Previously Republican billionaires for Clinton
Michael Bloomberg, Meg Whitman, Mark Cuban all support Hillary Clinton.
Billionaire Seth Klarman, who previously supported Republicans, now supports Hillary Clinton.
Thus we see that billionaires WANT to have their taxes raised. Or at the very least it’s not that important to them compared to the horror of having a president who eats Kentucky Fried Chicken and who wants to restrict immigration.
This is why Republicans need to stop being the party of low taxes for the super-rich who return the favor by donating the money they saved on low taxes to the Democrats.
Lion of the Blogosphere 
The Koch brothers are not supporting either Trump or Clinton. They are not giving any money to Trump, Trump superPacs or anti-Clinton groups. They are concentrating all their donations on Senate, House and state level races.
Mike CA
August 4, 2016 at 2:13 PM
Rifleman
August 4, 2016 at 8:39 PM
To my knowledge, Susanna Hoffs has yet to declare her presidential endorsement this year. Could she have a conflict of interest?
FIddlesticks
August 4, 2016 at 2:15 PM
It won’t happen but my wish is that the Republican voterss get rid of Ryan and McCain in the primaries to validate Trumpism. I’m the independent who tells everyone that I endorse Hillary but will vote for Trump. Being political is hard work at the pub and very easy in the voting booth.
cesqy
August 4, 2016 at 2:40 PM
I guess if you’re worth a couple of billion dollars, and you withdraw 50 million a year for living expense, then increasing the taxes on the 50 million from 10 million to maybe 15 million, or 20 million isn’t going make much of a dent in your wealth. Now if Hillary was proposing a wealth tax like they have in Europe, I think France is 3% a year, the tax on 2 billion would be $60 million. I think that would get their attention and Buffet would then be paying nearly a billion on his hoard….each year!!!
But the billionaires see Hillary as making it easier to run up the stock prices which is the source of their wealth. Keep wages low thru an absolute glut of labor. The little bit extra on taxes is a drop in the bucket.
Dee
August 4, 2016 at 3:26 PM
Actually, it’s Republican policies to lower capital gains taxes which cause stock prices to run up.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 4, 2016 at 3:36 PM
If it’s lower capital gains, then why are the tech billionaires making such an effort to create and maintain a labor glut? From what I’ve seen, if Fakebook or Google exceed earnings expectation, that’s when they make a couple of billion in a day. Like Bezos this week. Pretty sure the labor cost is a big component of whether they can beat expectations, as it’s one of the few inputs they actually have some control over. They can’t control power for the server farm, what the servers cost, real estate costs, and tax policy. They live and die by the stock price, and beating expectations is all they really care about.
The tax policy that would really like changed is another amnesty on taxing off shore profits when the money comes back in the US. That’s the Holy Grail….
Dee
August 4, 2016 at 4:15 PM
“The tax policy that would really like changed is another amnesty on taxing off shore profits when the money comes back in the US.”
And many different Republicans have endorsed exactly that, but they vote for Democrats anyway because Republicans smell.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 4, 2016 at 4:17 PM
the economic policies of the last 30 years, not only in the US, but the whole world, may be summarized as…
money manager capitalism, shareholder capitalism, etc.
the new british pm is opposed to this even though she’s a conservative.
theresa may is britain’s trump.
jorge videla
August 4, 2016 at 4:39 PM
trickle down is great in theory, and so its boosters keep giving often times genuinely good theoretical reasons for it.
but it’s a total failure empirically.
in this matter the “conservatives” are emotional and irrational.
jorge videla
August 4, 2016 at 4:44 PM
Buffet could stop exploiting loopholes and aggressive “tax optimization” any time he wanted to. And he could stop using other people’s insurance premiums to invest for his own benefit. And yet he doesn’t do that.
Because he is a blowhard interested in using the tax code to his competitive advantage.
And the polygamous, autistic prole of Omaha isnt a good example of anything. And he pollutes the airwaves with his horrible Geico commercials which he doesnt have to watch and makes the whole culture worse.
