Greedy Democrats take aim at Taylor Swift — and – Latest News
Taylor Swift is enemy No.1 to cash-grabbing Democrats in Rhode Island: They’ve named their state’s new vacation-home property tax after her.
They and different radical leftists throughout the nation declare that by attacking the wealthy, together with celebs like Swift, they’re saving democracy.
Don’t be fooled.
Their new types of taxation — together with wealth taxes, mansion taxes and second-home taxes — are fueled by jealousy and hatred for our free-market system, the work ethic and every thing American.
And whereas Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax has been stalled in courtroom, his “enemies list” of extraordinary owners is proof that you simply’re the following goal.
You could not think about your self “rich,” however for those who stay in a blue state, these new types of taxation will finally hit you, too.
After all, they’ve a means of increasing: New York’s state Legislature is already contemplating a plan to impose Gotham’s pied-à-terre tax statewide, in line with Republican state Sen. George Borrello.
Swift shelled out $17.75 million for her oceanfront Watch Hill, RI, unfold in 2013 — however the tax, which went into impact two weeks in the past, is slapped on any trip home value over $1 million and occupied much less than half the 12 months.
Similar tax-the-rich schemes are building steam in Connecticut, DC, and California — and they’ll proceed till “not a single state . . . is a safe haven,” the Democratic Socialists of America vowed in June.
Connecticut Democrats are ramming via a “mansion” tax — its first-ever statewide property tax — an annual levy on properties valued at over $3 million, whether or not they’re major residences or not.
That’s on high of the sky-high native property taxes residents already pay.
And the state legislature’s veto-proof Democratic majority doubtless gained’t stop with the priciest properties: Connecticut’s first income tax, imposed in 1991, was imagined to be non permanent.
Three a long time later, it’s nonetheless in impact — and it’s expanded from a flat charge to seven ever-higher brackets.
Washington, DC, can also be proposing a “mansion tax” on high-value residences — all these valued at more than $2.5 million.
Three tiny, however tony, neighborhoods will bear the brunt: Georgetown, Kalorama and Massachusetts Avenue Heights.
Plenty of rich politicians can be hit, however sadly not Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, vocal advocates for wealth taxes. They don’t stay there.
Mansion taxes are proxies for wealth taxes, however in November Californians will vote on the actual factor — the nation’s first tax on complete internet value.
The Billionaires Tax Act, or Proposition 40, is billed as a “one-time” 5% tax on all types of wealth, from properties and yachts to shares, bonds and possession pursuits in non-public firms — the place the actual money is.
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Its backers say 90% of the income will go to help health-care providers for Californians, and health-care unions are its largest supporters.
Don’t buy the “one-time” declare; as soon as health-care providers are funded, does anybody actually imagine they’ll flip the spigot off?
The state Democratic Party endorses the tax, however not presidential wannabe Gov. Gavin Newsom.
He’s pivoted as a substitute to a national wealth tax, warning that in any other case more California billionaires will comply with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and head for the exits.
Newsom joins a refrain of lefties, together with Warren and Sanders, making the preposterous argument that the existence of billionaires threatens democracy.
Nonsense: Billionaire Mike Bloomberg blew via lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} of his own money in search of the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 — and gained help solely from American Samoa.
And have they forgotten the $2 billion Kamala Harris burned in her failed White House run?
Money doesn’t guarantee political success.
But democracy is threatened by dire poverty: Hungry people will succumb more simply to the guarantees of a dictator.
And poverty within the United States is half what it was in 1959, when the US Census started measuring it.
The ideologues calling for wealth taxes aren’t telling you the reality — wealth taxes are economic system killers, and staff are the victims.
Only 2.7% of the standard billionaire’s wealth is in jewels, yachts, art work, properties and different tangible luxuries; nearly all of it’s in business belongings — stock and possession pursuits that present the capital for companies to buy the environment friendly vans, sooner computer systems and subtle tools that increase employee productiveness.
As Cato economists Adam Michel and Chris Edwards warn, taxing wealth takes capital out of these firms, limiting employee productiveness positive aspects and the growth in future wages. Ouch!
Wake up, America: You, too, are within the “Tax the Rich” crosshairs.
Call out these left-wing demagogues for his or her lies. In Taylor Swift’s phrases, be “Fearless.”
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
