As Donald Trump profits in billions, Democrats feud over taxing the rich | Opinion
The recent revelation that President Donald Trump has accumulated more than $2 billion in wealth since taking office was confirmation that leading Democrats and Republicans are living different worlds.
The left is fighting over how to increase taxes on billionaires.
The leading Republican, meanwhile, is accumulating billions as quickly as possible.
A 927-page document from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, details Trump’s wealth from financial data the president is required to submit annually to USOGE. The New York Times estimated that Trump’s business venture into cryptocurrency has generated $1.4 billion all on its own.
By federal statute, Trump is paid $400,000 for his day job. The president has long said he donates it.
For some, the wealth that Trump is accumulating while in office is alarming.
“It’s bribery,” Kathleen Clark, a law professor and instructor of government ethics at Washington University, told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s graft. It’s exploitation of public power for private financial gain.”
Trump shrugs it off. “Well you know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market is going up. Everybody’s profiting…..I’m profiting because I have a lot of money.”
And the president’s base of support, now standing in the range of 37%, stays with him.
Underlying it all, the two major political parties are emphasizing different American values.
Seizing on the growing disparity of wealth in the nation and global unease about the economy, Democrats are emphasizing a form of collectivism. Redistributing some of this imbalance of wealth, so this thinking goes, could help raise all boats.
The infighting is getting worse inside the party, however, because Democrats are divided about how to do this. California is at the epicenter of this fight.
Leading progressives and some union leaders, for example, support an initiative on the November ballot that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of state billionaires, the funds mostly spent on health care for low-income Californians. Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes the tax and prefers a federal policy that would tax anyone with a net worth above $100 million, among other measures.
The governor’s reluctance for a state-only solution invited the wrath of Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna and other progressives. “It’s a gulf of difference between me and the governor, and it’s the difference between standing up for three million Californians who are losing healthcare, or standing for the billionaire class,” Khanna recently said. “This is a defining difference for the Democratic Party.”
From his continuing accumulation of wealth to his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for leaking that he paid little in taxes for years, Trump is testing the outer limits of private gain while in public office, as a Congress he controls looks away.
If Democrats take back the House of Representatives, says current Speaker Mike Johnson, “They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors, and friends.” Johnson said this as if the legislative branch wasn’t designed to check the powers of the executive branch. It was.
This is all uncharted territory. If the nation manages to resolve these billion-dollar matters by lifting all boats while still financially rewarding Americans with clever new ideas, we would all win. Hoping for the best from our political parties instead of the worst may sound like wishful thinking, but it’s our only hope.