Wealth Tax

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Own Mother Moved Out Of New York Because The Taxes Were Too High

March 4, 2019March 4, 2019 by Michael

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to come up with new ways to bankrupt America, but meanwhile we have now learned that her mother actually moved out of New York because the taxes were too high. When AOC’s father Sergio died, things got very tough financially for the family, and at one point Blanca Ocasio-Cortez was unable to pay the mortgage on the family home for an entire year. But ultimately she was able to come to an agreement with the bank, and she ended up moving to Florida where taxes and the cost of living are much lower…

‘I was cleaning houses in the morning and working as a secretary at a hospital in the afternoon. I was working from 6am until 11pm. And I prayed and prayed, and things worked out. After the children graduated from college, I figured it was time for me to move to Florida.’

Blanca said it was a no-brainer, adding: ‘I was paying $10,000 a year in real estate taxes up north. I’m paying $600 a year in Florida. It’s stress-free down here.’

And of course it greatly helps that there is no state income tax in Florida, while New York has the highest tax burden in the entire country by a wide margin.

Things are particularly oppressive in New York City. On top of federal taxes, state taxes, exceedingly high property taxes and a whole bunch of other taxes, the city itself also imposes an income tax on those residing there.

By the time it is all said and done, some New Yorkers end up handing over close to 50 percent of their incomes to various government entities once all forms of taxation are taken into consideration.

This is the socialist environment that has given us Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

And it isn’t as if the money is being used well. In fact, it has just been revealed that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife was handed $900,000,000 for a mental health program, and nobody seems to know what happened to the money…

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, was given $900 million to start a mental health initiative focusing on helping the homeless in the city. Four years later, no one seems to know what that money was actually used for, according to the New York Post.

The City Council discovered this shocking amount of potential waste during a meeting Wednesday. And while it sounds good to spend heavily on a mental health initiative, it appears that nobody has noticed any real benefits from that investment.

Perhaps NYC would have been better off spending that money bolstering their police.

So far in 2019, the murder rate in the city is up 37 percent compared to last year.

New York City is a total mess, and now AOC wants to make the entire nation just like it.

But AOC is far more ambitious than your typical tax and spend liberal. She wants to take government spending to crazy new levels that nobody has ever seen before.

For example, one new study has determined that AOC’s “Green New Deal” would cost U.S. taxpayers approximately 93 trillion dollars. The following comes from Fox News…

The sweeping “Green New Deal” proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., could cost as much as $93 trillion, or approximately $600,000 per household, according to a new study co-authored by the former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The sobering and staggering cost estimate came as Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris pointedly declined in an interview broadcast Sunday to put a price tag on the Green New Deal and “Medicare-for-all,” saying “it’s not about a cost,” but rather return on investment. The Green New Deal’s botched rollout included the release of an official document by Ocasio-Cortez’s office that promised economic security even for those “unwilling to work,” and called for the elimination of “farting cows” and air travel.

To put that number in perspective, U.S. GDP is about 19 trillion dollars a year, and the U.S. national debt is sitting at just over 22 trillion dollars right now.

It is easy to attack AOC, because she is the perfect member of Congress for the “idiocracy” that America has become.

She literally doesn’t know what she is talking about on just about any issue that you could possibly name, but the people of her district decided to send her to Washington anyway. And the frightening thing is that there are quite a few other new members of Congress that are even worse than her.

But as bad as AOC is, I have to give her credit for one thing.

At least she is willing to stand up and fight for what she believes.

If you regularly follow my work, you already know that I can’t stand the “seat fillers” in Washington that are interested in little more than protecting their political careers at all costs. They never make any waves, they never fight for anything important, and they spend most of their time raising money for the next campaign.

Because if you do stick your neck out in Washington, very powerful people will likely bring the hammer down on you, and that is something that AOC is finding out right now…

Two political action committees founded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s top aide funneled over $1 million in political donations into two of his own private companies, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

The cash transfers from the PACs — overseen by Saikat Chakrabarti, the freshman socialist Democrat’s chief of staff — run counter to her pledges to increase transparency and reduce the influence of “dark money” in politics.

Chakrabarti’s companies appear to have been set up for the sole purpose of obscuring how the political donations were used.

Of course the truth is that just about every member of Congress is deeply corrupt and should be kicked out of office.

