Elizabeth Warren 2020 Megathread v2 (pg 35 - Emily List support)

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Answer this question: Why would billionaires tolerate being taxed at effective rates well over 100% (as they would if Bernie's wealth tax or Warren's wealth tax ever passed) when they could just move to far-right, cutthroat, hyper-capitalist states like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, or Iceland, all of which are places they'd pay far, far, far, far, far lower tax rates than they would in Bernie's or Warren's America? What ever happened to "We're not radical, we just want America to be like Sweden  ?"

They would still be subject to US taxes even if they move to another country.  Even if they renounce their citizenship, my understanding is that our tax laws assume that anyone with extremely high income who renounces citizenship is doing it to avoid taxes, and thus still imposes taxes.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

As I've said before, the main problem with Warren's tax "plan" is the sheer impracticality of it, without even getting to consideration of the potential economic effects.  As currently formulated, her "wealth tax" is an ad valorem property tax and there's lengthy precedent that such taxes are considered direct taxes under the Constitution and thus would require its collection be apportioned among the States, which which means that to be Constitutional, the tax rates would have to be higher for those living in poor States than those living in wealthy States.  Taxing unrealized capital gains is from an accounting standpoint, sheer idiocy, and all it does is rob the future of tax revenue to collect it now.  I haven't bothered to examine the economic results of her tax "plan" because it is so impractical that it ruins the assertion that she's a thoughtful wonk with practical plans for the problems we face.  There are other ways to sock the wealthy without running foul of these practical problems, such as reinvigorating the estate tax, raising income tax rates for the top brackets, excise taxes on luxury items such as private planes and yachts that are not assessed on an ad valorem basis, to name three.

I’m not sure what “lengthy precedent” you are talking about.  There’s basically one Supreme Court case from the late 19th century decided 5-4 that might suggest such as tax might be unconstitutional.  Beyond that, the Court has typically sided with upholding taxes that might or might not qualify as “direct taxes” (though all of this precedent is very old).  I think the consensus of the legal community is now that Pollock was wrongly decided anyway.  Any even if a conservative Supreme Court today were inclined to strike the tax down, this could of course be reversed by fairly modest court packing.

For those saying this won’t work in the US because it hasn’t worked in various European nations, remember that the US is much more effective at taxing American residents of foreign countries and ex-pats than most other nations.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Warren has no foreign policy experience whatsoever.  Every Prez nominee has had some: Kerry, Obama, Hilary and Biden who killed Bin Laden and Biden blunts Bernie's and Bloomberg's Jewish roots. Biden is close to Israel

Is this a joke?  She’s been in the Senate for 7 years and sits on the Armed Services committee.  She certainly has more foreign policy experience than Obama did (or any of the last four presidents).

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

As I've said before, the main problem with Warren's tax "plan" is the sheer impracticality of it, without even getting to consideration of the potential economic effects.  As currently formulated, her "wealth tax" is an ad valorem property tax and there's lengthy precedent that such taxes are considered direct taxes under the Constitution and thus would require its collection be apportioned among the States, which which means that to be Constitutional, the tax rates would have to be higher for those living in poor States than those living in wealthy States.  Taxing unrealized capital gains is from an accounting standpoint, sheer idiocy, and all it does is rob the future of tax revenue to collect it now.  I haven't bothered to examine the economic results of her tax "plan" because it is so impractical that it ruins the assertion that she's a thoughtful wonk with practical plans for the problems we face.  There are other ways to sock the wealthy without running foul of these practical problems, such as reinvigorating the estate tax, raising income tax rates for the top brackets, excise taxes on luxury items such as private planes and yachts that are not assessed on an ad valorem basis, to name three.

I’m not sure what “lengthy precedent” you are talking about.  There’s basically one Supreme Court case from the late 19th century decided 5-4 that might suggest such as tax might be unconstitutional.  Beyond that, the Court has typically sided with upholding taxes that might or might not qualify as “direct taxes” (though all of this precedent is very old).  I think the consensus of the legal community is now that Pollock was wrongly decided anyway.  Any even if a conservative Supreme Court today were inclined to strike the tax down, this could of course be reversed by fairly modest court packing.

