Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign has released a tax “calculator for the billionaires” after coming under attack from Bill Gates and Leon Cooperman over her wealth tax plan.
“Some billionaires seem confused about how much they would pay under Elizabeth’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax,” the tool says on her campaign website. “Don’t worry, now we have a calculator for that too.”
Warren, a leading 2020 Democratic presidential contender, is proposing a 2 percent tax on households with a net worth between $50 million and $1 billion. Anyone with a net worth above $1 billion would be taxed at 3 percent.
Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, slammed Warren’s plan Wednesday. He claimed he would have to pay $100 billion, though that isn’t supported.
Cooperman, meanwhile, also criticized the plan and Warren herself, saying she acts like “a parent chiding an ungrateful child” in a letter to her last week.
Users on the tax calculator website can pick between Gates, Cooperman, and a half-dozen other billionaires to find out how much they would pay based on their current estimated net worth.
Gates, for instance, would pay about $6.4 billion under the wealth tax based on an estimated net worth of $107 billion.
“Don’t worry too much about Bill Gates,” the calculator says. “If history is any guide, if billionaires do nothing other than invest their wealth in the stock market, it’s likely that their wealth will continue to grow.”
Cooperman’s tax would be about $151 million based on his net worth of $32 billion.
“This amount, which you likely won’t even feel, will help us invest in education from birth through college and help finance healthcare for everyone,” the calculator says.
Critics have derided Warren’s wealth taxes as punishing successful Americans.
She has said that wealthy Americans were aided by the costly infrastructure, education, and other national assets in achieving their gains so they should be willing to reinvest in them.
Warren reminds me of an angry schoolmarm, ex-wife and mother-in-law all rolled into a nasty package.
The old “eat the rich” game. Soviets did that,the poor starved.
Pocahonky makes me want to puke.