Lion of the Turambar
August 4, 2016 at 5:19 PM
I don’t expect anyone to not exploit legal loopholes.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 4, 2016 at 6:28 PM
“Buffet could stop exploiting loopholes and aggressive “tax optimization” any time he wanted to. And he could stop using other people’s insurance premiums to invest for his own benefit. And yet he doesn’t do that.”
And Trump could stop having his clothing brand manufactured in China. There’s nothing so really awful about the position “I do it because I’d be disadvantaged if I didn’t do it and everyone else did — but really, no one should be able to do it.”
chairman
August 4, 2016 at 6:41 PM
Buffet claims its the ethical thing to do- and yet he doesnt do it. So his explanation is fake.
And Buffets operation goes way beyond “everyone does it”. His “tax optimization” which is lauded in his annual report, is so aggressive that is lands him in tax court. Thats a hypocritical stance.
Beyond that issue, I remember a cover letter where Lion wanted to spend the rest of his life doing tax law. Now he is against loop holes? Is that the point of being in tax law?
Lion of the Turambar
August 5, 2016 at 9:18 AM
Don’t see a difference between Buffet not donating extra money to the U.S. Treasury, and Trump being against immigration but hiring immigrants for his hotels, or being against bad trade deals but making his products in China.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 5, 2016 at 9:43 AM
Lion, if these billionaires actually wanted their taxes raised, they’d be calling for a general property tax that taxes a percentage of all their property, whether real estate, stocks, bonds, cash, etc. They’re not doing that. What they support is raising income taxes on middle and upper middle class people who have to work for a living and depend on their income.
Tom
August 4, 2016 at 3:36 PM
Democrats want to raise capital gains taxes and estate taxes, close the carried interest loophole, etc., which only affect the richest of the rich and the investor class, not people working for a living. Republicans in Congress always block Democrats from doing this. Stop repeating this false rightwing propaganda.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 4, 2016 at 3:43 PM
One thing you overlook though is that the Warren Buffetts and Mark Cuba’s of the world have lawyers and accountants which keep them from having to pay the very taxes that Republicans refuse to allow Democrats to raise. The billionaires aren’t going to be paying their share of taxes no matter who gets elected.
Greasy William
August 4, 2016 at 3:48 PM
“One thing you overlook though is that the Warren Buffetts and Mark Cuba’s of the world have lawyers and accountants which keep them from having to pay the very taxes that Republicans refuse to allow Democrats to raise. ”
Congress needs to close close close loopholes, but Republicans view those loopholes as fast ones that they pulled on the Democrats.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 4, 2016 at 4:15 PM
The wealthy already own lots of high value assets, so the capital gains tax matters less to them. Also the estate tax matters less to them because they have good lawyers.
The capital gains and estate taxes primarily affect middle and upper middle class people. The capital gains tax is a tax on the profit of a sale of an asset. Wealthy people don’t need to sell assets for profit and income like middle and upper middle class people do. Wealthy people can just sit on and hold onto assets for years. The estate tax is a tax on transferring assets to heirs. It’s a tax on middle class and upper middle class people who can’t afford lawyers to avoid or mitigate the tax and thus lose some of their modest property, which prevents the middle and upper middle class from building wealth.
Tom
August 4, 2016 at 4:19 PM
Estate taxes have no effect at all on middle class people, there’s a $5.45 million exemption per person. You are talking nonsense. The Clinton tax plan will DEFINITELY cause the richest of the rich to pay more taxes if it’s implemented, with the bottom 99% barely being affected. The richest of the rich support her anyway either because they WANT their taxes raised, or they don’t care that much and Republicans have cooties.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 4, 2016 at 4:41 PM
lion would do well to actually post the stats on income and wealth in the US.
5 million is the 1% for household wealth in the US…or was last time i checked.
with 5 m in liquid wealth one need never work for pay and can still pay full freight to private schools for 2 kids.
but if that 5 m is in real estate, farm/ranch land maybe not.
jorge videla
August 4, 2016 at 5:01 PM
There’s a huge gulf between billionaires and people with 5 and a half million dollars. It’s not inconceivable at all for people who have been middle class for 3 generations or so to amass 5 and half million. The estate tax is a tax that inhibits middle class people from becoming wealthy.
