Billionaires are hoarding trillions in untaxed wealth. They want the Supreme Court to keep it that way
A new report from Americans for Tax Fairness found that America’s richest families accumulated $8.5 trillion in untaxed capital gains in 2022
America’s wealthiest families held an astounding $8.5 trillion in untaxed profits in 2022. According to a report from the nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness, which analyzed Federal Reserve data, “one in every six dollars (18 percent of the nation’s unrealized gains is held by these roughly 64,000 ultra-wealthy households, who make up less than 0.05 percent of the population.” The report comes as the Supreme Court gears up to decide a case that could preemptively block any efforts to tax the wealth of billionaires.
The data looks at “quiet” income generated by “centi-millionaires,” Americans holding at least $100 million in wealth, and billionaires through unrealized capital gains. Those gains accumulate, untaxed, as assets and investments like stocks, real estate, bonds, and other investments increase in value. If those assets are not sold — or “realized” — they are not taxed, yet America’s wealthiest families can leverage that on-paper value increase to secure favorable loans with low-interest rates in lieu of using taxable income to finance their lifestyle.
“Of the $139 trillion in America’s national wealth, almost three-quarters (73 percent) is held by the richest 10 percent of households, over one-third (35 percent) by the richest 1 percent, and an astounding 11 percent — $15.2 trillion — is held by the handful of fortunate households that make up the billionaire and centi-millionaire class,” the report says. “The wealthiest 1 percent of households hold 44 percent of national unrealized gains ($21.2 trillion), with billionaires and centi-millionaires alone controlling 18 percent ($8.5 trillion).”
When has the US turned into a regime led by the supreme court? All my life, whenever something was up, you heard what the president did or tried to do or whatever. Nowadays, all headlines about the US are about something the Supreme Court with it's undemocratically elected judges gets to decide over all lawmaker's heads.
Congress being so bad at legislating has basically forced the Supreme Court to legislate. I obviously don't agree with decisions like ending Roe v. Wade, but abortion should never have been up to them in the first place. Those kinds of decisions should be up to congress to make clear laws.
We have a completely dysfunctional congress and its been only getting worse for decades. It's a symptom of a much larger illness in America. I remember decades ago some of my most conservative family members debating policy with some of my most progressive over coffee. Now the media has pitted them against each other so much, that they literally have their phone numbers blocked in fear that some of their ideology might slip into their bubble of an echo chamber.
Don’t worry, when Trump is reelcted, he’ll fix that glaring loophole and make himself supreme ruler.
A friend of mine used to call them 'our mullahs'. I used to laugh him off. Now, I'm not so sure.
I do the same thing.
The Supreme Court has been powerful for a long time.
Since the early 19th century.
https://www.history.com/news/supreme-court-power-john-marshall
Don't forget about the most powerful person in the world, the parliamentarian.
This has always been the case. 3 co branches of government. The fact that you hadn't heard it much is probably either a case of you paying more attention, or it getting more attention.
But yes, republicans have politicized the court, so it's even more divisive now.
The feeling I get is more that the famous checks and balances ceased to work and the supreme court is the branch getting the most power from this breakdown.
They wouldn't have so much power if the legislature was functional. The majority of their ruling could be undone by Congress passing a law saying "No, that is not what we meant. Ignore this stupid ruling that willfully misinterpreted our law."
Most of our government dysfunction comes back to Republicans refusing to compromise and weaponizing the filibuster to obstruct and prevent Congress from doing anything.
Not really because Congress can remove them from office if they get out of line. While I've certainly disagreed with many rulings, I can't find any that I think are really out of line or some gross abuse of power.
There are lots of them, especially in the last 10 years. A few more if you include Scalia's tenure. The most recent of them is the "major question doctrine". This idea, invented by the current court, allows the court to change any law whenever the court decides that they don't like the current law and they think it's important enough. There is no justification in the constitution or in prior case law for such a power to be granted to the court.
Any actual example?
They literally gave you one. Look it up, failure.
They didn't give an actual example, they mentioned a doctrine. Or is it that you don't know the difference between a case and a doctrine?
Bush v Gore? It's my understanding that the SCOTUS decided to take the case on their own without being asked, put a stay on the recount, then said there wasn't enough time to count because of they stay they put. They also said essentially that because counties in Florida didn't have a unified system for deciding how voting is done that they went against an equal protections law im forgetting the exact name of, completely ignoring that this is how it's done all over the country so if it's the case in Florida that it was incorrect then that means every single state has the same issue.
Didn't matter to them, they got to stop the recount just when Bush has the slightest lead.
I mean then there's citizens united... Corporations have the same rights as people??
Not accurate, Bush petitioned the courts to block the count, and they stayed the decision by the Florida supreme court. I disagree with the ruling, they should have counted all of the votes, but it was on sound legal ground, even if ultimately disagreeable.
It's long been interpreted that the COTUS is a restriction on the state not a granting of rights to the individuals. There was a great disagreement over including the BoR at all in the COTUS because some founder were afraid that explicitly listing out some of the rights would open the door to the assumption that non-enumerated rights weren't actually protected. They couldn't settle this in time which is why they were included as amendments and not in the original COTUS. The ruling stems from this idea, that the COTUS restricts the statement, it doesn't grant rights to the individual, so they can't restrict it when it comes to other private entities as well. Again, something I vehemently disagree with and should be amended, but it's not some ridiculous overreach, it's based on sound legal interpretations of the COTUS.
I appreciate the detailed response in spite of all the shitty responses people have been giving you!
You and I are the only ones who has responded to him so far. Did you see other replies that are no longer there now?
But SCOTUS can define entities (if existing law doesn't already do so, though SCOTUS can also strike down those laws if it wants to), and what it comes down to is if SCOTUS defines a corporation as a citizen, vs a business entity, a construct.
Then laws would be judged based on the entity they're being applied to.
For example, pets are considered property in the eyes of the law, so laws are applied to them as if they were property, and not citizens.
A construct should not be a citizen, legally or otherwise. It's not a restrictions issue, it's an entity identification issue.
We might be conflating two things here, or I just have no idea what you are talking about.
Using your pet example, if the pets were to start spending money on politics, the court might still rule that, like with corporations, it does not have the right to limit how much pets donate to political causes.
But this has never come up, so I can't see how you would argue that the court would not rule this way.
Technically, as they were Voted into Office by Senators representing the interests Voters, they are democratically elected via Representative Democracy.
I guess if you change the definition of "democratically elected," then sure. Supreme Court Justice is an appointed position. It's literally the entire point of the distinction between the two (elected vs. appointed).
If you were to consider anyone appointed by an elected official as being "democratically elected," then that would mean that nobody is appointed. It would become a distinction without a difference.
So... are they appointed by the President without anyone having any say or is there a vote? If there is a vote by an elected body like the senate or congress, then they are democratically chosen.
Congress doesn't pick or vote from a set of candidates.. Essentially they are just confirming appointments, just like the appointed cabinet members and most other appointed positions.
Not relevant. And they can pick from whomever the President puts forward. I know because I asked Merrick Garland and Neil Gorsuch.
Pretty creative, I guess. Unfortunately for you, words have meanings, and you are objectively wrong about what you believe those meanings to be. The term "political appointment" is a term that is already defined in US politics, and it refers to government positions that are obtained by appointment (usually, if not always, by someone who WAS elected). Period. Those people are not elected officials no matter what weird reasoning you might come up with. That is the entire point of the distinction between the two terms.
Report by researchers from Princeton and Northwestern universities suggests that US political system serves special interest organisations, instead of voters
And that is relevant to my statement, how?