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The Guardian
6 hours ago
- Business
- The Guardian
The Trump-Musk feud exposes America's wealth-hoarding crisis
As the world watches Donald Trump and Elon Musk publicly fight over the sweeping legislation moving through Congress, we should not let the drama distract us. There is something deeper afoot: unprecedented wealth concentration – and the unbridled power that comes with such wealth – has distorted our democracy and is driving societal and economic tensions. Musk, the world's richest man, wields power no one person should have. He has used this power to elect candidates that will enact policies to protect his interests and he even bought his way into government. While at the helm of Doge, Musk dramatically reshaped the government in ways that benefit him – for instance, slashing regulatory agencies investigating his businesses – and hollowed out spending to make way for tax cuts that would enrich him. Musk is just one example of the ways in which unchecked concentration of wealth is eroding US democracy and economic equality. Just 800 families in the US are collectively worth almost $7tn – a record-breaking figure that exceeds the wealth of the bottom half of the US combined. While most of us earn money through labor, these ultra-wealthy individuals let the tax code and their investments do the work for them. Under the current federal income tax system, over half of the real-world income available to the top 0.1% of wealth-holders (those with $62m or more) goes totally untaxed. As a result, billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have gotten away with paying zero dollars in federal income taxes in some years, even when their real sources of income were soaring. On the other side, millions of hard-working Americans are struggling to make ends meet. Their anxiety is growing as tariffs threaten to explode already rising costs. A broken tax code means unchecked wealth-hoarding. The numbers are staggering: $1tn of wealth was created for the 19 richest US households just last year (to put that number into perspective, that is more than the output of the entire Swiss economy). That was the largest one-year increase in wealth ever recorded. I have studied this rapidly ballooning wealth concentration, and like my colleagues who focus on democracy and governance, I am alarmed by the increasingly aggressive power wielded by a small number of ultra-wealthy individuals. The good news is, hope is not lost. We can break up this dangerous concentration of wealth by taxing billionaires. There is growing public support for doing just this, even among Republican voters. A recent Morning Consult poll found that 70% of Republicans believed 'the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes', up from 62% six years ago. With many of Trump's 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy set to expire this year, legislators have an opportunity to reset the balance driving dangerous wealth-hoarding. Rather than considering raising taxes on middle-class Americans or even households earning above $400,000, they must focus on the immense concentration of wealth among the very top 0.1% of Americans. This would not only break up concentrated wealth, but also generate substantial revenue. One mechanism for achieving this goal is a wealth tax on the ultra-wealthy. The Tax Policy Center recently released an analysis of a new policy called the Five & Dime tax. This proposal would impose a 5% tax on household wealth exceeding $50m and a 10% tax on household wealth over $250m. The Five & Dime tax would raise $6.8tn over 10 years, slow the rate at which the US mints new billionaires, and reduce the billionaires' share of total US wealth from 4% to 3%. While breaking up dangerous wealth concentration is reason enough to tax billionaires, this revenue could be invested in programs that support working families and in turn boost the economy. Lawmakers could opt for high-return public investments like debt-free college, helping working families afford childcare, expanding affordable housing, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, and strengthening climate initiatives. Ultimately, taxes on the ultra-rich could transform American society for the better and grow the economy by discouraging unproductive financial behaviors and promoting fair competition – leading to a more dynamic and efficient system. Critics will inevitably claim such a tax would stifle economic growth or prove too challenging for the IRS to implement. But in our highly educated nation, the idea that growth and innovation comes from just a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals does not withstand scrutiny. And while there are challenges for administering any bold proposal, America has always been up for a challenge. After witnessing the consequences of billionaire governance firsthand under this administration, Americans understand what's at stake. We are seeing how unchecked, astronomical wealth has corrupted American democracy and stifled the economy. It's not too late to act. Now it's time for lawmakers who care about the country's future to embrace solutions that empower everyone, not just the few at the top. Gabriel Zucman is professor of economics at the University of California Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics
Wall Street Journal
a day ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Welcome to the Age of Excusability
What do you stand for? Once that was the fundamental question in American politics. These days it seems a quaint memory of a sepia-toned past. This is 2025. Our most meaningful values are under threat. Democracy is on the ballot. Today everyone stands for the same thing—victory at all costs. The most pertinent question: What are you willing to excuse? The big story since 2016 has been the Republican Party's willingness to look past Donald Trump's personal shortcomings. The vulgarity and inconstancy, the boorishness, the apparent lack of a moral compass—all of it has proved excusable in the name of making America great again. Even Mr. Trump's lies about the 'stolen' 2020 election have been swept under the rug by party grandees eager for power. Beating back the Democratic threat is too important. He has to be excused.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
American presidents have long used autopens. Just ask Trump.
