Kamala Harris' wealth redistribution plans could prove both costly and ineffective



The Harris campaign revealed this week that if the Democratic vice president and her running mate — who apparently thinks that communism means that "everyone is the same and everyone shares" — win in November, then they will slap Americans with various new taxes, including a tax on unrealized gains.

Despite claiming to be fiscally responsible, Harris and Walz would simultaneously redistribute American wealth in a manner some economists have indicated will exacerbate the very problems they are supposedly intended to remedy.

The official 2024 Democratic Party platform was released Monday, revealing what former presidential candidate Joe Biden apparently planned to do if afforded another term. It turns out that just as Kamala Harris was ready to adopt Biden's candidacy and his committed delegates, she is now also ready to embrace many of the policy proposals attributed to him in the document.

Those proposals include raising the federal corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.

Communist China's federal corporate income tax rate is, by way of comparison, reportedly 25%.

Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer confirmed to Reuters that Harris plans on raising the rate, claiming it would be part of a "fiscally responsible way to put money back in the pockets of working people and ensure billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share."

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans previously cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. When ratifying the bill, Trump noted, "It's going to be a tremendous thing for the American people. It's going to be fantastic for the economy. It's going to keep companies from leaving our shores."

A 2017 Tax Foundation study indicated that "empirical evidence seems to support earlier theoretical analysis that domestic U.S. labor bears the largest portion of the burden of the U.S. corporate income tax."

"The share of the burden falling on labor is routinely found to be between 50 percent and 100 percent, with 70 percent or higher the most likely outcome," said the study. "As the tax reduces investment, productivity, and wages, the dollar amount of the cost to labor may exceed the revenue raised by the tax by a wide margin."

Extra to adversely impacting labor, this Harris tax hike would also adversely impact the stock market.

Strategists at Goldman Sachs told Reuters that each percentage point change in the corporate tax rate could shift S&P 500 earnings by "slightly less than 1%."

Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel, said, "Anything that reduces earnings should ... have a negative impact on the stock market."

Harris — who, as vice president, oversaw the U.S. national debt topping $35 trillion and championed various handouts along the way, including the taxpayer-funded subsidization of college education for hundreds of thousands of student debtors — has other taxes planned for 2025, around the same time various other Trump-era tax cuts are set to expire.

'The taxing of unrealized gains, no matter what the level of wealth, will drive assets, jobs and companies away from the United States.'

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration proposed in its FY 2025 budget a 44.6% capital gains rate, reported Moodys Private Client. This increase — from the current rate of 20% left over from the Trump tax reform — would constitute the highest federal capital gains rate in American history.

The Harris campaign told the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget that she "continues to support all of the revenue-raising provisions in the President's FY 2025 budget."

According to Americans for Tax Reform, the Harris-endorsed budget proposal also calls for a yearly 25% minimum tax on unrealized gains. While initially, this would target only the sliver minority of individuals with income and assets exceeding $100 million, critics suspect this "unconstitutional wealth tax" might ultimately be expanded to millions of Americans.

"Capital gains taxes should only be paid when a gain is realized. Harris's wealth tax would break with current tax policy and impose tax Americans based on the value of an asset on a particular arbitrary date," stated Americans for Tax Reform. "This unprecedented tax would give even more power to the IRS, encourage taxpayers to move assets overseas, and will only expand to hit millions of Americans over time."

TheStreet's Bob Byrne expressed similar concerns, noting, "While this only impacts a handful of people, and the measure is highly unlikely to pass, even the concept is worrisome. The taxing of unrealized gains, no matter what the level of wealth, will drive assets, jobs and companies away from the United States."

Harris has provided a few indications of how she might redistribute some of this wealth.

Harris intends to have taxpayers inadvertently provide a $25,000 handout to first-time and certain other prospective homeowners.

Some economists suspect this is an exercise in futility.

Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody's, recently told Axios Moody's that this house credit for buyers would increase demand and "translate quickly into higher prices."

