Progressive lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have proposed two
pieces of legislation with one focusing on a potential wealth tax and
the other calling for a minimum wage hike, which, by the way,
has not been done on a federal level for 14 years.
Nonetheless, are all these serious proposals or is this just more theater
from lawmakers, in this particular case, progressive law makers?
That's what we're here to discuss and potentially debate.
Now, let's start with the wealth tax.
I wanna give you guys the details.
It's super easy to understand, okay?
They call it the Oligarch tax or I'm sorry, Oligarch Act.
And it was introduced just yesterday by representatives Barbara Lee,
Summer Lee, Rashida Tlaib and Jamal Bowman.
Now, instead of taxing a specific wealth threshold, they have decided to
propose something that is way more easy to understand, not complicated at all, okay?
They would tax the rich based on how much more wealth
they have than the median American household.
Apparently, the median American household currently is $120,000 in wealth, okay?
So, here's how the four tax brackets would work should this legislation pass,
which it most certainly will not.
But nonetheless, let's take a look.
So, 2% for all wealth between 1,000 and 10,000 times median household wealth,
4% for all wealth between 10,000 and 100,000 times median household wealth,
and 6% for all wealth between 100,000 and 1,000,000 times median household wealth.
And 8% for all wealth over 1,000,000 times median household wealth, okay?
Very few people are at the top bracket there, but nonetheless,
what do you think of this proposal, Cenk, before I move on to the minimum wage?
>> Speaker 2: Okay, to give you a sense, guys, of who this affects,
it affects people with wealth over $120,000,000.
That's the beginning part of their proposal as things stand today.
That's why if this becomes a real issue and they're battling over this,
which is unlikely, and that's part of the debate we're about to have,
but you will hear Republicans say, they're just trying to tax the average man.
No, they're not.
They're trying to tax people with more than $120,000,000, just so you understand.
And I like the proposal because they're saying, hey, look,
if we don't have income inequality, then this tax won't even exist.
Coz then you won't have 1000 times the wealth of the average household in
America, let alone 1,000,000 times the median household wealth.
>> Speaker 1: Right. >> Speaker 2: So, it makes a lot of sense
as a way to structure a wealth tax, if you're going to have a wealth tax at all.
>> Speaker 1: So the tax is not pegged to a specific dollar threshold, by design,
this causes the tax to wax and wane, with wealth concentration
intensifying during periods of rising inequality, but
tapering off to near nonexistence when median household wealth increases and
inequality moderates to an acceptable level.
So, additionally, the Oligarch Act would require
at least a 30% IRS audit rate on households affected by the wealth tax.
Okay, I just think the IRS should audit people who are clearly filing tax
returns that have some shady, red flags involved.
>> Speaker 2: No, so they theoretically do.
But they've been defunded by the Republicans so much that they don't.
So in an ideal world, after a certain number,
almost all of those folks would be audited cuz their taxes are so much.
And theoretically, again, the way that the system was originally structured,
you get more audited as your wealth goes up, because there's so
much more money to gain when you catch people who are cheating, okay?
But in reality, the people who get their Earned Income Tax credit,
who make the least amount of money in this country, are audited five and
a half times the average person.
So we overaudit the poor and we underaudit the rich.
So what this Act is saying is,
at least 30% of these guys have to get audited at a minimum, right?
So they're asking for the bare minimum there, if you ask me.
>> Speaker 1: Now, let's move on to what Bernie Sanders is proposing.
He wants to increase the federal minimum wage, which still stands at $7.25.
He wants to increase it to $17 an hour.
And look, there are some states that have already,
like California, for instance, has raised the minimum wage, and
it's definitely higher in California compared to other states.
But the point of raising the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour is that it
increases the wages all across the board, it lifts all wages.
So it makes a lot of sense.
The question is, will that legislation pass?
He proposed it as a United States senator, of course, and Representative Bobby Scott
is also involved in co-authoring and sponsoring this bill.
And the bill would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $17
per hour by 2028, so it wouldn't be an immediate increase in the minimum wage.
So let's get to the fun part now, is this real or
is this just theater from progressives?
>> Speaker 2: Well, I like it.
And so, is it the best they can do?
No, not at all.
And I'll get into in a little bit what they could have actually done to get some
of this stuff passed.
But I was worried they were doing absolutely nothing.