But until the American people wake up and decide to take their government back, this is what we are stuck with, and that is a very depressing reality.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Taxes, Taxes And More Taxes: The Radical Economic Agenda Of The Left Has A Surprising Level Of Public Support

February 10, 2019February 10, 2019 by Michael

The left wants to raise your taxes, and most Americans are okay with that. I was shocked by the numbers that I am about to share with you, and I think that you will be shocked too. Once upon a time, being labeled as a “tax and spend liberal” was one of the worst things that could happen to a politician. During the presidential election of 1984, Walter Mondale was very honest about the fact that he wanted to raise taxes on the American people, and Ronald Reagan absolutely crushed him with that. In the end, it was one of the greatest election night landslides in history. But this time around we could potentially see the opposite. If things go badly for Trump, we could actually see a “tax and spend liberal” turn the map mostly blue in 2020. I know that sounds very, very strange, but the latest poll numbers show that the American people strongly support raising taxes on the wealthy.

For example, the most recent Politico poll found that 76 percent of registered voters believe that taxes should be raised on the richest Americans…

Surveys are showing overwhelming support for raising taxes on top earners, including a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Monday that found 76 percent of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. A recent Fox News survey showed that 70 percent of Americans favor raising taxes on those earning over $10 million — including 54 percent of Republicans.

Those numbers are absolutely overwhelming.

When even a Fox News survey shows that most Republicans want higher taxes, then you know that something has dramatically changed.

And this high level of support for tax increases persists even when voters are asked about specific proposals from Democrats on the far left. If you can believe it, 59 percent of Americans are even in favor of AOC’s proposal to raise the highest marginal tax rate to 70 percent…

A plan from first-term Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to slap a 70 percent marginal rate on income earned over $10 million clocked in at 59 percent support in a recent Hill/HarrisX poll.

The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, conducted Feb. 1-2, found that 61 percent favor a proposal like the “wealth tax” recently laid out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would levy a 2 percent tax on those with a net worth over $50 million and 3 percent on those worth over $1 billion. Just 20 percent opposed the idea. The poll surveyed 1,993 registered voters and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.

To me, voting for politicians that unashamedly want higher taxes is kind of like voting for more root canals or more telemarketing calls during dinner.

But right now the poll numbers clearly show that the left is winning the battle for hearts and minds, and that is a huge problem for the Republican Party.

Today, many Democrats work very hard to fight for their agenda in the court of popular opinion, but meanwhile most Republicans in Congress are simply “seat fillers” that make absolutely no effort to educate the public. This is something that must change if Republicans hope to ever turn things around.

So why do Democrats want higher taxes?

Well, the primary reason they need higher taxes is to pay for multi-trillion dollar programs such as the “Green New Deal” and “Medicare For All”.

In particular, the “Green New Deal” would take an insane amount of money to implement. Here is a summary of some of the craziest proposals in the “Green New Deal” that was put together by Michael Palicz…

Rebuild every single building in the U.S.

“Upgrade or replace every building in US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.”

Will end all traditional forms of energy in the next ten years.

The Green New Deal is “a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

Plans to ban nuclear energy within 10 years if possible.

“It’s unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.”

Build trains across oceans and end all air travel!

“Build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary”.

Don’t invest in new technology of Carbon Capture and Storage, just plant trees instead!

“We believe the right way to capture carbon is to plant trees and restore our natural ecosystems. CCUS technology to date has not proven effective.”

Mandates all new jobs be unionized.

“Ensure that all GND jobs are union jobs that pay prevailing wages and hire local.”

Nobody knows for sure what all of that will cost, but needless to say the total would be in the trillions of dollars.

But most Americans are not in favor of higher taxes on the wealthy because they want to see such radical proposals come to fruition.

Rather, they like the idea of higher taxes because they think somehow they will get some goodies out of it.

In recent years, politicians on the far left have gotten a lot of mileage out of turning all of our basic needs into “rights”. They have been boldly declaring that all Americans should have a “right” to housing, health care and a basic college education even if they don’t want to work for those things.

But if you are “entitled” to something, then that means that somebody else has to pay for it.

And most Americans are in favor of that concept until it becomes their turn to pay.

The Babylon Bee is a satire website, and their recent article about taxes was quite humorous…

Americans all over the country suggested they are OK with a majority of the people voting to take a minority of the people’s money, as long as they are not part of that minority.

