SoylentNews

For Dell's Billionaire CEO, Taxing the Ultra-Rich is a Joke

posted by takyon on Friday February 15 2019, @04:59PM   
from the marginal-opinion dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a panel moderator asked Michael Dell, America's 17th-richest man, what he thought about the idea of raising the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent.

This idea has been in the headlines since Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez floated it in a 60 Minutes interview on January 6 as a way to pay for a Green New Deal.

The Davos panel found the question hilarious. When the laughing died down, Dell, the founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, dismissed the idea out of hand, claiming it would harm U.S. economic growth.

---

Original Submission

• Re:High marginal tax rates Re:High marginal tax rates (Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @06:55PM (3 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @06:55PM (#801717)

  1) What programs?

  2) The US was better off because the dollar had just become the reserve currency (bretton woods) and hadn't been totally debased. Also, Europe and just been recently in total war and needed to both buy American stuff and pay back American loans. Finally, the MIC hadn't grown to such ridiculous levels yet and taxes in general were much lower. Go find the tax revenue by bracket for the 1950s, high tax revenues from the wealthy had nothing to do with it.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	0		points
  Moderation		+1
  Flamebait=1, Troll=1, Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Informative=1, Total=5
  Extra 'Troll' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		1

• Re:High marginal tax rates Re:High marginal tax rates (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday February 15 2019, @11:21PM (2 children)

  by Thexalon (636) on Friday February 15 2019, @11:21PM (#801819)

  1) What programs?

  Some of federally funded programs that come to mind out of the high-income tax era in the US:
  - The Interstate Highway System. It's named after Eisenhower for a reason.
  - NASA - Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.
  - Putting electric and telephone service into many rural areas for the first time.
  - Nuclear research, including civilian nuclear power and the synthesizing for the first time of most of the Period 7 elements.
  - Aquaducts vital to the water supplies of major cities in the southwest US such as Los Angeles.
  - Development of vaccines for polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and several other major diseases.
  - The development of the transistor and the subsequent substantial miniaturization of computing technology.
  - Fighting the Cold War, which wasn't a war against the common cold. And the MIC was ridiculous enough that Ike thought it worth pointing out in 1960.

  Just to name a few things. The idea that we didn't get anything of value for those tax dollars is quite simply a lie.

  --
  The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.

  Parent

  • Comment Below Threshold

    Re:High marginal tax rates (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @11:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @11:35PM (#801832)

    The idea that we didn't get anything of value for those tax dollars is quite simply a lie

    It was a good post until you just couldn't help yourself from inserting the obligatory strawman at the end.

    Parent

  • Re:High marginal tax rates (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 16 2019, @12:27AM

    by khallow (3766) on Saturday February 16 2019, @12:27AM (#801861) Journal

    Don't forget the military-industrial complex and an unsustainable entitlement system.

    The idea that we didn't get anything of value for those tax dollars is quite simply a lie.

    Are you counting the things with negative value, eh?

    Parent