While the Democratic platform claims the party is "working to end special interest giveaways," this scheme would no doubt be a big win for those big investment firms that have bought up residential real estate across the country.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget indicated this handout would cost $100 billion over four years, though the number "could be higher and lead to additional costs."

Americans for Tax Reform noted that Harris has endorsed other tax hikes including raising Medicare taxes from 3.8% to 5% for those making over $400,000 a year.

While such taxes are necessarily coercive, the Harris-Walz campaign suggested in an Aug. 16 release it was simply "asking the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations to pay their fair share."

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'Woke Jesus' from Babylon Bee says to turn the other cheek, except for Republicans: 'Feel free to punch them in the face'



Christian satire outfit the Babylon Bee has released a new video that's bound to get leftists fuming as everyone else laughs: "Woke Jesus."

The clip follows Woke Jesus around the countryside as he delivers well-known commands and truths from the Gospels in a pseudo British accent — but with a left-wing twist.

"Do not be afraid," Woke Jesus gently replies to Martha. "For Lazarus will live again — through this mail-in ballot."

The video opens with Woke Jesus walking on a road as people follow him, and he tells them: "If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer the other also — unless they're a Republican, then you can feel free to punch them in the face."

Boom.

Yes, it would seem Woke Jesus is exactly what leftists dream of and imagine him to be; he supports all their important causes.

Here's his stance on abortion: "Let the children come unto me, and do not hinder them — unless they might be born into poverty, or they might be an inconvenience to your party lifestyle. In that case, feel free to murder them in the womb."

Image source: YouTube screenshot

Wondering how Woke Jesus feels about the transgender agenda? He declares, "Haven't you read that in the beginning, God created them male and female — and gender queer, femboy, trans man, trans woman, Two Spirit ..."

While Woke Jesus' voice fades out, and another scene takes over, hilariously the video intermittently returns to Woke Jesus as he keeps rattling off endless, ridiculous, multiple genders: "Bigender, nonbinary, demi-boi, omni-gender, pan-gender, xeno-gender, someone who identifies as a large ornate building."

Think Woke Jesus buys into that "love your enemies" stuff? Think again.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Hate your enemies,' but I say to you, this is correct," Woke Jesus says before turning to a familiar visual aid. "And here's a handy little chart to help you understand who your enemy is based on Marxist intersectionality theory."

Image source: YouTube screenshot

'Be less white'

The biggest satirical takedown may be the send-up of the rich young ruler approaching Jesus and asking him, "What must I do to be saved?"

We're used to the Gospel accounts that indicate Jesus tells him to sell all his possessions, give to the poor, and then to "follow me."

Not Woke Jesus.

Image source: YouTube screenshot

To be saved, Woke Jesus tells the man to "be less white."

The narrator then notes that "the man went away sad, for he was very white." Ouch!

You'd think Woke Jesus would at least possess the compassion to raise his friend Lazarus from the dead, but when Martha approaches him in tears and says, "My Lord, if you had been here, my brother Lazarus would not have died," Woke Jesus has something else in mind.

"Do not be afraid," Woke Jesus gently replies to Martha. "For Lazarus will live again — through this mail-in ballot."

Image source: YouTube screenshot

The Woke Jesus hits just keep on coming:

  • "I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father — except by reducing their carbon footprint and getting vaccinated 12 times, like me."
  • "Cancel your enemies, curse those who bless you, and burn down the whole country if you don't get your way."

Woke Jesus goes on to endorse the "pretty sweet" leftist tactic of "wealth redistribution" as well as a "new health care bill that will force you to buy insurance. Because I — I'm a good person." His answer to the evils of capitalism? An "eat the rich!" chant.

Check it out:

Woke Jesusyoutu.be

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DC pilot program gives low-income moms $10,800 to get by. One recipient splurged for the high-life: 'I wanted to have fun'



Washington, D.C., has been experimenting with a new way to be charitable with taxpayers' money. Strong Families, Strong Futures is a $1.5 million pilot program that forked over unconditional payments of $10,800 to 132 low-income women who recently had or were expecting children in Wards 5, 7, and 8.

