CARTOON: EXCLUSIVE DEBATE PREVIEW!!
Trump & Harris set to battle over THE issue dividing both political parties.
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
'Baffling Capitulation To Wall Street': Harris Breaks With Biden On Capital Gains Tax
"Vice President Harris is making a catastrophic mistake by capitulating to the petulant whining of the billionaire class. Harris seems to be making a policy choice based on the disproven, failed ideology of trickle-down economics, and giving petulant billionaires a gift in the process."
[Editor’s Note: When you understand who Kamala Harris and the right wing corporate Democratic Party is, there is really nothing ‘baffling’ about this betrayal of decency, common sense and working families. — Mark Taylor]
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams (9/5/24)
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris broke with President Joe Biden on Wednesday by proposing a smaller capital gains tax increase for wealthy Americans, a decision that one progressive advocacy group decried as a "baffling capitulation to Wall Street billionaires" who have vocally complained about the vice president's embrace of higher taxes on the ultra-rich.
Harris said at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Wednesday that "if you earn a million dollars a year or more, the tax rate on your long-term capital gains will be 28% under my plan," broadly confirming earlier reporting by The Wall Street Journal.
"We know when the government encourages investment, it leads to broad-based economic growth and it creates jobs, which makes our economy stronger," said Harris, who previously signaled support for Biden's tax agenda.
A 28% top tax rate on long-term capital gains—profits from the sale of an asset held for more than a year—would be significantly lower than the 39.6% rate that Biden proposed in his most recent budget.
The Patriotic Millionaires, a group of rich Americans that advocates for a more progressive tax system, said it was "appalled" by Harris' decision to pare back Biden's proposed capital gains tax increase.
"Vice President Harris is making a catastrophic mistake by capitulating to the petulant whining of the billionaire class," said Morris Pearl, the group's chair. "Harris seems to be making a policy choice based on the disproven, failed ideology of trickle-down economics, and giving petulant billionaires a gift in the process."
"Both on the economics and on the politics, this is a serious unforced error."
Details of Harris' capital gains tax plan began to emerge days after ultra-rich investors and other major donors to the vice president's 2024 campaign took to the pages of The New York Times to express concerns about Harris' support for Biden's tax agenda, which also calls for taxing the unrealized capital gains of households worth over $100 million.
The Financial Times described Harris' break with Biden on long-term capital gains as "an olive branch to Wall Street"; The New York Times similarly characterized the move as a message to the business community that she is "friendlier than Biden."
Giveaway to the ultra-rich
But Pearl of the Patriotic Millionaires warned that the policy shift "demonstrates a concerning lack of commitment to reversing destabilizing economic inequality."
"Both on the economics and on the politics, this is a serious unforced error," said Pearl, the former managing director at the investment behemoth BlackRock. "You don't need my years of experience on Wall Street to grasp the obvious. Big investors invest to make serious money, not to save a few percentage points on their tax bill. No one has ever made a lucrative investment decision based on a preferential tax rate. The incentive to invest is making money, not lowering tax rates."
"This ill-advised, destructive policy is a giveaway to the ultra-rich," he added. "We hope Vice President Harris will reconsider her position."
Even with a smaller proposed capital gains tax increase, Harris' tax agenda stands in stark contrast to that of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has called for massive additional tax cuts for the rich and large corporations while attacking Harris' support for progressive—and widely popular—tax proposals.
While Trump has not yet outlined a capital gains proposal during the 2024 campaign, the former president said in the final year of his first term that he would propose cutting the top capital gains rate to 15% in a second term.
Steve Wamhoff of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy noted at the time that 99% of the benefits of such a cut "would go to the richest 1% of taxpayers."
As RFK Jr. Backs Trump, Here's the Secretive Billionaire Plutocrat Funding Them Both
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams (8/24/24)
Joining Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump onstage at a campaign rally in Arizona Friday night, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to emphasize what the two share.