For those saying this won’t work in the US because it hasn’t worked in various European nations, remember that the US is much more effective at taxing American residents of foreign countries and ex-pats than most other nations.

Pollock has nothing to do with the constitutionality of a wealth tax, as it's specifically not a tax on income, so it doesn't matter much whether it was rightly or wrongly decided. The most directly relevant SCOTUS decision is Fernandez v. Wiener, 326 U.S. 340 (1945) as referenced in Murphy v. IRS, 493 F.3d 170 (D.C. Cir. 2007)

Only three taxes are definitely known to be direct: (1) a capitation, U.S. CONST. art. I, § 9, (2) a tax upon real property, and (3) a tax upon personal property. See Fernandez v. Wiener, 326 U.S. 340, 352, 66 S.Ct. 178, 90 L.Ed. 116 (1945) ("Congress may tax real estate or chattels if the tax is apportioned")

Since the wealth tax is clearly a tax upon property, both real and personal, it falls within the scope of a direct tax.

Fernandez is a case about the estate tax.  You could argue that an estate tax is closer to a wealth tax than the income tax is, but in that case the argument runs in favor of the constitutionality of the wealth tax, because Fernandez upholds the estate tax.

Suggesting that a case upholding the estate tax has precedential value toward striking down a wealth tax at the very least misunderstands the difference between the holding of a case and dicta. 

Pollack does include a significant discussion of whether a tax on real versus personal property constitutes a direct tax.  And it comes down 5-4 on the side of both being direct taxes.  So this does seem like much more relevant precedent.   But again, it is a very narrow, very old, and still tangentially related opinion.

It is very much an open question whether a wealth tax is constitutional, with reasonable arguments on both sides and very little precedent.  Honestly, whether Warren’s wealth tax was upheld or not would likely be determined by her ability to shape the composition of the court prior to the decision.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

This is why Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will crash and burn in the South:

https://twitter.com/JarrodLoadholt/status/1221152370031308800

Isn’t Biden the one who took Acela every day?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Does Warren drop out if she places 3rd or lower in NH? If she wins obviously she'd stay in, and I think if she came in second she'd get positive coverage. But 3rd or lower in a state that's supposed to be the most favorable to her of the early contests seems like the end of her campaign.

I think it really depends on how close a 3rd place she's is.  It makes a big difference if she got 25% of the vote compared with 15%.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I can't imagine she'll really go after Bernie.  The best (and really only) way to win back some of Bernie's supporters is to make his case more convincingly.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Sanders and Warren don't really have overlapping support bases anymore.

There is a Sanders -base- that I don't think Warren can tap into.  But there are people that have been gravitating to Sanders over the past two months due to his perceived momentum that I do think Warren could win back.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Yeah, I can’t fathom how Klobuchar came out of Iowa with more favorable coverage than Warren.  Klobuchar finished fifth in what should have been one of her best states.  It really should have ended her campaign right there.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Any tweet that explicitly asks readers to "Please spread this around so we can make them aware" sounds inherently suspicious.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

She is @ 10% nationally & falling so she likely won't make the debates after South Carolina anyways. At this rate she will almost definitely lose Massachusetts & will probably get 0 Delegates everywhere except Massachusetts. I am not sure why she wants to have this humiliating finish. She doesn't even have the money to run ads in California & Texas.

Maybe she wants to be the VP to Klobuchar or Biden as the progressive figure in a sort of unity ticket. This is becoming Yang or Bennet level stuff & forcefully carrying on despite having no chance.

I believe candidates now automatically qualify for the debates if they have won a pledged delegate.  So unless this changes, all of the top five candidates will be in all future debates until they drop out.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Even the slightest hint of a Warren revival will be picked up and magnified by the media in order to stop Bernie. What is odd is why the establishment would even prefer Warren to Bernie. She loses just as many old voters as Bernie while not pulling the same numbers among his young base.