Donald Trump has repeatedly slammed Joe Biden's use of an autopen during his presidency, going so far as to center its usage in a broad investigation Trump announced Wednesday into his predecessor. But politicians on both sides of the aisle are deeply familiar with the tool. The autopen — also referred to as the robot pen — replicates an individual's signature using a writing utensil, rather than a scanned and printed version of it. The tool, which resembles a small printer with a long arm that allows users to attach a pen to the center, has a long history of use in American politics. The device was first patented in 1803, according to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, an independent research organization that collects original manuscripts and historical documents. Iterations of the autopen have been used by presidents as far back as Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that 'I could not, now therefore, live without' the device he used to duplicate letters. 'The Autopen has long been a tool for the world's most influential leaders, allowing them to more effectively apply their time and attention to important issues without compromising the impact of personalized correspondence," according to The Autopen Co., which sells the machines. U.S. leaders on both sides of the aisle have used the autopen for decades — and have faced criticism for their use of the tool. During Lyndon Johnson's administration, the autopen was featured in The National Enquirer for an article headlined 'One of the Best Kept Secrets in Washington: The Robot That Sits In For The President.' Even Trump himself has said he used autopens, but 'only for very unimportant papers.' 'We may use it, as an example, to send some young person a letter because it's nice,' Trump said in March, according to The Associated Press. 'You know, we get thousands and thousands of letters, letters of support for young people, from people that aren't feeling well, etcetera. But to sign pardons and all of the things that he signed with an autopen is disgraceful.' In 2004, George W. Bush's secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, faced criticism from some veterans for using an autopen to sign condolence letters to families of troops killed in the Iraq War. In 2011, Barack Obama used an autopen to sign a Patriot Act extension — becoming the first known, apparent use of the tool by a president for legislation — and used it subsequently in his administration. The move resulted in Republicans questioning the constitutionality of Obama's decision, though Bush's Office of Legal Counsel, which is part of the Department of Justice, had already concluded the use of autopens was constitutional. 'The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law,' the office's 2005 ruling stated. "Rather, the President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President's signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.' There is no specific law governing a president's use of an autopen. But the ruling from the Department of Justice hasn't stopped Trump from accusing Biden and his team of illegally using the tool, alleging that Biden's team used an autopen to sign documents without Biden's permission or knowledge. Trump has also claimed that Biden's round of pardons — including 'preemptive pardons' of Jan. 6 investigators, his son Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci — were illegal and are 'void' and 'vacant.' However, most legal scholars are in agreement that pardons cannot be overturned once granted. In 1869, a federal court ruled, 'The law undoubtedly is, that when a pardon is complete, there is no power to revoke it, any more than there is power to revoke any other completed act.' Biden has denied the claims that any decision was ever made or issued in his name without his approval or knowledge. Trump and other Republican accusers have provided no evidence that aides used an autopen without the former president's approval. 'Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,' Biden told POLITICO in a statement. 'I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false. This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.'
Fox News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Iconic Hollywood filmmaker David Mamet dishes on why he was 'kicked out of the left'
One famed filmmaker and playwright spoke to Fox News about his transformation from a "brain-dead liberal" to his journey into constitutional conservatism. Film director and playwright David Mamet, known for writing the stage play "Glengarry Glen Ross" and its film adaptation, opened up about his political values during a Thursday interview on the "Brian Kilmeade Show." Mamet discussed how he got "kicked out of the left" about 25 years ago and what led him to discover his right-leaning values. He noted his past comments referring to himself as a "brain-dead liberal" and urging for political civility in an article he wrote, resulting in many of his leftist peers losing contact with him. "I didn't know any Republicans, so I didn't understand what conservatism was," he said. "Then I got kicked out of the left, and I started researching what the constitutional conservatism was about, and I got very, very interested and very excited about it — here I am now." Mamet noted that he became disillusioned with the Democratic Party and its values, explaining how he thought that the party did not best represent American workers and had become the "party of the elites." "I discovered my conservative beliefs because I discovered everything I thought and believed about the Democratic Party was false," he said. Amid a tumultuous period in American politics, Mamet expressed optimism about the future following President Donald Trump's election victory in November 2024. "America is self-correcting again, as we saw in the election," Mamet said. "And the red states are thriving." Referring to his vast theater experience, Mamet also touched upon the media and entertainment's focus on "social consciousness." "Black people are people too, gay people are people too, but the problem with that is, everybody knows that," he said. "So we don't want to come to a theater or a movie to get lectured to, right? Our wives will do that — so in order to keep their place, the idea of a meritocracy crumbled in the media, so the awards and safety, or the illusion… was awarded to those who could scream the loudest." Mamet released his book "The Disenlightenment: Politics, Horror, and Entertainment" on June 3, which details his musings about politics and culture.