What are we, this is July now?
For six, seven months, nothing proposed, no fight, so
now that I'm seeing, finally they propose something, I'll take it.
I know the bar is super low,
but even if it's rhetorical fight rather than a legislative fight,
because the Republicans are gonna block at least the wealth tax, for sure, right?
Well, at least you're bringing attention to the cause,
and you're showing where you stand.
Now, of course, Anna's going to be right when she says, when push came to shove and
they actually could have gotten some of these things done,
especially the minimum wage, they chose not to fight.
And so now this is not gonna work at this point.
By the way, It can, the minimum wage one can.
>> Speaker 1: Look, I don't think the minimum wage is gonna pass,
I don't think that anyone is even going to fight to ensure that it passes, right?
There's not gonna be any pressure applied.
Look, my biggest issue with this is that it is performative,
and everyone involved knows it's performative, okay?
And people want cookies for proposing legislation that ,a,
they know has no chance of passing, b,
they have no strategy in place to have it pass or attempt to get it passed.
And when you look at the proposal here, compared to what they were
doing when Democrats had a majority in the House of Representatives,
it gives you a sense of how many people, aside from the co-authors, right?
How many Democrats, knowing full well that there is no chance that this
is gonna pass, sign on to legislation like this?
So they can get the cookies.
>> For sure.
>> Speaker 1: Right? >> Speaker 2: But
there's two things that come out of things that are performative in politics.
One is you wanna get cookies for not actually doing anything, but
pretending you're doing something.
>> Speaker 1: Exactly, and I'm sick about it.
>> Speaker 2: And that's Anna's main point, and
that is 90% of what happens in Washington, right?
But there's a second reason for doing things that are quote unquote,
performative.
So you draw attention to it.
Once you draw attention to it, then you actually fight for it.
So the question is, are they going to fight for it?
So for example, if during the Build Back Better negotiations,
they had fought tooth and nail for $15 minimum wage and
they lost, and then they come back and do this, I go, that's fantastic.
You can't argue with that because they're trying as hard as they can to get it into
the legislation.
They're using their power, and then they're being performative in a good way
cuz they're drawing attention to it again, and then fighting for it again.
But in this case, they didn't fight for
it the first time when they had every opportunity to.
So, in a best case scenario,
this is Bernie being Johnny come lately on his own proposal, right?
He's the one that highlighted 50 nominal wage in the first place, right?
And in a worst case scenario, it's the just Democrats in the House playing patty
cakes when they got their ass handed to them in the actual negotiations, and
they chose not to fight.
They chose not to use their power.
And so this is just marketing.
So those are both possibilities.
And we're always constructive here.
So I'm going to tell you one thing they could do, and then I would ask you, Anna,
if they did this, would you then say it's not performative and it's real?
So if I'm Bernie, okay, you propose it.
Well, you know it's not gonna pass because eight Democrats voted against it last time
in the Senate, let alone every Republican being opposed to it.
So, if you just propose it and then go home, well, then I gotta be honest,
it was useless.
Anna wins the debate, okay?
But if you propose it and then you go, okay,
here's the eight Democrats that voted against a minimum wage last time.
Why did they do that?
Two of them are in Delaware.
Delaware is a very blue state.
Hey, voters of Delaware, you should vote these guys out.
Bernie, you gonna do that?
Because that would create tons of attention, and
use that attention to notice hey, why are Democrats who pretend to be in favor of
the minimum wage actually against it?
They voted against it.
Both Carport and Coons did, eight different Democrats did, okay?
So, if you shame them, then we would have an actual national conversation,
coz CNN would love Democrat on Democrat fighting, but you're doing it for
the right reasons, to actually get a policy changed.
You get the Democrats on board, and
then you put pressure on the purple district Republicans in the House.
You only need a couple of their votes.
So I can show you an exact roadmap for how to get this done.
Is Bernie going to do it?
He's your best chance, and the answer is, very unlikely.
Cuz he does not like to upset his Democratic colleagues.
>> Speaker 1: Right, you have to use carrots and sticks.
And the only time I see anyone in the Democratic Party using sticks is when
corporate Democrats use sticks against progressive Democrats.
Look, she's the most notable, that's why she gets talked about the most.
And she's made a lot of missteps, just keeping it real.
