▪️Repealing the estate tax wouldn’t “give” money to anyone. It would just allow estates to keep the wealth handed down by the person who earned it. Only when you view everyone’s property as communal property does repealing a tax involve “giving” people money.
▪️Contrary to Sanders’s portrayal, the estate tax constitutes a tiny fraction of federal tax revenue. In 2020, only $17.6B came from estate and gift taxes. That’s just 0.1% of GDP and ~0.5% of Federal tax revenue. By 2031 it’s expected to still be <$50B. It’s a rounding error.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57272#:~:text=CBO%20projects%20that%2C%20under%20current,drop%20(see%20Figure%202).
▪️Bernie gets $1.8T by adding up the wealth of ALL billionaire families ($4.5T) and assuming the government would take 40% ($1.8T) of ALL of it. Which is absurd, as most wealthy people go to great lengths to reduce the taxes their estate pays, and they have the means to work the system.
▪️The CBO acknowledges this, and admits this is why they can’t reliably project estate tax revenues. Warren Buffet, for example, pledged to give away 99% of his wealth before he dies. Many others have similar pledges, meaning Bernie’s numbers are fantasies, billionaires aren’t ever giving up 40% to the govt.
▪️The estate tax has virtually nothing to do with solving the debt crisis, nor in helping the poor. The trivial revenue they provide is almost unnoticeable & it’s not like it goes into some fund to help the poor. The primary impetus behind the estate tax is the desire to take rich people’s stuff.
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
▪️This is a proposal that pertains only to graduate level nursing degrees, not undergraduate ones (which were never considered professional degrees). The proposal will have a 30-60 day public comment period next year, where groups can object, before the DoE will decide on it.
▪️This is about how much federal student loans someone can take out for a particular degree. The cap on graduate degrees is $100k ($20,500/yr), while a “professional degree” limit is $200k ($50k/yr).
▪️Under the new rule proposal, professional degrees include:
🔹Pharmacy
🔹Dentistry
🔹Veterinary medicine
🔹Chiropractic
🔹Law
🔹Medicine (including osteopathic medicine & podiatry)
🔹Optometry
🔹Theology
▪️The nursing degrees excluded are ones like master of science in nursing (MSN), doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and PhD in nursing. These degrees would be limited to $100k in federal student loans, like all other graduate degrees.
▪️These changes came from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s...