If this was true, why didn’t they do it after she had a surprisingly strong finish in Iowa?  Instead, they refused to even cover her speech, unlike the candidates way behind her.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

So let's see, since the start of the campaign, Warren has:

* Put the wealth tax and student debt cancellation on the table & proven they are popular.
* Gotten a Wells Fargo CEO fired.
* Started a bandwagon to boycott a debate until UNITE-HERE Local 11 labor dispute resolved.
* Gotten Pete Buttigieg to open up his fundraisers to the press.
* Gotten Mike Bloomberg to release 3 accusers from NDAs.

What's next?

This is why I am all-in on supporting her.  I have considered myself a socialist since I was 13 years old, and have been a Bernie Sanders fan for almost 25 years.  But I believe Warren is the candidate who would most effectively enact socialist policy if elected. 

Some Sanders supporters (NOT Sanders himself) don’t actually care about socialist policy; they really just want to troll the “establishment”.  Just like so many Trump supporters don’t care about his policy success as long as his is pwning the libs.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

She almost certainly does need to drop out after Super Tuesday.
It really doesn’t make much sense for anyone to drop out right now, two days before Super Tuesday.  So many people in those states have already voted, and all the ad money has already been spent.
It’s a pretty big flaw in the calendar though.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

To Warren-apologists.

Imagine a reverse situation. Warren surging to 30% in national polls, is a front-runner winning all H2H in primaries as well as in GE, while Bernie gets 5th place i SC and loses Vermont to Warren. What would you say if Bernie did as she does...

Don't bother to reply. We all know the answer.

Based in what Bernie did in 2016, I would absolutely expect him to stay in the race in this situation.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

To Warren-apologists.

Imagine a reverse situation. Warren surging to 30% in national polls, is a front-runner winning all H2H in primaries as well as in GE, while Bernie gets 5th place i SC and loses Vermont to Warren. What would you say if Bernie did as she does...

Don't bother to reply. We all know the answer.

Based in what Bernie did in 2016, I would absolutely expect him to stay in the race in this situation.

Bernie absolutely would have dropped out and endorsed Warren if the situations were reversed. He tried to convince her to run in 2016.

In 2016, he stayed in the race far beyond the point where its was clear it was impossible to win.   He tried to convince the superdelegates to overturn the majority of pledged delegates that went to Hillary.  Why would have done anything different this year?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Why does it seem like Warren is getting so much more pressure to drop out immediately than Klobuchar? 

Whatever you think of Warren's chances, they are 100x better than Klobuchar, who almost certainly won't win a single delegate tomorrow outside of her home state. 

And at least there is a clear policy rational for Warren's candidacy distinct from Biden and Bernie, unlike Klobuchar, who seem to have no positions beyond being from Minnesota.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Why does it seem like Warren is getting so much more pressure to drop out immediately than Klobuchar? 

Whatever you think of Warren's chances, they are 100x better than Klobuchar, who almost certainly won't win a single delegate tomorrow outside of her home state. 

And at least there is a clear policy rational for Warren's candidacy distinct from Biden and Bernie, unlike Klobuchar, who seem to have no positions beyond being from Minnesota.

Welp...wrote this 10 minutes too early.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

As I said in the Super Tuesday thread, I voted proudly for Elizabeth Warren yesterday.

After the obviously disappointing results, I hope she will now drop out.  And I do expect her to drop out.

The vitriol of Bernie's supporters toward her is inexcusable.  If you want to know why you don't feel welcome in the Democratic party, look at how you treated others who completely supported your agenda, but just declined to be absorbed into your cult of personality.

Elizabeth Warren didn't cost Bernie Sanders the nomination.  If anything, Sanders' supporters cost Warren the nomination, and killed their own chances of a real progressive policy revolution in the process.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

If Warren endorses Biden, then Bernie has full authority to attack her for the rest of her life. I don't think he will though, he is too nice of a person.

If she doesn't endorse Bernie, it's basically an endorsement of Biden at this point.

No it isn't? Y'all really want everyone to immediately worship the cult leader or else you're against him.

It's a 2 person race between Bernie and Biden, and Warren has done a lot more to help Biden lately.

One week ago, everyone’s criticism of Warren was that she was attacking all the moderates too much and not doing enough to damage Bernie.