Business Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Business Times
Tackling America's diploma divide
[LONDON] Why is US President Donald Trump going after Harvard University and other elite colleges? The official reason is antisemitism, but over 600 Harvard professors, many of them Jewish, think that charge is ludicrous. Economics cannot be the reason, either. Higher education is a wildly successful industry that accounts for 4.5 million American jobs. Leaving that industry without foreign customers by refusing to issue them visas is bonkers. The actual reason is Politics 101. Universities and their graduates are increasingly disliked by broad swaths of the US electorate. Beating up pointy-headed academics makes for excellent politics, even if it is terrible policy. It is a cliche of American politics that Trumpian populism was fuelled by the divide between arrogant college graduates brandishing elite degrees and regular folks with a high-school diploma or less. But it is a cliche that contains more than a kernel of truth. Books with titles like Polarised by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics have made the point abundantly, and politicians like Hillary Clinton did not help by calling Trump voters a 'basket of deplorables'. What is to be done? Getting rid of elite educational institutions – as Trump seems to want – is a non-starter. Progressive non-Trumpistas ought to have a better alternative, but they are hemmed in by history. A generation ago, right-wing critics accused the welfare state of handing out benefits indiscriminately. Ronald Reagan's talk of 'welfare queens' was wildly exaggerated, but it left a political mark. Liberal politicians responded by trimming the redistributive state (see Bill Clinton's vow to 'end welfare as we know it') and restricting handouts to the 'deserving' poor. Liberal theorists admitted what they had long denied: that it is legitimate to distinguish between those who deserve and do not deserve help. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up In moral philosophy, how and when people come to deserve their lot in life, and whether desert is a valid criterion for the allocation of honours and material rewards, is a central question. In the 1980s and 1990s, a school of liberal philosophers, known as 'luck egalitarians', argued that justice requires that we distinguish between 'circumstances' and 'choices'. Income inequalities arising from circumstances should be offset, because no one can be blamed for having been born destitute. But if you inherit a fortune and choose to gamble it away, society should not rescue you from your own irresponsibility. This position aligned liberals with the moral intuitions of the middle class. Of course the hard-working citizen who plays by the rules deserves the bankable degrees, the good jobs, the comfy house in a safe neighbourhood! But this position created another problem: hubris. Winners, as philosopher Michael J Sandel put it, tend 'to inhale too deeply of their success, to forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way'. Once you have the smug conviction that you deserve your Harvard degree, it won't take much to persuade you that those at the bottom deserve their fate, too. Soon enough, you will be another coastal elitist, looking down on the poor souls who inhabit flyover country. That, in a nutshell, is the contemporary liberal's conundrum: express too little belief in merit and desert, and you seem to betray the American dream; but express too much of it, and you seem to betray those left behind by the American dream – including the downwardly mobile white males without college degrees who ended up voting for Trump. Is there a way out? Can we keep our belief in education as the ultimate source of social uplift while avoiding the uplifted noses of the educated? Yes, as long as we recognise that there is no going back: the solutions will require more faith in merit and responsibility, not less. The ultimate slight elites can perpetrate upon the less fortunate is to doubt their ability to manage their own lives. Want to piss off those not fortunate enough to have gone to university and obtain a well-paying job? Treat them as helpless victims, in the way progressive politicians and activists often have. That is no way to build a society of equals. Universities also have to take merit more seriously. Harvard can rightly be accused of being too woke, but more damning is the charge that it has been insufficiently meritocratic. It is not a coincidence that in the Ivy League, children of the top 1 per cent outnumber those from the bottom half of the income distribution. Admissions preferences for alumni kids and places for athletes in elite sports like rowing and squash keep it that way. The absurd status gap between white-collar and blue-collar jobs must go, too. And it can go because it wasn't always that way. I am the child of academics. One of the first things that struck me after arriving in the United States, many years ago, was that the plumber who came to fix the toilet was not too impressed by the family that had hired him. His car was larger than ours and, judging by his fees, he made quite a bit more money than my professor father. Over the last quarter-century, technology changed this: office workers with knowledge of Word and Excel could now be paid better than a plumber or electrician. But in the next quarter-century, technology may well operate in the opposite direction. AI will research statutes and case law better than the best paralegal, read test results better than the best radiologist, and code better than the best programmer. By contrast, the person who can repair your sink or care for your elderly relative will become ever more valued. A little honesty will go a long way, too. I used to be a Harvard professor, and the list of lucky breaks that put me there is long. To claim otherwise would be a violation of Harvard's motto: veritas, or truth. PROJECT SYNDICATE The writer, a former finance minister of Chile, is dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