“I am a very generous person, so I believe everyone else needs to pay their fair share,” said Lyle Hartright of Maine. “Everyone that isn’t me, I mean.”

“These are stunning results,” said one analyst. “We always believed that Americans were generous, but we never knew how generous. To offer to raise taxes to 70% or more on other people just goes to show how much compassion people have.”

America has already traveled quite far down the road toward socialism, and instead of reversing course, it looks like the American people want to pick up the pace.

But all we have to do to see where that road leads is to look at Venezuela. Unfortunately, most Americans are not making that connection at this point.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the nation. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Elizabeth Warren’s Annual Wealth Confiscation Tax Would “Redistribute” 2.75 Trillion Dollars Over 10 Years

January 24, 2019January 24, 2019 by Michael

Elizabeth Warren is making it exceedingly clear that she is a socialist, and that is quite frightening considering the fact that she could potentially become our next president. Unless some really big name unexpectedly enters the race, there is a decent chance that Elizabeth Warren could win the Democratic nomination in 2020. And if she ultimately won the general election, the Democrats would likely have control of both the House and the Senate during her first two years in the White House as well. So that means that the proposal that you are about to read about could actually become law in the not too distant future.

After AOC’s proposal to raise the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent received so much favorable attention, it was just a matter of time before Democratic presidential candidates started jumping on the “soak the rich” bandwagon, and the first one to strike was Elizabeth Warren.

When she announced her new proposal on Twitter, she dubbed it the “Ultra-Millionaire Tax”…

We need structural change. That’s why I’m proposing something brand new – an annual tax on the wealth of the richest Americans. I’m calling it the “Ultra-Millionaire Tax” & it applies to that tippy top 0.1% – those with a net worth of over $50M.

It would be bad enough if this was just a one-time tax on wealth.

But it isn’t.

Please note the use of the word “annual” in Warren’s tweet. That means that the rich would keep getting hit with this tax year after year after year.

Those with more than 50 million dollars in assets would pay a 2 percent tax each year, and those with more than a billion dollars in assets would pay 3 percent each year…

The Post reported that Warren has been advised by Saez and Gabriel Zucman, left-leaning economists affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, on a deal that would levy a 2 percent wealth tax on Americans with $50 million-plus in assets. For Americans with assets above $1 billion, that tax rate would increase to 3 percent.

The newspaper, citing a person familiar with the plan, reported that Warren’s plan would try to counter tax evasion by boosting funding for the IRS, and by levying a one-time tax penalty on people with more than $50 million who try to renounce their U.S. citizenship. It would also require that a certain number of people who pay the wealth tax be subject to annual audits, the Post reported.

3 percent may not sound like a lot to many of you. But over the course of a couple of decades many families could have their fortunes almost completely wiped out by this wealth confiscation tax.

According to economist Emmanuel Saez, this new tax would be imposed upon approximately 75,000 families and would raise 2.75 trillion dollars over 10 years.

Clearly this is a move by Warren to appeal to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. I really like how Zero Hedge made this point…

Elizabeth Warren has never been a friend to the wealthy. But in the age of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, merely advocating for “holding the rich accountable” simply doesn’t penetrate like it did back in 2008. And that’s because, on the left flank of the Democratic Party, you’re not really a progressive unless you believe that the existence of billionaires is a policy error.

And surprisingly, there is actually a lot of public support for such a proposal. In fact, a recent Fox News poll found that Americans overwhelmingly support soaking the rich…

Voters support tax increases on families making over $10 million annually by a 46-point margin (70 percent favor-24 percent oppose), and support a hike on those making over $1 million by 36 points (65-29 percent).

There is less support for a broader tax increase: 44 percent favor raising rates on those with income over $250,000, and a small minority, 13 percent, approves of an increase on all Americans.

Of course so much depends on how a survey is worded. For example, I would be willing to bet that a survey would show that well over 50 percent of all Americans would back my proposal to abolish the income tax completely.

Over the coming months, Democratic presidential contenders are going to be continuously trying to one up each other with their promises to tax the rich and give out free stuff. By the end, someone out there may even be promising to give free rides to the Moon to everyone.

But if Elizabeth Warren really wants to be considered a serious contender, she needs to eliminate the ridiculous gaffes that have plagued her in the past. For instance, she recently claimed that we have “two co-equal branches of government”…

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., already has declared that the government has “three chambers of Congress,” the House, the Senate and the presidency.