The elites don’t want middle class people with stable families building intergenerational wealth and becoming independently wealthy. They want people dependent on them, either through government or through private, professional employment.
Tom
August 4, 2016 at 5:02 PM
Nonsense.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 4, 2016 at 6:28 PM
5.45 million is the amount of the estate not the amount an heir receives. If someone leaves an estate of 5 million to one heir the heir gets the entire 5 million tax free. But if someone leaves an estate of 20 million to 1 heir they pay 6 million in tax and only get 14 million. That’s still a lot of money. But if they had a large family that 14 million is split multiple ways. If someone had half a dozen kids and a few step children the share of a 20 million estate would be less than 2 million. And that’s no longer a tax on the rich. It’s always irritated me that the tax is based on the size of the estate rather than the size of what someone inherits.
destructure
August 4, 2016 at 5:24 PM
and like the top marginal rate on corporate income, the top marginal rate on inheritance is actually very high in the US…comparatively speaking…that is, in comparison to other countries.
but hardly anyone actually pays it.
that’s the problem.
jorge videla
August 4, 2016 at 7:30 PM
All,
This entire farce of estate taxes is gotten around by easily setting up a charitable trust where your heirs draw an income from administration of a charity. A charity only needs to divulge 4% of it’s income annually to some kind of cause. The rest can be saved or put up for expenses.
The wealthier you are, the easier it is to set up such charitable trusts.
The Democrat tax plan was and is always a dog and pony show with no teeth to go after the very people that own and control the Democrat Party…as you would expect.
map
August 4, 2016 at 7:51 PM
here are the stats i think i remember regarding the 1% in wealth…from professor shoe:
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2013/03/inside-1.html
but given the run up in the stock market these may be higher now.
JS’s figure on middle class wealth share by country might be less flattering to spain and less damning of the US considering that spain and other s european countries’ stock markets have been in the toilet since 2008.
btw, thinking of buying intesa…any opinions?
wealth vs income was highlighted by a forbes cover story on the robinson family…still owned by the Robinson family.
my God how appropriate a name!
jorge videla
August 4, 2016 at 10:01 PM
that is, ni’ihau is still owned by the robinson family. rich but broke.
jorge videla
August 4, 2016 at 10:03 PM
“Investing” is mostly an Anglo Prole term, or phenomenon, with Meriprolestan having 50% of its adults tied to fiat money via the stark murky.
The rest of Western Civilization plays it safe.
JS
August 5, 2016 at 12:15 AM
The super rich don’t give a rat’s patootie about taxes. The super rich care about status and moralistic preening, which means Vote Hillary all the way.
peterike
August 4, 2016 at 4:03 PM
Well the good part about Hillary is that she can be bought. And hopefully these Republican billionaires will be buying her into some sensible policies. Whitman has volunteered to raise money for HRC, which is probably a decent investment.
In any event Hillary wont be raising taxes. Nancy Pelosi represents a bunch of San Fransisco millionaires and nothing will be done that they dont approve of.
Lion of the Turambar
August 4, 2016 at 4:59 PM
In this case, they have more to lose from protectionism and immigration restrictions from Trump than they do from higher taxes from Clinton.
Plus they see Trump as the populist candidate and Hillary as the elitist candidate. The rich will sacrifice financial gain in order to increase their power and influence relative to the non-rich — read Michal Kalecki on this.
chairman
August 4, 2016 at 5:16 PM
The real difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Democrats help the rich through loopholes which allow them to pay less in taxes than most people think they pay.
Joe Walker
August 4, 2016 at 5:23 PM
The super rich don’t care about paying a few percentage points in taxes. However they seem to deeply care about keeping the cost of skilled labor down.
Pikachu
August 4, 2016 at 5:53 PM
Lion, Trump went before Congress in the early 90’s and advocated for a 1-time billionaire wealth tax, including himself of course, to pay off the national debt. No takers.
Andrew E.
August 4, 2016 at 5:56 PM
I’ll repost my response to james n.s.w. on the other thread:
when is he going to do that????? how much does he want to win if hes delaying that this long???
I don’t know when, they may have been waiting for early September. But he should move the ad war to now in August.
