Aug. 16, 2011
Radio personality Mark Levin asked us to do the math. There are less than 500 billionaires in the U.S. at this time and there are about 3.1 million millionaires*. President Obama keeps talking about taxing these guys to fix the failing economy. If only we force them to do their fair share, our debt of $14 trillion would come right on down. Never mind that this argument is class warfare, let’s analyze it.
Forget about taxing the Richie Rich’s at 40% or 50% of their annual income. Let’s get crazy. If we took half of the billionaires’ total wealth away, which would be far greater than the amount we could actually tax them, the resulting amount would come to only about $250 billion, assuming each one is worth $1 billion. The millionaires, because there are so many more of them, have a far greater share. They own about $3.2 trillion all told, assuming each is worth $1 million.
If we took half of the millionaires’ assets, it would total $1.75 trillion. Adding the billionaires’ contribution, this adds up to about $2 trillion. This unrealistic total (we can’t tax anyone by taking half their total assets), doesn’t even come close to our current $14 trillion debt. Congress recently raised the debt ceiling, so the debt will now be allowed to rise to over $17 trillion. This is only a theoretical argument. If it really happened, many of our companies would collapse, as would the entire economy. I’m glad we checked, though.
When the president says that if only millionaires and billionaires would do their fair share the U.S. debt would go away, he’s blowing hot air up your skirt. We know, ‘cause we just did the math!
*The data in this post was retrieved mostly from Wikipedia. On Aug. 20, 2011, on Fox and Friends, it was revealed by Wall Street Journal economics reporter Kelly Evans that there were only 237,000 millionaires as of 2009, down from the previous year. If this is correct, and it's a true trend, then my data for revenue is less than 10% of what I said it would be. Millionaires would account for only about $230 billion, and not 3.2 trillion, and that makes my argument that much stronger. I apologize for my error.
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