Martha's Table, which facilitated the pilot in partnership with the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, indicated at the outset, "We believe that there is no single roadmap to success and that each one of our neighbors should have agency over their own financial decision-making as they know best what their family needs."

One beneficiary of the program may have put the organization's belief to the test.

Canethia Miller, a 27-year-old mother of three, revealed to the Washington Post she burned through most of the money in hopes of getting a brief taste of the high life.

Prior to the pilot program, Miller was living off welfare in a subsidized two-bedroom apartment in the historic Anacostia neighborhood with her newborn child and other two kids, ages 5 and 8.

Despite missing the application deadline for the pilot program, Miller still managed to get on the waiting list. Like the other mothers ultimately enrolled in the program, Miller was asked whether she wanted 12 monthly payments of $900 or a lump sum payment of nearly $11,000. Like 75% of the other recipients, Miller chose the latter.

Miller temporarily put some of the strings-free taxpayer money aside for essential expenses. The remainder, however, did not last long.

"I wanted to blow it," she told the Post. "I wanted to have fun."

Despite admittedly struggling to make her welfare stretch every month to cover groceries for her family, Miller spent $180 of the Strong Families, Strong Future lump sum on her nails and hair, then took her three kids and their father on a $6,000 trip to Miami.

According to the Post, during her luxury vacation, Miller treated her family to a boat tour of "million-dollar homes and luxury yachts" and as well as to a dinner out at a Japanese steak and sushi restaurant.

Following her own "roadmap to success," Miller also bought "new clothes, shoes, gadgets and toys." She boasted that every outfit her kids wore on the trip was new.

"[My kids] got to experience something I would never have been able to do if I didn't have that money," said Miller.

According to the Post, Miller later opened a savings account with the aim of keeping "at least $50 in it" and bought a used car.

"A lot of communities in my area don’t know the financial gain of credit, saving for your kids; that's why we're broke, that's why we don't have nothing to pass down or no house to give down," continued the mother of three. "I'm trying to get to the level where I'm passing something down that really matters, so I can be set and my kids can be set, and they don't need to push so hard like I'm doing now."

Another beneficiary of the taxpayer-funded lump sum indicated she splurged on herself.

Saleemia Quigley, 41, told the Post, "I ain't going to lie. I went shopping, clothes — stuff I didn't need. It was like, 'I paid my rent, so I can go ahead and do this.'"

Other mothers in the program apparently used the pilot money to pay down their debts and upgrade accommodations.

When Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the direct cash transfer program in January 2022, she emphasized the point of Strong Families, Strong Futures was child care — "whether that care involves more diapers, more visits to doctors, more food on the table, shoes, games, books, adventures, all of those things."

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Economists warn that reparations could cost California over $800 billion — not including other high-value payouts



Residents of California, which was never a slave state, could possibly see the Newsom administration spend well over double the state's annual budget on race-based reparations.

California's Reparations Task Force has underscored that doing so won't settle old debts or atone for past sins. Instead, this massive redistribution of wealth, which may run upward of $1 trillion, would amount only to "the beginning of a conversation."

Economists recently told the nine-member committee that some of its desired reparations — namely those intended to compensate blacks for discriminatory housing, mass incarceration, and alleged over-policing — could cost over $800 billion, reported the Associated Press.

This approximation was made on the basis of modeling and population estimates.

$246 billion of this subtotal would go to qualified applicants whose neighborhoods were zealously protected by police or caught up in the "war on drugs" between 1970 and 2020. Each qualifying resident would see a payout of $125,000 for this particular grievance alone.

The economists figured $569 billion would make up for redlining in housing loans. Each qualifying black resident who lived in California from 1933 to 1977 would receive roughly $223,000.

The $800 billion figure reflects only a portion of what the committee reckons should be paid out in the interim, and even that total uncalculated sum will apparently not absolve the state.

The committee, formed by legislation signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, noted that "it should be communicated to the public that the substantial initial down-payment is the beginning of a conversation about historical injustices, not the end of it."