Like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
I mean,
the sticks used by corporate Democrats toward her worked perfectly to the point.
I mean, she voted in favor of Congress intervening to
stop the rail workers from going on strike.
She voted against the rail workers in that case.
>> Speaker 2: I know, believe me.
>> Speaker 1: So, like, I'm not I'm not interested.
Listen, I am not interested in creating opportunities for
corporate Democrats to sign on to progressive legislation and
pretend they support that progressive legislation.
Knowing full well that because of the House Freedom Caucus and because of
Republicans having control of the House of Representatives, it's never going to pass.
It's never going to pass, but they want the cookies.
They want the Kudos.
I'm not interested in the Kudos, and I'm not interested in dealing with a party
that, unlike the Republican Party, got to keep it real, is so scared of any
infighting, so scared of having to hold anyone accountable within their own party.
If there's no accountability, and if there's no strategy,
that's the main thing here.
There's no strategy to get the actual proposals passed,
then what are we having a conversation about?
>> Speaker 2: Yeah.
So last two things here.
One is important for me, and one's one devastating one for Anna.
So performative can work.
Remember when Corey Bush sat on the Capitol steps to make sure that they did
not end the moratorium on the rent during COVID, and she won on that,
at least for a period of time.
Why? Because she brought attention to it and
she embarrassed Biden.
And Biden didn't want to be embarrassed, so he gave in.
That's when performative is awesome.
That's why I don't foreclose this as being a good thing.
I think it could be a good thing.
On the other hand,
how much did they cave on $15 minimum wage when they could have fought?
It's not theoretical, guys.
There's actual facts.
Even after they lost in the first COVID relief bill while barely fighting, and
by the way, the Young Turks audience had to shame Bernie Sanders into proposing it
as an amendment, he was just gonna to let Schumer take it out of the bill.
That's just a fact.
And by the way, Bernie Sanders won't come on any progressive shows anymore.
I don't know, maybe he'll go on ones that promise him softballs.
But he goes on Bill Maher, he goes on mainstream media shows, but
he won't come on here coz he knows we're going to ask him,
so what are you gonna do to pass it, Bernie?
Is this just marketing, or do you actually mean it?
So last thing is, okay, they lost on COVID relief bill, but
Chuck Schumer said something unprecedented and he said it to the Intercept.
The article's public, you can all see it.
Ryan Grimm interviewed him and Chuck Schumer said,
I will put $15 minimum wage in every bill going forward.
That's a golden opportunity, golden.
That's when progressives should step up and go, I agree with Chuck Schumer.
It should go in every bill going forward, and we're not gonna vote for
any of these bills unless it's got $15 minimum wage.
And we have our beautiful ally Chuck Schumer with us.
Now, why didn't Chuck Schumer do that?
Because he was worried that AOC was gonna run against him in that Senate seat.
But they took that power and leverage and they flushed it down the toilet.
Not one progressive asked Chuck Schumer to ever put it in a bill again.
That's a negligence and dereliction of duty beyond imagination.
It breaks my heart to tell you that, but that's what happened.
These guys, they don't know politics at all.
So, it's just incredibly dispiriting to see this happen.
And, by the way, to Bernie and to the Justice Democrats, I know you mean well.
I'm not questioning your intent at all.
So, prove us wrong.
Fight for these.
The wealth tax is very difficult, but the minimum wage is incredibly popular.
All you have to do is fight.
Prove us wrong.
Fight.
But my guess is Anna's right.
You won't.
It's just marketing.
>> Look, it's not aimless fighting, right?
It's strategy.
Develop a strategy.
I don't even know if these people talk to one another?
>> Speaker 2: No, that's why I mentioned the thing about Bernie not coming on.
I don't care about guests.
Guests don't do well, honestly, in our version of ratings.
So it hurts us to have guests on.
But we do it so you guys can learn.
But the reason I mentioned it is because we would ask Bernie,
what's your plan, brother?
And no one else in media ever asked that.
If he's got a plan, execute it.
Prove us wrong, humiliate us, get it passed, and we'll love you forever.
We'll apologize profusely and say you're the world's greatest politician.
But you know what you have to do to pass it, you have to aggressively, not mildly,
not go on CNN and just say it once.
You have to aggressively challenge your Democratic colleagues, and
you will not do it under penalty of law.
That's why nothing ever passes that's progressive.