The fiscal initiative is aimed at collecting hundreds of billions of dollars from that nation’s nearly 700 billionaires and, thus, making a contribution to finance the main economic proposals boosted by President Joe Biden: the infrastructure plan and the social benefits project.
The last investment package, initially valued at 3.5 billion dollars, but likely to be below that number, is stalled in Congress, due to the Democrats’ internal divisions on how to fund it, among others issues.
A poll conducted by Vox and Data for Progress on October 12 revealed that 71 percent of voters come out for increasing taxes on the richest American people to fund the initiative, which includes measures aimed at reducing the impact of climate change, educational, health programs and others.
Such a majority stance is in line with the results of a recent research, which showed that the wealth of US billionaires increased by more than two billion dollars during the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the most alarming signs of US inequity.
According to the site inequality.org, the bonanza of the wealthiest is against the 89 million citizens who lost their jobs during the health emergency, the more than 45.5 million who got infected with the disease and the more than 738 000 who died due to the illness.
At this time, those known as the super-rich don’t have to pay taxes for accumulated wealth, that is to say, for possessing real estate, stocks or works of art, they only do it when they sell an asset.
With the existing fiscal gap, nearly 80 percent of US citizens, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, are upset because the wealthiest people don’t pay “what would be fair”.
If the new Democratic initiative passes, the federal Government would demand from billionaires to annually contribute for their “sleeping” profits, whether they sell something or not.
Treasure Secretary, Janet Yellen, told CNN that she wouldn’t call it “a tax on the rich”, although it does make it easier to get capital gains from the wealthiest people that are not currently taxed.
For House of Representatives President, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, that measure would contribute to the state’s treasury at least some 200 billion dollars in 10 years, lower than the 3 to 3.2 billion Biden is planning to spend on social programs.
However, there is a problem: Republicans, who have always opposed that kind of proposals, won’t easily give their approval, and therefore, the head of state and lawmakers from the blue party would have to look for other ways of financing their investments.
Meanwhile, the fiscal gap as well as other problems in the United States will continue to be an issue pending solution.
Taken from Orbe weekly
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