Bamboozle Americans Again? Wealth Tax?

Let's Not Waste a Crisis!
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Government Leeches: tax the rich!
We need a wealth tax to cover the nation's great debt!

5-14-20, * -- Recently Obama adviser Rahm Emanuel [current mayor of Chicago Illinois] in an interview reminded us of his 2008 financial crisis quotation, "Never allow a crisis to go to waste."

​The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a wonderful opportunity for those who want greater control over our lives. Sadly, too many Americans have already taken the bait. We've allowed politicians and bureaucrats to dictate to us what's an essential business and what isn't.

To solve the Covid virus lockdown economic crisis in the USA, leftist politicians are arguing that a "temporary' wealth tax is applicable and should be levied on a variety of accumulated assets of Americans including cash, money market funds, real estate property, trust funds, owner-occupied housing and other wealth accumulations [of RICH people!]. How much? Assume a taxpayer earns $150,000 and has a net worth consisting of a business or home and annually falls in the 32% tax bracket - their tax would be: $48,800. A person with a net worth of $500,000 - their tax would be: $160,000. The long-term effect of a wealth tax is that people will try to avoid it by not accumulating as much wealth or concealing it. A wealth tax has become increasingly attractive because it lends itself to demagoguery [distrust and dislike] about the wealth disparity in the US. [..] Democrat presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren incentives to propose a wealth tax as a part of their campaign rhetoric. Currently leftists lament that multi-billionaires haven't made acceptable charitable efforts to address the coronavirus crisis. [So we must force them! Oh and pad the Democrat bills with pork like money for abortions and museums! -- Ed.]
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My questions to these political leeches are:
To whom does the billionaire's wealth belong?
Most wealthy people accumulated their great wealth by working hard, serving and pleasing their fellow man in the pursuit of profits. Unfortunately, the incendiary rhetoric against wealthy people and lack of understanding has led to "profit" becoming a dirty word. Entrepreneurs and business people earn their profits just as wages are payments to labor, interest to capital and rent to land. In order to earn profits in free markets, entrepreneurs must identify and satisfy society by supplying it with products, services and other resources.
Their survival depends on pleasing ordinary people. Public schools, post offices and motor vehicle departments' survival are not strictly tied to pleasing people but rather on politicians and the ability of government to impose taxes.​

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Some advocates of wealth taxes [1] and other forms of taxation might argue that they are temporary measures to get us over the COVID-19 virus crisis. Do not buy that argument. The great Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman once said:

"Nothing is more permanent than a temporary government program."

[1] Coronavirus: Wealth taxes may be rolled out globally
5-11-20, CNBC --Roger Bootle, chairman of Capital Economics, said he was concerned that some governments will be raising tax rates to mitigate the impacts of the virus pandemic. “If the deficit doesn’t come down dramatically as a result of economic growth alone, then something will have to be done, and there’s a choice between either reducing the rate of spending or raising taxes. I’d be very much in favor of reducing the rate of spending — the danger is, if you put up tax rates, you clobber incentives and you reduce the efficiency of the economy, and that’s the very, very last thing that you should be doing.” Bootle added that a tax response to the crisis would become a political issue as policymakers navigated reopening their economies, recovering lost GDP (gross domestic product) and pleasing the public.

*Excerpted and adapted full original report from Professor of Economics George Mason University, Walter E. Williams​ here and here