The goal post is absolutely being moved. Find an economist who can accurately define 'wealthy' or 'rich'. It is intentionally ambiguous. We jump from a 250k for a senior software engineer to Elon Musk being one of the wealthiest men for starting highly successful companies in this new age (note: Facebook/Google/Amazon/Apple are yesterdays tech companies). In the mean time, the medium income in America is 30k. Then factor in how America is pillaging the worlds wealth, which is estimated to be 10k USD. This is not a red herring in this conversation. Anything but is simply being myopic about the conversation at hand. There is no amount of taxes that can be raised to cover this insane foolishness of MMT.
No it hasn't been moved. The likes of Bernie and AOC have never criticized the practices of salaried upper middle class professionals like senior engineers and scientists. Their criticism was always towards those who generate most of their wealth through capital gains and avoid taxes and get away with it due to unfair auditing practices in the IRS due to lack of resources. So yes you are misrepresenting their criticisms. I'm sorry but 500 billion to a trillion dollars in lost tax revenue per year due to a lack of resources to audit the wealthy and their tax avoidance schemes is not some insignificant number. And again, you avoid the conversations these people have about removing corporate influence in our legislation process that results in absurd spending for unnecessary corporate welfare and beat up another strawman that "taxing the rich" is their only solution.
Just want to add how this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the ideology of people like AOC or Bernie. They applaud the work ethic of an American who gets educated and works hard to become a hush skilled professional who wants a nice salary and can afford decent luxuries like a nice home, cars etc. Their issue is with tax avoidance of those who make all their wealth through capital gains and have undue influence in our legislative process through lobbying and the revolving door. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what they criticize and what they praise. The right has strawmanned their views into some ideology where they believe that everyone should have the same level of income and wealth rather than their actual view that those who aren't high skilled professionals having access to healthcare, housing and quality education. They aren't upset that people who earn 250k exist.
A.O.C.’s Met Gala Dress Triggered Strong Reactions While some championed the provocation, the congresswoman’s “Tax the Rich” gown drew sharp statements from across the political spectrum. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/style/aoc-met-gala-dress.html excerpt: But more surprising than the rote judgments from her political opponents was the criticism Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, generated from the left — a chorus of dissatisfaction from progressives and self-described socialists disappointed by a gesture they said caricatured a progressive cause and underscored their sense that she is not maximizing her ability to fight for working people from Congress. Briahna Gray, the former national press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign and the co-host of the “Bad Faith” podcast, said that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is “held to a unique standard exactly because people expect more of her.” She said some of the progressive backlash to the dress grew out of a more general disappointment with some of her policy stances. “People are disappointed in her behavior outside of this context, and this seems to be reflective of a lack of commitment that has been demonstrated in a purely political context,” Ms. Gray said. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was first invited to the Met Ball in 2019, the year after her victory over former Representative Joe Crowley — the most significant upset of a Democratic incumbent in more than a decade. She did not attend, and the following year’s gala was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. This year, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was seated at the table of Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue and artistic director of Condé Nast, who is the longtime co-host of the gala. Some supporters had a simple, negative gut reaction, to her decision to attend. “The Met Gala is an event best shunned by sincere socialists,” wrote John Ganz, a columnist for Gawker.com who described himself as a supporter who at other times has viewed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez as a “beacon of hope.” Danny Haiphong, a socialist activist and writer, said what offended him was not the dissonance of a self-described democratic socialist hobnobbing with the elite, but that “A.O.C. and the Squad are not leveraging their enormous base of support to demand the very thing she put on her dress.” Many progressives still credit Ms. Ocasio-Cortez with being a consistent advocate for progressive causes. She was the sole Democrat to oppose the $484 billion coronavirus relief package last year, saying she found it too generous to corporations without providing enough assistance to working-class people. Alongside Mr. Sanders, she has pushed for tripling the amount of money President Biden has proposed to improve the country’s aging public housing system. Recently, she joined the marathon protests on the Capitol steps against the expiration of a pandemic-era federal eviction moratorium that neither the White House nor Congress had up until then acted to stop. “She’s generally happy to make people excited about a different vision for America,” said Faiz Shakir, the manager of Mr. Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign. “There’s an art to it: Politics is theater. You’re figuring out ways to animate it.” Indeed, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has used the “Tax the Rich” slogan before, on campaign merchandise, which Republicans have criticized in the past. But a group of more left-leaning activists has tried to push the party further and has become increasingly critical of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Some had demanded that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and others withhold their votes for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unless she agreed to bring Medicare for All bill to a floor vote. They have also pressed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to use her position to force a vote on a $15 minimum wage and deliver more pointed critiques of the Biden administration for fending off calls for blanket student debt cancellation. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is viewed as a purported outsider in Congress, Ms. Gray said, but is “not really doing the kinds of things that could actually attract real backlash and struggle that some people anticipated she would, given how she styled herself coming in.” The image of her “rubbing elbows with those people” on Monday night irked some on the left, she said. The slogan on the dress was a problem, too, according to Ms. Gray — not because it was too radical but because it was too anodyne; according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll from 2020, a majority of American voters support a wealth tax on the very rich. “If she had chosen to highlight a message that wasn’t already so broadly well received, then her act would have been seen as more subversive, as opposed to pageantry comparable to Cara Delevingne’s ‘Peg the Patriarchy’ shirt,” Ms. Gray said — another Met Gala outfit that attracted attention for the message it bore. Other New York politicians were in attendance at the gala this year, including Representative Carolyn Maloney, who represents Manhattan’s old Silk Stocking district, and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio skipped the ball for years before breaking his inattendance streak on Monday night, in the final months of his mayoralty. “It’s not my cup of tea,” Mr. de Blasio said in an NY1 appearance in 2019 when asked about his absence. “It’s an elite gathering, I’m not an elite guy. It really — let’s make it real simple, it’s just not my thing. This is the kind of place where the elite goes and likes to be with each other, and I have a different approach.” Among Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s defenders was Maya Wiley, the former New York City mayoral candidate whose campaign Ms. Ocasio-Cortez endorsed earlier this year. Ms. Wiley said the Met Gala is part of the fabric of New York City, and self-identifying as a democratic socialist doesn’t mean hating on or avoiding the wealthy who show up. “We turn everything into a purity contest,” Ms. Wiley said. “Politics shouldn’t be about purity. She did the right thing by not avoiding it, by saying this is part of who we are, and let’s have a conversation that includes the Met Gala.” “To walk into a space that’s about art, fashion, luxury and wealth and say, ‘Here is the conversation we have to confront, but I’m going to confront it in the vernacular of the event, is brilliant,’” Ms. Wiley said. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez may have succeeded in putting on display an issue at the core of what Democrats are pushing for in the reconciliation bill they are trying to pass by the end of the month. But mostly, the dress served as the latest Rorschach test about Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, and whether she is viewed as fighting for the people or aligning with the elites. “I do not envy her,” said Sumathy Kumar, a chair of the New York City Democratic Socialist Association. “Faced with this question, ‘Do I go to this event and use it as an opportunity to spread the message, or do I boycott it?,’ she usually chooses to broadcast that message.” Ms. Kumar added: “Whether you agree with a tactic or not, more people are talking about taxes on the wealthy and at least that conversation is happening. We’ll take what we can get.” On Tuesday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who declined to comment for this article, defended herself against criticism in a long post on Instagram. “I and my body have been so heavily and relentlessly policed from all corners politically since the moment I won my election,” she wrote. Ultimately, she said, “we all had a conversation about Taxing the Rich in front of the very people who lobby against it, and punctured the 4th wall of excess and spectacle.” In a follow-up fund-raising email, she directed supporters to buy their own “Tax the Rich” attire. A T-shirt costs $27, and the hoodie goes for $58. more at the link
We can agreed to disagree. I can compromise. Bernie is a respectable politician, albeit delusional while AOC is completely oblivious to her privilege. You really should stop calling it tax avoidance. Thats on par with people calling taxes theft. ALL politicians, left and right, were involved in making these policies. Im not full stop disagreeing with you, but again, nuance. Musk, who's wealth is completely tied up in his businesses, is not the same as as Warren Buffett who has made his billions grifting the system. Buffetts wealth can be qualified much more easily than say someone like Musks. All I am saying is the problem is a hell of a lot more complicated than saying Tax The Rich. Being myopic about the problem is how the ultra wealthy get away with not contributing to society.
Except that it's estimated that we lose 500 billion to a trillion dollars in tax revenue per year due to avoidance due to the IRS not having the resources to audit ultra complicated tax filings by the wealthy. They do have the resources to audit relatively simple returns from people like you and I. I suggest you listen to that on point podcast with multiple former IRS cheifs. And like I said, you keep on ignoring how this is t the only thing AOC advocates for. She does think merely "taxing the rich" is the only solution.
if your brand is "socialist champion of the people" then it's probably a pretty good idea to stick to your brand
Both are vilified by the opposing party, I'm saying if I could trade AOC for peace in Afghanistan with the Taliban they have to take MTG too.
Nah. She's bar trash. Not really sure why anyone finds her attractive. I wouldn't have kicked her out of bed in college but if she wasn't famous she'd be a drunk bj You would probably marry her lol