This costly preamble to an even more expensive conversation does not include the proposed $1 million per black resident the committee claims will help rectify health disparities allegedly resultant of systemic racial inequalities. The U.S. Census indicated that as of July 2022, California had roughly 2.5 million black residents.

The Associated Press noted that the $800 billion figure, which is 2.5 times California's $300 billion annual budget, also does not take into account compensation for property allegedly taken unjustly by the government or the devaluation of black businesses.

The committee has until July 1 to recommend to California lawmakers how it ought to redistribute wealth along racial lines.

According to the committee, failing to implement these or similar recommendations would be a matter of inflicting further harm on blacks.

"Without a remedy specifically targeted to dismantle our country's racist foundations and heal the injuries inflicted by colonial and American governments, the 'badges and incidents of slavery' will continue to harm African Americans in almost aspects of life," the committee stated in its June 2022 interim report.

American civil rights activist and conservative Bob Woodson suggested that it was "insulting" to suggest that any "amount of money could ever 'make right' the evil of slavery."

Woodson told the Associated Press that the restoration of black communities depends upon a return to and embrace of faith and family, which is what first enabled them to thrive after slavery.

It is presently unclear whether state lawmakers will approve the committee's recommendations in full or even in part.

TheBlaze previously reported that Democrat-run San Francisco similarly has a reparations committee keen to impart millions to each qualifying black resident, but the feasibility of its recommendations are in serious doubt by critics and supporters alike.

After the city's reparations committee determined without bothering with mathematical calculations that each black resident should receive a $5 million lump-sum payment along with total debt forgiveness, sympathetic Democratic city supervisors noted the city probably couldn't afford it.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen, said, "I wish we had this kind of money in San Francisco’s general fund, but if we want to maintain the services that exist today, we do not."

Supervisor Joel Engardio noted direct payments "may not be feasible under current budget restraints."

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San Francisco NAACP joins critics in rejecting city's proposed $5 million-per-person reparations



San Francisco's Board of Supervisors met Tuesday to discuss proposals for race-based payout for injustices committed against past generations by past generations.

Despite having previously stressed that San Francisco — a city where slavery was never legal in a state where slavery was never legal — could not afford to meet the activists' demands, the Democratic supervisors ultimately approved the SF African American Reparations Advisory Committee's initial draft.

The draft, which calls for a $5 million lump-sum payment, total debt forgiveness, and other perks, may satisfy those keen to become millionaires overnight in a city that ranks 2 out of 100 on Neighborhood Scout's crime index, but it managed to draw the ire of the SF NAACP.

The proposal

TheBlaze previously reported that the proposed $5 million sum, debt forgiveness, and guaranteed incomes ($97,000 as of last year and to be kept in synch with area median income annually for 250 years) are together meant to make amends “for the decades of harms" black residents reportedly experienced.

Although the proposal concedes that slavery was never legal in San Francisco or in the state of California, it holds that “the tenets of segregation, white supremacy and systematic repression and exclusion of Black people were codified through legal and extralegal actions, social codes, and judicial enforcement.”

The lump sum is, therefore, not intended “to remedy enslavement, but to address the public policies explicitly created to subjugate Black people in San Francisco.”

The panel’s approval draft proposal states that eligible applicants must be at least 18 years old and have identified as black or African-American on public documents for at least 10 years.

Additionally, they must satisfy two out of eight other criteria, such as being born or having migrated to the city between 1940 and 1996 with proof of residency for at least 13 years, being a personal or direct descendant of someone “incarcerated by the failed War on Drugs,” or being a personal or direct descendant of someone enslaved before 1865.

While the SF Board of Supervisors has given the draft proposals its blessing, the reparations panel will not make its final recommendations until June. City supervisors will vote on it on or after September 19, reported the SFist.

A step in the wrong direction

The SFist reported that the SF NAACP is opposed to the $5 million payout per black resident.

Vice President Kamala Harris' former pastor and SF NAACP President Amos Brown issued a statement Tuesday, calling on the "Board of Supervisors to reject a one-time $5 million reparation payment to Blacks."