Now, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has claimed on Twitter that the government has “two co-equal branches of government, the president of the United States and Congress.”

“The Notorious RBG (Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg) is gonna be ticked off that she’s been forgotten again,” said a post on the Twitter news-aggregating site Twitchy.

And there is certainly no excuse for such a gaffe, because she used to be a law professor.

In the end, it is difficult to understand why so many Americans seem to want to march down the road toward socialism. Because as President Trump has noted, Venezuela has shown us where that road leads…

“We’re looking at Venezuela, it’s a very sad situation,” Trump told reporters. “That was the richest state in all of that area, that’s a big beautiful area, and by far the richest — and now it’s one of the poorest places in the world. That’s what socialism gets you, when they want to raise your taxes to 70 percent.”

He added: “You know, it’s interesting, I’ve been watching our opponents — our future opponents talk about 70 percent. No. 1, they can’t do it for 70 percent, it’s got to be probably twice that number. But, maybe more importantly what happens is you really have to study what’s happened to Venezuela. It’s a very, very sad situation.”

Unfortunately, political proposals don’t have to actually make sense, and right now Elizabeth Warren is doing all that she can to win the progressive vote.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the nation. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

After The Banksters Steal Money From Bank Accounts In Cyprus They Will Start Doing It EVERYWHERE

March 17, 2013 by Michael

Cyprus is a beta test. The banksters are trying to commit bank robbery in broad daylight, and they are eager to see if the rest of the world will let them get away with it. Cyprus was probably chosen because it is very small (therefore nobody will care too much about it) and because there is a lot of foreign (i.e. Russian) money parked there. The IMF and the EU could have easily bailed out Cyprus without any trouble whatsoever, but they purposely decided not to do that. Instead, they decided that this would be a great time to test the idea of a “wealth tax”. The government of Cyprus was given two options by the IMF and the EU – either they could confiscate money from private bank accounts or they could leave the eurozone. Apparently this was presented as a “take it or leave it” proposition, and many are using the world “blackmail” to describe what has happened. Sadly, this decision is going to set a very ominous precedent for the future and it is going to have ripple effects far beyond Cyprus. After the banksters steal money from bank accounts in Cyprus they will start doing it everywhere. If this “bank robbery” goes well, it will only be a matter of time before depositors in nations such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal are asked to take “haircuts” as well. And what will happen one day when the U.S. financial system collapses? Will U.S. bank accounts also be hit with a “one time” wealth tax? That is very frightening to think about.

Cyprus is a very small nation, so it is not the amount of money involved that is such a big deal. Rather, the reason why this is all so troubling is that this “wealth tax” is shattering confidence in the European banking system. Never before have the banksters come directly after bank accounts.

If everything goes according to plan, every bank account in Cyprus will be hit with a “one time fee” this week. Accounts with less than 100,000 euros will be hit with a 6.75% tax, and accounts with more than 100,000 euros will be hit with a 9.9% tax.

How would you feel if something like this happened where you live?

How would you feel if the banksters suddenly demanded that you hand over 10 percent of all the money that you had in the bank?

And why would anyone want to still put money into the bank in nations such as Greece, Italy, Spain or Portugal after all of this?

One writer for Forbes has called this “probably the single most inexplicably irresponsible decision in banking supervision in the advanced world since the 1930s.” And I would agree with that statement. I certainly did not expect to see anything like this in Europe. This is going to cause people to pull money out of banks all over the continent. If I was living in Europe (and especially if I was living in one of the more financially-troubled countries) that is exactly what I would be doing.

The bank runs that we witnessed in Cyprus over the weekend may just be a preview of what is coming. When this “wealth tax” was announced, it triggered a run on the ATMs and many of them ran out of cash very rapidly. A bank holiday was declared for Monday, and all electronic transfers of money were banned.

Needless to say, the people of Cyprus were not too pleased about all of this. In fact, one very angry man actually parked his bulldozer outside of one bank branch and threatened to physically bulldoze his way inside.

But this robbery by the banksters has not been completed yet. First, the Cypriot Parliament must approve the new law authorizing this wealth confiscation on Monday. If it is approved, then the actually wealth confiscation will take place on Tuesday morning.

