October 14, 2019

A Quick Look at the Democratic Tax Plans

Gabriel Zucman has analyzed the tax implications of the plans set forth by three of the Democratic candidates and has come up with this:

No surprises here: Warren and Sanders want to soak the rich but Biden doesn’t. Still, it’s interesting to see the details.

This reminds me that I’m still sort of surprised that no one has proposed a universal health care plan that’s heavily funded by a head tax on corporations. This would get rid of all the questions about where the funding would come from and would end up costing everyone about the same as they pay now. There would obviously be some additional details to work out, and you can imagine them being whatever you prefer.

This would obviously not be the best funding mechanism from a pure policy perspective, but it sure seems like it might be the best from a pragmatic political perspective.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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