Instead of the proposed one-off payment to individuals indirectly linked to persons who may have suffered oppression, Brown urged the city "to redirect its focus on providing five key elements as part of reparations: education, jobs, housing, healthcare and a cultural center for Blacks in San Francisco."

In addition to a segregated cultural center, Brown demanded "preferential treatment" for blacks with regards to housing "to keep our people in this city" and remedial programs to aid black children, whom he suggested "don't perform as well as their peers."

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'Illegal and immoral'

The NAACP was not alone in its rejection of the payout scheme.

Former San Francisco mayoral candidate Richie Greenberg suggested the "payout has been exposed as arbitrary and without justification. The entire plan lacks credibility by all stretches of the imagination."

Greenberg claimed that "the Reparations Plan likely violates at least 5 State and Federal laws," including Section 31 of the California Constitution's Declaration of Rights; Article 34 of the California Constitution; Title IV of the federal Civil Rights Act; and the 14th Amendment.

Kara Frederick, director of the Tech Policy Center at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News' "Outnumbered" that the payout amounted to "an illegal and immoral wealth transfer. ... It's not about compassion, it's not about humans flourishing, it's not about lifting people up at all, it's about power. It's about the left saying 'We'll give you free stuff if you vote for us, so vote for us.' And who's going to foot the bill? We all know who's going to foot the bill — it's the taxpayer."

Conservative talk show host and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder has long criticized the initiative, having stated in January, "For slavery #reparations, San Francisco also wants to give black descendants 'supplemental income' for the next 250 years. Why 250 years? America did not become a country until the Constitution was ratified in 1789. Slavery was abolished in 1865. That’s 76 years, not 250. So ..."

On Tuesday, Elder sardonically tweeted, "Let me get this straight. A black college educated San Franciscan, with money in the Silicon Valley Bank, gets full reimbursement though his deposit exceeds FDIC’s $250K limit, receives $5mil in reparations AND gets student debt loan forgiveness. Is this a great country or what?!"

An unaffordable and arbitrary figure

TheBlaze previously reported that the all-black 15-member reparations committee tasked nearly two years ago with calculating how much the pandemic-devastated city should dole out to residents didn't ultimately bother with mathematical formulas or actual calculations when arriving at the seven-figure sum.

Instead of comprehensive calculations, the panelists charged with proposing how to spend other people's money embarked on a "journey" in pursuit of monetary symbolism.

John Dennis, chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party, told the Washington Post, "This is just a bunch of like-minded people who got in the room and came up with a number."

"You’ll notice in that report, there was no justification for the number, no analysis provided. This was an opportunity to do some serious work and they blew it," Dennis added.

Although supportive of reparations calculated on the basis of feelings, the city's Democratic supervisors have underscored that San Francisco will have trouble finding cash to fund them.

Supervisor Joel Engardio (D) told the San Francisco Chronicle in January that the direct payments "may not be feasible under current budget restraints."

Another city Democrat, supervisor Hillary Ronen, said, "I wish we had this kind of money in San Francisco’s general fund, but if we want to maintain the services that exist today, we do not."

In order to afford the race-based payments, supervisor Dean Preston (D) suggested that San Francisco could slash the police budget to free up money to "fund some of the committee's recommendations."

The city's Democrat Mayor London Breed said in December that San Francisco's two-year deficit would be in the ballpark of $728 million, noting that it "won't be easy" managing it and maintaining "core priorities like economic recovery, public safety, homelessness, and mental health."

It's presently unclear whether city supervisors might similarly slash funding to these core priorities extra to police funding in order to fund $5 million paydays to citizens on the basis of their race.

San Francisco takes up Black reparations proposal, includes $5 million per person youtu.be

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Amid Riots Ripping The Country, NPR Promotes Book ‘In Defense Of Looting’

Amid Riots Ripping The Country, NPR Promotes Book ‘In Defense Of Looting’

'One thing about looting is it freaks people out. But in terms of potential crimes that people can commit against the state, it's basically nonviolent.' Tell that to Kenosha, Chicago, and Minneapolis.