Bloomberg Pushes Tax Hike Agenda Amid Presidency Bid - Media

Tom Burroughes

4 February 2020

Billionaire Democratic candidate and media tycoon Michael Bloomberg wants to reverse Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts and slap a “surtax” on people with annual incomes over $5 million, media reports said. Bloomberg’s plans show how “the rich”, however that term is defined, are being targeted in tax plans by a number of presidential candidates this year.

CNBC reported that Bloomberg’s plan will generate a total of about $5 trillion and fund initiatives for areas such as healthcare, education, tackling climate change and infrastructure.

In this presidential election year, the threat of taxes on wealth, as well as higher rates of income tax and other areas, has become an important theme. Real or perceived increases in wealth inequality – arguably aggravated by forces such as central bank money creation - have fueled political rhetoric across the political aisle. Democrat senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, for example, has promoted the idea of a wealth tax on the super-wealthy.

The CNBC report said that Bloomberg’s campaign did not say how much revenue will be raised by a surtax on incomes above $5.0 million a year, although it will affect less than 0.1 per cent of all US taxpayers.

President Trump cut US corporate taxes – which had been some of the highest in the OECD collection of industrialized nations – to as low as 21 per cent. The report said that Bloomberg wants to reverse the cut to set it at 28 per cent; he also wants to hike capital gains taxes on high-income taxpayers.

As a former Mayor of New York City, and founder of the news and information service that bears his name, Bloomberg is seen as one of the more “moderate” candidates for the Democratic Party ticket. He ran as a Republican as NYC mayor. His Wall Street connections mark him as friendlier to the banking and finance world than arguably any of his rivals. On the flipside, some conservative and libertarian-leaning commentators have criticized his perceived relish for interfering in consumers’ choices for health reasons, as well as his stated hostility to private ownership of firearms.

Bloomberg has also been among a trend of wealthy US citizens making big gifts to institutions. In late 2018 have gave $1.8 billion to John Hopkins University to fund medical research. The university was Bloomberg’s undergraduate alma mater.