With a fundraising haul of $80 million last month he is well on track to raising the $400 million which, in my judgement, is sufficient for the general election. With those resources there’s no reason for him not to go ahead.
While he has been eschewing traditional campaign tactics, and as ridiculous as campaign ads are, ads do work for Republicans because the only way to get an unfiltered message through to the electorate is attack ads. In that 30 to 60 second spot they can present the case against the Democrat without any media protection or talking points. And Hillary is giving him many, many, scandals to hit her over the head with.
If you follow competitive state or national races over the years where the Republican won you will have noticed the Republican candidate is usually behind the Democrat over summer but then closes the gap in Fall. The reason the gap closes is because the media never reports anything bad about the Democrat during the summer, it’s only the Fall ad wars that let the Republican to get shots in which the Democrat has to defend against.
If Trump wants to regain the lead he needs to put the parents of the Benghazi victims (and Epstein, the Iran bribe, her emails, and everything else) in real TV ads, and stop preaching to the choir on conservative media.
The polls are swinging back and forth because both Hillary and Trump, when they’ve had the lead, those leads proved soft because some of their support comes from voters who have high negative opinions of both candidates.
The Undiscovered Jew
August 4, 2016 at 6:19 PM
The media will not report on speeches he makes about the Great Swiss Franc Airlift, Benghazi, or Epstein until Trump runs his ad campaign and forces Hillary to defend the indefensible. The traditional Fall ad campaign is the only reason Republicans win elections at all, this time honored strategy has to be the main way he gets his negative message into the electorate and move from a defensive position back on offense.
The Undiscovered Jew
August 4, 2016 at 6:38 PM
If I recall correctly, wasn’t Bill Clinton a big fan of McDonald’s?
sestamibi
August 4, 2016 at 6:22 PM
Yes he was, back in the day, before he went SWPL vegan.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 4, 2016 at 6:31 PM
And look how sickly he seems. Clinton could presumably afford HGH and TRT therapy, and also should have enough leisure time for daily 30 minute resistance training sessions. But he looks like he could expire at any moment.
Sgt. Joe Friday
August 4, 2016 at 8:08 PM
McDonald’s was also a tad less prole in the 90s.
Bobo
August 4, 2016 at 6:32 PM
The super rich don’t care much about tax rates because they don’t pay much in taxes.
Exhibit A:
** **Frank and Jamie McCourt.
The McCourts, who own the Los Angeles Dodgers (so she says; he says he’s the owner and she’s not), jointly pocketed income totaling $108 million from 2004 through 2009, according to documents Jamie McCourt recently filed in the couple’s divorce case in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
On that sum, they paid zero federal and state income tax. Jamie suggests that some tax breaks will apply this year too.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/24/business/la-fi-hiltzik24-2010feb24
****
JimBonobo
August 4, 2016 at 7:07 PM
Need to close close close loopholes. Please provide details of the loopholes used to avoid the taxes, and I’ll make some suggestions.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 4, 2016 at 7:11 PM
A lot of the details are in the linked article. The McCourts were in the commercial real estate biz which is a great place for tax breaks – depreciation is one of the ones they used – (i’m a trump supporter but given that he’s also in the real estate biz he may have some good reasons not to release his tax returns till after the election).
JimBonobo
August 4, 2016 at 7:50 PM
lion there are so many loopholes and congress will never close them all. this Bloomberg article details just a few of the ways the super rich avoid paying the taxes that the rest of us are stuck with:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-04-17/how-to-pay-no-taxes-10-strategies-used-by-the-rich
i’m convinced that the ONLY way to make the super rich pay significantly higher taxes is through a wealth tax, say 2-3% of assets per year. nothing else will work.
JimBonobo
August 4, 2016 at 8:06 PM
Why would a wealth tax work? It’d get riddled with the same sorts of loop holes.
These people are as rich as they are because of the Fed and federal regulations. End The Fed and take a hatchet to the government. There’s no tweak to make to tax codes. Kill the bank, kill fannie and freddie, kill sallie mae. This is why these ultra-rich people are so influential. You can’t pretend it’s an IRS tweak. They are ultra-rich because they own the beltway machine and know how to work it. “I Killed The Bank!” End the Fed.
bobbybobbob
August 4, 2016 at 9:55 PM
Exactly that’s my point. These assholes have a $100 million income but pay no income tax. That’s why the wealthy have no problem with raising taxes, because they know it means ordinary people who work will end up paying while they pay squat.