According to Reuters, the new president of Cyprus is warning that if the bank account tax is not approved the two largest banks in Cyprus will collapse and there will be complete and total financial chaos in his country…

President Nicos Anastasiades, elected three weeks ago with a pledge to negotiate a swift bailout, said refusal to agree to terms would have led to the collapse of the two largest banks.

“On Tuesday … We would either choose the catastrophic scenario of disorderly bankruptcy or the scenario of a painful but controlled management of the crisis,” Anastasiades said in written statement.

In several statements since his election, he had previously categorically ruled out a deposit haircut.

The fact that the new president had previously ruled out any kind of a wealth tax has a lot of people very, very upset. They feel like they were flat out lied to…

“I’m furious,” said Chris Drake, a former Middle East correspondent for the BBC who lives in Cyprus. “There were plenty of opportunities to take our money out; we didn’t because we were promised it was a red line which would not be crossed.”

But apparently the wealth confiscation could actually have been far worse. According to one report, the IMF and the EU were originally demanding a 40% wealth tax on bank account holders in Cyprus…

As the President of Cyprus proclaims to his people that “we’ should all take responsibility as his historic decision will “lead to the permanent rescue of the economy,” it appears that the settled-upon 9.9% haircut is a ‘good deal’ compared to the stunning 40% of total deposits that Germany’s FinMin Schaeuble and the IMF demanded.

Could you imagine?

How would you feel if you woke up someday and 40% of all your money had been taken out of your bank accounts?

At this point, there is still some doubt about whether this plan will actually be adopted or not.

Right now the new president of Cyprus does not have the votes that he needs, but you can be sure that there is some high level arm twisting going on.

Originally the vote was supposed to happen on Sunday, but it was delayed until Monday to allow for some extra “persuading” to be done.

And of course the people of Cyprus are overwhelmingly against this wealth tax. In fact, one poll found that 71 percent of the entire population of Cyprus wants this plan to be voted down.

The funny thing is that Cyprus is not even in that bad of shape.

The unemployment rate is around 12 percent, but in other European nations such as Greece and Spain the unemployment rate is more than double that.

Cyprus has a debt to GDP ratio of about 87 percent, but the United States has a debt to GDP ratio of well over 100 percent.

So if they will go directly after bank accounts in Cyprus, what will stop them from going after bank accounts in larger nations when the time comes?

In the final analysis, this is a game changer. No longer will any bank account in the western world be considered to be 100 percent safe.

Trust is a funny thing. It takes a long time to build, but it can be destroyed in a single moment.

Trust in European banks has now been severely damaged, and that damage is not going to be undone any time soon.

A recent blog post by the CEO of Saxo Bank, Lars Christensen, did a great job of explaining how incredibly damaging this move by the IMF and the EU truly is…

This is a breach of fundamental property rights, dictated to a small country by foreign powers and it must make every bank depositor in Europe shiver. Although the representatives at the bailout press conference tried to present this as a one-off, they were not willing to rule out similar measures elsewhere – not that it would have mattered much as the trust is gone anyway. It is now difficult to expect any kind of limitation to what measures the Troika and EU might take when the crisis really starts to bite.

if you can do this once, you can do it again. if you can confiscate 10 percent of a bank customer’s money, you can confiscate 25, 50 or even 100 percent. I now believe we will see worse as the panic increases, with politicians desperately trying to keep the EUR alive.

Depositors in other prospective bailout countries must be running scared – is it safe to keep money in an Italian, Spanish or Greek bank any more? I dont know, must be the answer. Is it prudent to take the risk? You decide. I fear this will lead to massive capital outflows from weak Eurozone countries, just about the last thing they need right now.

This is the biggest moment that we have witnessed since the beginning of the European financial crisis.

Financial authorities in Europe could try to calm nerves by at least pretending that this will never happen again in any other country, but so far they are refusing to do that…

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the group of euro-area ministers, on Saturday declined to rule out taxes on depositors in countries beyond Cyprus, although he said such a measure was not currently being considered.

Such a measure is “not currently being considered” for other members of the eurozone?

Yeah, that sure is going to make people feel a lot more confident in what is coming next.

I have insisted over and over that the next wave of the economic collapse would originate in Europe, and we may have just witnessed the decision that will cause the dominoes to start to fall.

The banksters have sent a very clear message. When the chips are down, they are going to come after YOUR money.

So what do you think about the bank robbery that is taking place in Cyprus? Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…