Once upon a time, some überwealthy individuals who’d previously supported Donald Trump declared that they were done with the 45th president of the United States. After January 6, 2021, billionaire GOP donor Nelson Peltz called the insurrection a “stain on America” and publicly apologized for voting for Trump in 2020. Real estate and aerospace mogul Robert Bigelow said Trump “lost me as a supporter” and showed, during the attack on the Capitol, that “he was no commander.” Billionaire donor Howard Hamm told Trump point-blank not to run for office again, saying the Republican Party needed a chaos-free candidate, and gave money to his competitors instead.
So it may or may not surprise you that those exact people, and others whose net worths include roughly nine zeros, are now singing an extremely different tune. Which, and we don’t want to shock anyone, might have something to do with Joe Biden pledging to raise their taxes. As The Washington Post reports, Peltz hosted Trump for breakfast this month at his Palm Beach mansion, later telling the Financial Times he will “probably” vote for him in November. Bigelow told Reuters in January he donated $1 million to help cover Trump’s legal fees and promised to give $20 million more to a Trump-aligned super PAC. According to the Post, Hamm is headlining a fundraiser next month—hosted by fellow billionaire John Paulson—for which the maximum contribution is $814,600.
This isn’t a play Biden has really every done his entire time as a politician. Biden is the definition of a politician who identifies the status quo and builds their platform from it.
Whatever, most of the time it doesn’t matter, but it is truly incredible in this moment how much more politicians like Biden could be successful if they just promised to tax billionaires and then actually did it. Yes you would receive zero campaign funding from the rich for the rest of your life but you would also become extremely popular in the eyes of the public?
Small donation campaign financing works, this isn’t black magic.
Tbf he has promised to raise taxes on billionaires. If he actually is able to do it is another matter.
I mean, he has done some stuff. NRLB has been good, antitrust has been really promising.
It comes down to who the cabinet members are right? Especially for someone so old (not that trump isn’t older and more unhinged anyways).
He sure has done stuff. I’m not questioning his willingness to do it, honestly, but you know how politics can be bogged down by other factors like house seats etc. The only thing that can make it happen is voting!
Honestly, I think for many countries it might require very far reaching constitutional changes to actually tax the ultra wealthy.
For the USA, an amendment was needed to introduce the income tax.
Another amendment might be needed to introduce a wealth tax.
And a legal distinction would need to be made between the property of the common man vs. the ultra wealthy.
That 14th house, yacht and the hundreds of billions of the billionaire currently enjoy the same legal protections as the owner-occupied single family home and that family’s meagre savings account and the car they need to get to work.
The problem is that he can’t raise such a tax without congress and congress is anything but on his side.