Yellen Backs Dems' 'Wealth' Tax - But Won’t Call It What It Is: THEFT

P. Gardner Goldsmith | October 28, 2021

Through a series of rapacious, telegraphing, predictive statements going back to February, Bidenistas ranging from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have expressed their thirst for a “capital gains tax” on things – get this -- for which no one has recognized any capital gain.

Both the rhetoric and the proposed government theft are stunning. But it’s Yellen’s hallucinatory Alice-In-Wonderland relabeling of the robbery that is the most remarkable, and actually does us a mild service, exposing the fact that all taxation truly IS relabeled theft, and the fact that everything she and her government pals do is based on such theft.

The proposal actually goes back to February, when, as Business Insider’s Rounak Jain noted:

In a virtual conference hosted by The New York Times, Yellen discussed ways to fund the Biden administration's long-term economic reconstruction programme -- such as a hike in capital gains tax as well as taxing unrealised profits.

That would be a capital gains tax on non-gains.

Added Jain:

Capital gains tax is a tax on the profit that investors realise on the sale of their assets. If you sell shares that you own in a company and make a profit when you sell them, you pay a tax on the profit. The current rate in the US is up to 37%, based on the asset type, period of holding, and the income of the investor.

And, one ought to note, capital gains taxes come after the feds already taxed the gross income, leaving a net from which a person funded his or her investment in that asset.

But the politicians want money. They always want money, and nearly 40 percent of what you earned from a wise investment and patience to realize a profit? That’s not enough. They want more, and now, they are proposing a tax on your wealth even before you have it priced and sold and realized a new profit.

Senate Fiscal Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sen. Liz Warren (D-MA), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) all have either pushed the proposal or offered support for the idea, and Pelosi has called it what it is: a wealth tax.

But, appearing on CNN Sunday, Yellen firmly held to the fantasy that it’s not a wealth tax, but that, instead, it’s a capital gains tax – even though she contradicts herself and, in the same breath, admits that this isn’t really profit from capital gains at all:

Well. Um… I think what’s under consideration is a proposal that, uh, Senator Wyden and that the Senate Finance Committee have been looking at that would, um, impose, um, a tax on unrealized capital gains…

"Unrealized capital gains."

A better non sequitur might not be found. Someone at CNN should have tapped Ms. Yellen on the shoulder and mentioned to her that there is no such thing as an "unrealized" capital GAIN.

Let’s not fall into any kind of linguistic trap to label “a capital gain” something that the government says you might sell, which they assume you’ll sell for a profit rather than a loss, but which you have not sold at all.

Yellen added:

Um, I wouldn’t call that a wealth tax, but, um, it would help get at uh, capital gains which, um, are an extraordinarily large part of the incomes of the wealthiest individuals and, uh, right now, uh, escape taxation, uh, until they’re realized…

That’s right, they’re an “extraordinarily large part of the incomes of the wealthiest individuals” before they’re actually creating income at all.

In other words, she’s saying that things that are not income are income, not merely currently possessed assets.

Because this is not in any way, at all, even slightly, remotely – a WEALTH tax.

But, that sheds light on the bigger ethical and economic issues.

It sheds light on the fact that, whether it’s new “income”, or something one acquired years earlier, whether it’s liquid monetary units, or land property, or a painting, or a bartered item, that which you acquire, own, and value, is ALL your wealth. If you just earned it, if you made it as part of a new investment, or from selling something you owned for decades, or you have not sold it and the item has not been priced? It’s yours. Not Yellen's.

It’s not Pelosi’s, not Wyden’s, not Warren’s, not Biden’s…

 

So, let’s stop pretending there is a distinction when it comes to what the politicians can and cannot take from people. It’s all taking. It is all theft.

If one person takes from you, it’s theft. If fifty people “vote” on it, it’s still theft. If 49 people vote “Yes” on taking your property, and they allow you a single “No” vote, it is still theft.

Related: The Lessons On Tax Cuts That Lawmakers Need to Learn | MRCTV

All government operations are predicated on theft, plain and simple, and the less often they steal from folks, the better.

This is not only a moral precept, it is an economic axiom.

By taking other people’s money, politicians prevent those people from showing their own values. The politicians redirect that money into areas where the original, true, owners might not have spent it, thus removing any ability to see what people truly value.

Deriding the “wealthy” and claiming – or implying – that they don’t need the money that is their property, not only breaches the moral, ethical, and Biblical proscription against stealing, it messes up economic calculation, shoveling money into non-productive ventures, stifling hard work, and stifling real investment that could lead to new businesses and breakthroughs for the world to enjoy in a flourishing, competitive market.

It will lead people to stash assets elsewhere, in foreign nations that won’t steal these kinds of assets, just as Business Insider – INDIA – pointed out in February.

Yellen’s fumbling, meandering, childish attempt to portray this wealth tax as a “capital gains tax” when no gains have been realized also tells us that she and the Bidenistas are eager to find out about everything you own.

Last I heard, that was a breach of the Fourth Amendment (as is the income tax, really).

But if politicians and bureaucrats are willing to play so easy with the meaning of words, does anyone think they’ll abide by the Fourth Amendment?

Or any other portion of the Constitution?

Related: Fed-Up Taxpayers Dissolve Their Ohio Town! | MRCTV


(Cover Photo: Paul Morigi)