You’re exactly right that the wealth tax is the only solution. The franchise value of the Los Angeles Dodgers is more than $2 billion. They should be charged a wealth tax every year on the value of the Dodgers (and whatever else they own), and if they can’t or don’t want to pay, they can sell the Dodgers.
Tom
August 4, 2016 at 11:00 PM
bobby,
The wealth tax already works. If you don’t pay your property tax, the government will just sell your house to someone else.
Tom
August 5, 2016 at 12:16 AM
What does any of this matter anyway? Trump is dying a death of a 1000 cuts, and Clinton is going to be our next president. Not that it makes a difference our problems are so intractable that nothing she – or anyone – can do will reverse our fortunes. Best case scenario is we somehow achieve a “soft landing,” i.e. we become Brazil with nukes. Only thing wrong with that forecast is Brazil doesn’t have a bunch of hostile 3rd worlders being let into their country by its elites, we do. More likely is we become Venezuela meets Somalia.
Sgt. Joe Friday
August 4, 2016 at 8:16 PM
We shouldn’t leave out Steve Sailer’s favorite bogeyman, billionaire George Soros, who is devoting the autumn of his years to the extermination of Western civilization.
Mark Caplan
August 4, 2016 at 8:48 PM
Sorry, I see the theme is billionaires who are backing Hillary who were previously Republican. Long-time leftist George Soros isn’t one of those.
Mark Caplan
August 5, 2016 at 9:38 AM
She doesn’t plan on shutting down the mechanism of their source of exorbitant wealth: open borders, off shoring and free trade. Billionaires make far more money off open borders, off shoring and free trade than anything that would be lost from higher taxes.
Dave
August 4, 2016 at 9:17 PM
With some exceptions, I doubt this is the case. Billionaires do not support Clinton because she wants to raise their taxes; they support her in spite of it.
I remember an article in Slate over ten years ago (back when Slate was almost worth reading), which mentioned a survey that found people earning between 1-10m per year were voting for Bush while those making over 10 million per year were going to vote for Kerry. The author’s hypothesis was that 10m+ PER YEAR is “fuck you” money. You’re reasonably secure that your social status is not under threat whereas 1-10m crowd still struggles to keep up with the Joneses.
A socially liberal who candidate supports lower taxes and less government regulation would do well among millionaires and billionaires. Modern Republicans get more than their fair share of votes from lower-income people voting against class interests because they care about God, gays, or abortion.
Vince
August 5, 2016 at 12:08 AM
There are no pro-life billionaires (Trump is marginally pro-life but not a billionaire). Hard as it is for Libertarians and other aspergerites to understand, nobody, given a choice, would want their child to be a pro-choice billionaire if the other option is a less-rich pro-life child. Compassion is called for.
howitzer daniel
August 5, 2016 at 12:48 AM
This is incredibly inane. Not that it couldn’t be true, but there are innumerable policies that might draw a billionaire to support HRC over Trump. Nowhere does it “prove” that they want their taxes raised. Note that HRC isn’t running on a primary platform of raising taxes – they are a side issue this campaign.
Chase
August 5, 2016 at 2:36 AM
Also for Clinton:
http://nypost.com/2016/08/04/crackheads-bums-and-hookers-have-taken-over-washington-square-park/
Garr
August 5, 2016 at 8:13 AM
Wow she’s messed up:
IHTG
August 5, 2016 at 8:50 AM
property taxes, tariffs, and “sin,” taxes on things like cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling are the best taxes. bloomberg’s soda tax was a good idea poorly executed. a big tax on sugar and sugar substitutes is justified… as is a carbon tax and big fees for resource extraction.
if the gop were smart (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA) they’d offer a higher gas tax, carbon tax/pricing, “sin” taxes (throw in a tax on porn for the evangelicals/mormons), etc. in exchange for lower income taxes.
the payroll tax is dumb.
dsgntd_plyr
August 5, 2016 at 10:09 AM