Hey, let’s all get together and take Bill Gates’ money off him. Let’s get his billions, divide it up and spend it. He doesn’t like the idea, but whatever. Let’s do it.
That may be a shocking view, but it is my view. I believe in taxing the rich and using the money to build a better world.
I believe in pooling resources and, assuming we can find leaders with honesty and vision, using them to make positive changes through healthcare, environmental projects, education, improved infrastructure and more.
Last week, U.S. Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren had a disagreement with Bill Gates about her proposed wealth tax, which targets the super-rich.
Gates said he’d paid more than $10 billion in taxes and was fine with paying $20 billion, but balked at the idea of paying $100 billion. “I’m starting to do a little math over what I have left over,” he said.
Elizabeth Warren sought to assure Gates – the second-richest man in the world, after Amazon boss Jeff Bezos – that he wouldn’t lose $100 billion, but I decided she’d missed the point. I think he should lose $100 billion because he’d still have oodles of cash anyway. He’d still have more money than he would ever need, or could ever spend.
The Plain English campaign, in seeking to describe the scale of a billion, estimates you would need 772 vans to move a billion cheesy Wotsits.
This explanation is perfect, because it’s almost as silly as a system that, according to Oxfam, allows the 26 richest people in the world to have as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the human race combined.
Bill Gates has a lot of money and we should take it, then target the other 25 people on the list.
We have it in our power to do this, and we should start by listening to left-leaning politicians and ignoring the scaremongering against them.
And this doesn’t mean increasing taxes for ordinary people.
Oxfam estimates a 1% wealth tax on billionaires only would raise more than $418 billion a year – enough to educate every child not in school and to provide healthcare to prevent three million deaths.
That sounds to me like an excellent start.
