to work on the worlds problems as some are now, and or give a bunch to charity of their choice when they pass away. Hopefully the death pledge won't be a bunch of buildings with their names on them, but actually do something of value. As a lot of them like to say, a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Just a thought as I sit prepping for the day. Peace and health to all
These same sanctimonious extreme liberal billionaires are the same ones abusing the tax code with their numerous tax loopholes. Would not be surprised if some of these so called charitable foundations are con games to milk more tax deductions to benefit them. Ask yourself, with so many deserving charitable organizations in the US, why are they not just giving their monies to those charities instead, of the ones they created out of thin air?
Because they all have billions in cash in vaults under their estates? You think maybe liquidating billions in a handful of stocks that make up the majority of the wealth of many of these folks might have some unintended consequences? And how exactly do you propose they distribute these funds, from tents on street corners to whoever walks up? You start giving away money you need to first know who every American is and how to reach them and second ensure you only hand out one check per person. That's trivial for government given we already have an entire agency set up to track this. That would require setting up a large, nationwide organization which is neither cheap, easy, or fast. I'm all for increasing taxes universally on those of us wealthy enough to pay them with little impact to our lives. Its clear at this point that the Trump tax cuts were a monumental mistake. It's also clear that there are some things government is uniquely suited to do better and faster than anyone else, and distributing a set amount to every American is clearly one of those things.
Yeah, dude, it's called transfer on death. We're getting a lot of that due to you importing your viruses.
I don't disagree to a point, but I'm guessing most of these people have a fair amount of liquid assets available to them, and at least in Bezos and his wife case, they have sold large share positions in the past to fund his rocket company without much effect. There is no need to do it all in one month either. I'll agree that through taxation would be the most sense, but would again involve them liquidating some assets also if they could actually eliminate loopholes so they actually paid at the rates in the tables. Look at the amounts of money Bloomberg was able to come up with quickly for his campaign, and he's not the first rich person to fund there own election with obscene sums of their own cash. As far as distributing, it would have to go through the government which it is going to be the case all ready. Again, just a thought, and not claiming its perfect or that they have to as it is there money.