A Fat Cat Tax. I like the sound of it. The imagery is so much better than saying, as I often do, that we should tax the rich, or, more gently, that the wealthy should pay its fair share. It’s the same thing no matter how you say it, except for the visuals.

Fat cat tax. That’s one of the ideas in the Britain Labour Party’s election manifesto where it proposes a tax hike on the top 5 percent. The party’s new platform is more radical than anything our Democratic Party has suggested or is likely to suggest, but Labour is trying to get back to its left-wing roots which it abandoned during the Tony Blair era. Based on its weak numbers lately, the move to the right hadn’t done it any good. Getting a little radical and earning some extra media can’t hurt. See for example: Bernie Sanders.

Here’s the plan. The vast majority of Brits, 95 percent of them, would pay no more taxes than they do now. Taxes would rise for anyone making more than the equivalent of $103,000 American. The rate would go up still more for those making over $159,000. Now, here’s where the “fat cat tax” part comes in. Companies would pay an extra 2.5 percent in taxes on every salary more than $425,000, and an extra 5 percent for anyone who makes over $645,000.

Why does the Labour Party want all that extra money? Because it wants to spend more, of course, on things like getting rid of university tuition, building homes and improving health and social care. Call them the “tax and spend” Labour Party if you want. I’m good with that, except I would rephrase it. “Tax and spend” is a phrase the right wing came up with to make it sound like the left wants to tax people for spite and spend money for the hell of it. A more accurate way to say it is, “Tax so you can spend on things the society needs.”

Most Democratic politicians, especially those in Arizona, avoid the “T” word like it’s a coiled rattlesnake. Yet they say we need to spend more on education, and roads, and social services, and state parks. How are they going to do that? Sure, it’s a great idea to get rid of giveaway tax breaks, but I’m not convinced that’s going to generate enough to fund all the state’s needs which have gone wanting for far too long. Whenever we go to the tax well, it always ends up as a hike in the regressive sales tax. That’s what the renewal of Prop. 301 for education is all about. Right now it’s a six-tenths of a cent sales tax which is set to expire soon. Education advocates not only want to renew it, they want to move it up to a penny. They’re absolutely right about the need for more fund, but there’s a better way to get there than the sales tax.

By wide margins, Arizonans want more money for our children’s educations, and they want less pains in their asses from driving over potholed roads. We could deal with both those issues if more money flowed into the state coffers. It doesn’t sound like a hard sell to tell 95 percent of the voters we can fund schools, roads and more without costing them a dime. We’ll pay for it with a tax on the wealthy, which will make them . . . just a little less wealthy. If Democrats start saying that with one voice and continue speaking up without being intimidated or letting themselves be drowned out by tax cutting Republicans and their fat cat donors, the word will get through. Remember, you don’t need a 95 percent vote to win elections. You only need 50 percent plus one.

This article appears in May 11-17, 2017.

14 replies on “A ‘Fat Cat Tax’?”

  1. Safier, you are so full of sh*t …

    “Tax and spend”?

    How about call it what it is: Socialism, take from the people who worked for it and have it and give it to the people who haven’t.

    But the only problem with Socialism is that sooner or later, “you eventually run out of other people’s money” (gee, what an irony..this quote is from Margaret Thatcher who is currently rolling over in her grave with this liberal Labour Party proposal).

  2. As long as it’s not to pay for more and more illegal aliens and their children, I’m happy to pay more in taxes for useful things like smart infrastructure, mental health care, and education. Unfortunately that won’t be the case.

  3. Except that ‘the rich’ (LOL) already pay the lion’s share of all taxes and the poor pay zilch. Save this socialist crap for people who are too self involved and uniformed. It doesn’t wash for anyone who has ever worked their way out of poverty aka has grown up in the true sense of the word.

  4. Bad idea. High tax rates in the U.K. is why the Beatles had to move, we do not need to go though that again do we?

  6. Just a note here. Since 1980, on the federal level, the very rich and large corporations now pay 1/4th of what they did from the 50’s – 70’s. Starting with Reagan the very rich have received about 15 rounds of tax breaks. Republicans have shifted some of that lose to the bottom 90% and covered the rest with deficits and spending cuts to education, infrastructure etc. Somehow, even paying higher taxes, the wealthy were still wealthy back then.

  7. That’s exactly right Patriot. Under progressive vision the rich should work hard, take risks and surrender their earnings for others. What could possibly motivate them? Lower tax rates elsewhere, leaving the US a virtual wasteland of losers.

    Please work to become rich and stop confiscating someone else’s money.

  8. I’m not talking corporate taxes I’m talking personal taxes. Every piece of democratic legislation is designed to punish the individual that has become successful by laddering tax brackets. personal exemptions are gone except the mortgage interest, and things like the Affordable care Act even punished higher income people.

    Married Filing Joint Taxable Income Tax Brackets and Rates, 2017
    Rate Taxable Income Bracket Tax Owed
    10%
    $0 to $18,650 10% of taxable income
    15%
    $18,650 to $75,900 $1,865 plus 15% of the excess over $18,650
    25%
    $75,900 to $153,100 $10,452.50 plus 25% of the excess over $75,900
    28%
    $153,100 to $233,350 $29,752.50 plus 28% of the excess over $153,100
    33%
    $233,350 to $416,700 $52,222.50 plus 33% of the excess over $233,350
    35%
    $416,700 to $470,700 $112,728 plus 35% of the excess over $416,700
    39.60%
    $470,700+ $131,628 plus 39.6% of the excess over $470,700

    When you make it they take it.

  9. You are several years behind the curve. England has already done a “fat cat” tax and it was a disaster.

    In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than 1 million to HM Revenue and Customs. This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50p top rate of income tax.

    Increasing the highest rate of tax actually led to a large loss in revenues for the British Government.

    Since the US implemented supply side economics in the US starting in 1981, our jobs have increased by 50%, jobs in England have only increased by 22% and even less in France – 12%.

    If we cared about our students, we would be sure to have jobs waiting for them by implementing scientific taxation – a top federal rate of 25%, not the current 40%, plus 12% California state tax, plus 14% Social Security = 66%.

  10. Patriot 2

    You didn’t add the 15.3% for Social Security and Medicare taxes or the 13.3% California income tax and the 8% sales tax when you go to spend the money you make.

  11. Clearly, the abundant far-right commenters, who feel no responsibility to anyone — anyone American, let alone Arizonan — until they themselves get stuck, are targeting The Weekly for special scrutiny. Their strategy: destroy the media’s credibility (personalize the attacks if you can), state and repeat lies and half-lie as if they were the truth, and eventually the populace will be softened up enough to belief their reactionary crap. Only, it doesn’t work. Note that every far-right bleat gets three to four to a dozen times the Dislikes as Likes. Still, they keep at it. Except for their pathetic attempts to soil The Range and The Weekly, they have no way of fundamentally doing anything about life here in AZ; being consistently negative is what keeps them feeling important and potent. What a pathetic lot.

  13. Response to “Just Sayin’

    Provide some evidence and logic other than expecting us to believe something just because you say it.

    What do you believe will create a better education system and why do you believe it. What evidence do you have? What logic are you using? Just sneering and denigrating doesn’t cut it and getting a mob to back you up doesn’t cut it.

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