"We talked about not the values that separate us, because we don't agree on everything, but on the values and issues that bind us together," Kennedy said shortly after suspending his independent presidential bid to throw his support behind Trump.
But Kennedy did not mention that he and Trump have in common the same billionaire megadonor, a reclusive heir to a Gilded Age fortune who has pumped over $165 million into the 2024 campaign thus far.
Oligarch nepo-baby
Timothy Mellon, the grandson of plutocrat Andrew Mellon, has poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaigns of both Trump and Kennedy, making the secretive billionaire the top individual donor to both.
The campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets noted Friday in an analysis of Mellon's donations that the billionaire "made a $50 million cash infusion to pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again, Inc." in July, according to new Federal Election Commission filings.
"This brings his total contributions to the group to $125 million this election cycle, including a $50 million check he wrote to the super PAC the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies," OpenSecrets added. "Mellon's latest $50 million contribution accounts for over 90% of what MAGA, Inc. raised in July."
As for Kennedy, his hybrid PAC American Values 2024 received $25 million from Mellon earlier this year. OpenSecrets observed that Kennedy is quoted on the cover of the billionaire's autobiography, "praising Mellon as a 'maverick entrepreneur.'"
"He and Trump both shared the same major donor—billionaire nepo baby Timothy Mellon. RFK Jr.'s campaign was always a MAGA spoiler."
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary, wrote Friday that "it's no surprise" Kennedy dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Trump.
"He and Trump both shared the same major donor—billionaire nepo baby Timothy Mellon," Reich added. "RFK Jr.'s campaign was always a MAGA spoiler."
Mellon is a member of a powerful group known as "guardian angels," a label "for big donors who supply 40% or more of a committee's funds and are a political group's top contributor," OpenSecrets explained.
$1 billion — and counting — this election cycle
Spending from super PACs and other outside groups has topped $1 billion this election cycle, and the largest spender to date has been MAGA, Inc.
But U.S. billionaires, who are collectively richer than ever, aren't exclusively backing pro-Trump groups. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has cut huge checks to Democratic PACs, and groups backing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris have received large donations from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Netflix executive chairman Reed Hastings, among other rich executives.
In his primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) condemned the outsized influence of billionaire "oligarchs" on the U.S. political process, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling.
"Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections," said Sanders. "For the sake of our democracy, we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections."
DeMOCKracy 2024: Gavin Newsom Has A Big Laugh Over Dems Rigging Their Primary To Install Kamala!
“Uh, it was bottom up. I don't know if you know that. Yes that's what I've been told to say.”
The Jimmy Dore Show (9/8/24)
During the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago, California Governor Gavin Newsom joined the Pod Save America hosts to discuss the highly democratic, ground-up process that led to Kamala Harris receiving the nod as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. Oh wait, that’s exactly the OPPOSITE of what happened, which the foursome all laugh heartily over, showing just how little the Democratic Party respects democracy.
Jimmy and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger discuss how openly these Dem Party insiders discuss the evisceration of the party’s principles.
12-minute video
“This is no place to recount all the substantive injustices of this country, but if you can name your top offenders, then you can probably trace the lack of progress on these problems, or the worsening of them of them, back to the two-party tyranny of our elections — the political contributors that control them and the best politicians money can buy and return to office, election after election after election, with little or no competition.”
— Theresa Amato, Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny (p. 299)
Harris is scum,no better than Trump
Why am I going with Mr. Muddle you ask? A number of key and vital reasons come to mind. 1) The blue sweater is much more vibrant and draws you in to feel safer, cooler, 2) Mr. Muddle looks younger, more buff, this is vital, 3) the band-aid on Mr. Muddle’s nose cries out, ‘ I’m vulnerable, I’m a fighter, I’m wounded and maybe down (and stupid) but I’m not out and you didn’t vote me into this position anyway so what makes you think you’re important now? And, 4) I can’t spell cudgel, don’t know what that is but I’m offended, and don’t know if that is your pronoun or what?