When a handful of Democrats introduced a bill to impose a progressive wealth tax on millionaires and billionaires, they didn’t just say that income inequality was bad. They called it a threat to democracy. Apparently, anything and everything the left doesn’t like is now a threat to democracy.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Barbara Lee, Summer Lee, and Jamaal Bowman – four of the most far-left lawmakers in Congress – introduced the OLIGARCH Act (we won’t bother spelling out the acronym) to “tax extreme wealth, reduce inequality, and combat the threat to democracy posed by billionaires.”
“The bill ensures accountability and is an effort to restore democracy,” the press release states.
Tlaib says “billionaires are threatening our democracy.” Not to be outdone, Barbara Lee calls them a “major threat to democracy.”
How exactly do the rich threaten Democracy?
Summer Lee claims that “the 400 richest Americans have 22,000 times the political influence of the bottom 90%” – citing the conclusion of one research paper published 14 years ago.
Morris Pearl, chairman of the Patriotic Millionaires, which backs this bill, insists that “without decisive action, this vicious cycle of concentrated power and money will dismantle our system of democratic capitalism, and with it, our way of life.”
Their solution is to impose an entirely new wealth tax, starting at 2% and climbing to 8%, on anyone who has a net wealth of more than $140 million.
Let’s leave aside the fact that such a wealth tax would be virtually impossible to impose, would be a disaster for the economy, and wouldn’t raise nearly the revenue the left predicts. (Which is why several European countries abandoned their own wealth tax schemes after witnessing their adverse effects.)
Let’s also leave aside the fact that a wealth tax is almost certainly unconstitutional. (A fact even liberal law professors admitted in the New York Times, writing that such schemes would “run headlong into more than two centuries of precedent that cast doubt on the constitutionality of wealth taxation.”)
The more fundamental problem with this bill is how it continues the left’s attempt to turn every policy debate into a war over democracy. Election laws designed to mitigate fraud are threats to democracy. “Misinformation” – defined as anything the left doesn’t like to hear – is a threat to democracy. Recent Supreme Court rulings are a threat to democracy. The prevalence of guns is a threat to democracy. Climate change is a threat to democracy. The “war on woke” is …. you guessed it … a threat to democracy.
An op-ed in The Hill declared that “As we mark 100 days of MAGA control of the U.S. House of Representatives this week, one thing is absolutely clear: Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the extreme members he has put in positions of power, appear focused on undermining our democracy.”
When President Joe Biden announced his reelection, he claimed “That’s been the work of my first term – to fight for democracy.”
Enough!
None of these things is a threat to democracy. The left is using this claim to stifle debate. That way, the discussion is no longer about, say, tax reform, or gun control, or free speech, it’s about the future of democracy. And who would want to be against democracy?
The next time some politician starts blathering on about “threats to democracy,” take a moment to remind them that we, thankfully, don’t live in a democracy. We live in a constitutional republic. And the real threats to our republic are coming from those on the left who want to tear up the Constitution in the name of democracy.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
The Democrats are under the Delusion that The United States of America 🇺🇸 is a Democracy…The USA is a Constitutional REPUBLIC….”..we have a Republic if we can keep it” Benjamin Franklin
I pledge allegiance to the Flag and to THE REPUBLIC for which it stands!
Aristotle posited 6 forms of government, 3 good ones, and 3 bad ones. These forms follow the typology of “the One,” “the Few”, and “the Many.” Over time the good forms devolve into bad forms. Thus, monarchy devolves into tyranny, aristocracy devolves into oligarchy, and constitutional republics devolves into democracy. De.ocracy was a dirty word to classical thinkers.
If you cannot stomach opposite opinions, it means your facts are all lies. If you tell the truth and are honest, you have nothing to fear from naysayers.
It’s obvious to most, that their “threat to Democracy” is propaganda speech for the actual threat to their “Democratic Socialism” they are trying to force on America.
Democra-something…the democrats sold their souls a long time ago in order to gain and retain power and inflict their crap on the public, so whateverz…their socialist policies have resulted in years of destruction and decay in big cities, they have engaged in blaming and shaming and taxing people who built businesses from the ground up and made something of themselves in this life in order to accommodate and pander to professional lifelong victims who just don’t get it and have never and will never make an honest effort to achieve anything.
IS there room to talk about a billionaire tax bracket? Well, sure, but in the same context of reminding everyone that big companies and wealthy people already shoulder the lion’s share of America’s tax burden, which pointedly also includes congressional salaries as well as wages and compensation and retirement payments to noted notables such as ‘Dr.’ Anthony Fauci, along with other unelected govt. types who’ve long lived comfortably at taxpayer expense.
Life is not fair, America’s hallmarked by harsh realities and stark inequalities, but also by the promise of liberty, opportunity, and pathways to success which aren’t always well-marked but are open to those who learn, study, persevere, and don’t stumble around carrying a piece of victim chalk blaming society for their failures. Your mileage may vary, and when it comes to politics the game is rigged, Biden payola patronage as prime example, but all is not lost and the current climate strongly suggests that people are ready to start taking issue with the more glaring examples of incompetence and public corruption, and self-dealing plutocrats such as Jayapal, who supports public policies that make our streets more dangerous while throwing up 45k worth of security fencing at public expense to protect themselves from elements of that same public thus created.
We live in a country where today it’s OK to print a new trillion dollars out of thin air every week, and the bill will come due for that action at some point, we live in a country where we spend 900 billion a year on ‘defense’ that seems to want to govern the entire planet with our 2 million strong military, we live in a country where people who couldn’t install a car battery properly try to lecture us on our energy usage and then micromanage us into purchasing 40k electric cars that catch fire sometimes just sitting in the driveway, and some other stuff that is illogical, unfair, and makes you thump your forehead on the table. We also live in a country where if you play your cards right, you just might win and live a slice of the good life. There is no perfect world and the democrat uniparty /= democracy, it is a plutocracy, it is every bit as much controlled by wealthy people as the republican party, democracy implies your ballot has more value than the paper its printed on, kind of like the dollar, but somehow our dollar has more weight and bearing on political outcomes than the voting process, because ultimately a lot of things in life boil down to money. Is it corrupt, or is it economic ‘realpolitik’, that people vote to have more money vs. lofty ideals that don’t pay the bills…altruism is good fine and wonderful, so is a full tank of gas. People tend to lean toward a full tank, and in democrats you have the socialist redistributionists who promise you your fair share of the evil rich guy’s money, while the rich guy is hiring people at 35 bucks an hour and his employees can afford to fill their own tanks, thanks, without a bunch of interventionism.
Don’t look now, but 8 million people just moved in. God bless us one and all, may cooler heads prevail, and may the truth of the matter be established in D.C. so we can at least try, TRY, to have honest govt. and honest politicians. Blessed be.
The Democrat “threat to democracy” gambit is NOT new.
Excellent editorial.
That whatever Democrats don’t like becomes a threat to democracy is simply the flip side of their bragging about everything good in our lives, such as the 40 hour work-week, being the result of Democrat efforts.
One thing I will give them credit for. They have perfected the art of self-deception.
“Tlaib says “billionaires are threatening our democracy.”
Except for the FACT that we are a Republic, not a democracy…In the case of the soroses, bill gates, and many of their cohorts, she is right. Do you suppose they are willing to give up their wealth to pay for the socialist things they schill for, ie free healthcare, free college, guaranteed pay, etc.?