If Only We Could All Be As Out Of Touch As The Mega-Wealthy

Bill Gates Has Some Harsh Words for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Tax Plan

Bill Gates says he’s fine with the idea of higher taxes for the rich, but plans like the one being championed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which target the top income brackets, are too extreme—and could encourage the wealthy to hide their money in offshore accounts.

“I believe U.S. tax rates can be more progressive. Now, you finally have some politicians who are so extreme that I’d say, ‘No, that’s even beyond,'” Gates said. “You do start to create tax dodging and disincentives, and an incentive to have the income show up in other countries and things. But we can be more progressive without really threatening income generation—what you have left to decide how to spread around.”

First of all, the wealthy already hide their money offshore and dodge taxes.

High tax rates, such as those proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, led to a single breadwinner being able to provide for a family - a car, a home, a college education, etc.

Ever since the Reagan revolution, of tax cuts and deregulation, households with multiple workers can barely get by.  Tax rates aren't a disincentive to create wealth.  They are a mechanism to correct the greedy urges of those whom control the means of production.

Since we can't count on the Walmarts, Amazons, Kochs and all the other greedy oligarchs to do what's right and pay their employees a living wage, to provide retirement and health care to their employees, and to pay a fair share of taxes to help the infrastructure that their businesses and we all depend on, we need to tax them.

Trickle down doesn't work.  It hasn't worked.  Taxes are the only way of giving workers back income that they helped to produce and/or putting it toward more public goods.