Billionaire Leon Cooperman is
back in the news again,
crying about the fact that he
feels that billionaires are being
demonized unfairly.
It's time for another episode of
when rich men cry.
[MUSIC]
>> I care,
that's it.
>> So what is Cooperman upset
about?
Well, he's upset about a proposed
wealth tax, which of course
did not end up coming to fruition
in the budget reconciliation bill.
But it was something that was
considered as corporate taxes were
chopped away from the original
version of the reconciliation bill.
Now, the billionaires income tax
floated by Ron Wyden is not quite
an outright wealth tax.
It would tax the value that
billionaires assets like stocks
a crew during the year.
Normally those assets are taxed
only if they're sold, right?
And so people with massive
holdings like Elon Musk and
Jeff Bezos don't sell their stocks.
What they do is they keep them in
the stock market, and then they use
that as leverage to get these loans
that they live off of.
Now, that's a way of dodging taxes,
period.
And so some democrats were like,
hey, maybe we should change the way
the tax code works to tax
the unrealized gains in the stock
market for
the tremendously wealthy, right.
People who are worth
a billion dollars or
more that didn't come to fruition.
But had it come to fruition,
that means the incomes of many of
the ultra wealthy income that they
live on sometimes borrowed against
those holdings remain untaxed.
White House economists found that
when accounting for
gains on assets as income.
The 400 wealthiest families in
America paid about 8.2% of
their incomes in individual
income taxes from 2010 to 2018.
So implementing this wealth tax
would have basically stopped them
from being able to dodge taxes.
They would pay a much higher tax
rate, which they should pay because
that would be their fair share.
Now, in response to that now
irrelevant proposal, Cooperman
said this, they're attacking
billionaires for no reason.
No, they're no they're not
attacking billionaires for
no reason.
They're barely attacking
billionaires and there is a reason
because you guys skirt paying
taxes, they dodge paying taxes.
There is a reason, so
pretending like that reason doesn't
exist is ridiculous.
He also claims this is my
favorite quote of all time.
There's no sympathy for
billionaires, correct, correct.
There is no sympathy for
billionaires, I agree
with him on that.
>> Look,
it's a fact that these billionaires
are paying about 8.2% of their
income in individual taxes.
That was a study that clearly
indicated that between 2010 and
2018 we, even if you're middle
class, you pay way more than 8%.
I mean if and God help you,
if you're a doctor or
accountant or so
you make some sort of decent money,
you're going to pay 30, 40%, right?
Even with loopholes, the richest
people in the world are only paying
8%, and then they say, why are you
guys unfairly attacking us?
It should be seven or 6%.
>> There's no sympathy for
billionaires, Jake.
>> Yeah, look guys, it isn't about
like do I hate Leon Cooper?
I don't know Leon Cooper.
>> I hate him a little bit.
>> Okay, so
his attitude is unbearable that he
thinks he's the victim dude crying
to your billions of dollars.
You have no sense of self,
you don't realize the struggle that
people go through, and they don't,
they have were invisible to them.
People can't make the rent, and
this sumbitch is a crying on TV
because you might take a dollar
was $2.5 billion.
It's impossible to spend
that money.
And he's like what if you
take seven or eight of my dollars,
they give it to poor people.
I hate them so much, why are you
attacking me attacking you?
You should be paying 40%,
you're paying 8%.
Well you should be paying literally
five times what you pay.
My God, why don't you have any
sympathy for billionaires?
Why don't you have any sympathy for
the middle class in America?
They work their ass off, and
you look at him, and you go, no,
I'll give you nothing more than
8.2% and don't you dare attack me.
I will sick all my corporate media
dogs on you and plus have them
pretend you're doing class warfare.
Not the son of a bitch,
whose only paying 8% in taxes.
So now on this specific proposal,
look then we set at the minute
widened, proposed that we laughed
and laughed on it.
>> We did, and we were right.
>> Yeah. >> Even progressive
reporters were like, no,
there's a real possibility.
There's a real chance this is
going to pass, come on guys.
>> Let's go, dude,
it's called a billionaire's text is
a 0% chance, it was going to pass.
It was taken out so quick,
sticking out like half a day.
They're like, we're going to do
this, a billionaire tax
on unrealized gains.
I was like,
forget the word billionaire,
taxing unrealized gains.
I know wealthy folks,
every one of them says hell no,
that is nuclear for them.
They would never allow it, never.
Okay, so it was such a stupid,
like just like the democrats in
the Senate and Congress,
you really thought that the donors
would allow that.
You really think that your
colleagues are not controlled by
the donors, please.
Your naivete is really, it's sad,
okay.
So anyway, Cooperman says, no, no,
it's okay,
I don't mind paying taxes,
[LAUGH] >> No, you got to be fair.
Let's be fair to Cooperman,
there are some changes in the tax
code that he can get behind for
instance, the 15% minimum
corporate tax.
You can get behind that 15%.
>> But.
>> If you can get behind that.
>> Okay.
>> Go ahead.
Corporate tax used to be 35%,
Trump cut about 21% of democrats
pretended they were against that.
But now they love it, and
they haven't moved it at all, and
they have no plans on moving in,
and then he proposed a 15% tax is
just 15%.
Used to be 35 just a couple
of years ago, 15%.
He says, am I not merciful,
I will allow that because he's not
paying it directly.
Right, but it's all a shell game.
He's not even telling you
the truth.
He might believe that at this
moment, right?
But what happens is they then
send out their different senators,
they go mansion, you kill that tax
provisions Sinema, you kill
that tax provisions, republicans.
You killed the other one and Biden
if there's any leftover remember,
nothing will fundamentally change.
So you kill them all, and
that's exactly what they did.
So they moved it around,
around, around,
around until there was no taxes on
corporations were rich at all.
So when you hear a wealthy person
like that pretending that
they want to pay taxes,
they just want to play a different
type of tax 99 out of 100 times.
That is a joke and a total lie.
And, and, and
the reason why they feel like they
could lie to you brazenly over
the top with impunity is because
the mainstream media is their dogs.
So the media will come out and
go, yeah, yeah man,
the poor are doing class warfare
on the poor, poor rich.
>> Yeah, my favorite part of
the story was when we were playing
the role of Cooperman crying, and
you were yelling at him and so
it was like, lower lip is quivering
as you're yelling at him.
It was the best moment to do
it again.
It was no,
look at his lower lip quivers.
[LAUGH] It's the best thing ever,
it's so good.
But guys older it is, there it is,
all I live for it.
I live for all,
give me that quiver, [LAUGH] >> So
chin, the chin moves,
it's a rare chin quiver.
Guys in their world,
they really, really believe that
they are the victims.
It's beyond disgusting, and
you should not stand for
it anymore.
And what that means is for God's
sakes, somebody give us a populist
progressive, a strong, progressive.
>> Strong, progressive.
>> A strong, strong progressive to
say not on our watch, you're
not going to do stupid surprise
building and ruin people's lives.
We're going to do an actual tax,
it doesn't have to be
an unrealized gains.
It could be, we could kill,
there's a million loopholes we can
kill them all, we can kill half of
them, and we save so much money.
And when they say something,
they've gotta mean it, but
we need a strong progressive, so
badly, it hurts.
And right now we still to at
this late date, do not have, won,
at least elected.