Dear Mr Spielberg
Billionaire tax
Dear Mr Spielberg
How many lifetimes would it take you to spend all your wealth?
You earned it; great movies, great story telling. Though, keep in mind that over the history of human civilisation yours is a role that was performed for love, shits and giggles. A billion, not so much.
A little perspective here; how much more money do you have than say, doctors, nurses, paramedics, care workers, cleaners, engineers, electricians, plumbers, builders, water treatment, farmers, pickers, packers, drivers, supermarket workers, teachers, teaching assistants, bus drivers, train drivers, lorry drivers, police, fire, ambulance, next to health and doctors are the heroes in Sanitation — refuse collectors, sewage workers.
These last two jobs are easily the worst and most important. Doctors are to cure what sanitation workers are to prevention; a garbage strike can bring a city to its knees, stink to high heaven and leave a festering heap of disease. And, there is no way you would ever, ever want or do the job and yet without these heroes your life would not be worth living as you drown under the miasma of uncollected festering rubbish. For the record; I had a job once servicing cess pit pumps; no joke, seriously, no joke at all.
The organs of the body held an election for president; the usual suspects weighed in. Brain- no brainer, heart- don’t want that fucker to stop, stomach - ever had peritonitis- muscles - dstrophy. Voting was going well, all the organs (skin is the biggest- try living without one) made their pitch, when suddenly a last minute bid by the asshole! The howls of laughter from all the organs was a welcome release of tension and went on, and on until; the body couldn’t void its bowels. Big chief, no shit went on for days, and days; the brain couldn’t think, the heart was labouring with keeping the dirty blood going; and they all relented and agreed that the president was the asshole. POTUS Epstein is back.
And now you know why the boss is always the asshole.
The GAO figures from the US government’s own auditors provides some truly heartbreaking facts.
70 percent of adult SNAP recipients work full time. 90 percent work in the private sector. Every $1 billion in SNAP benefits generates $1.54 billion in GDP and supports 13,560 jobs.
The programme isn’t a handout — it’s a corporate subsidy. Walmart alone captures 18 percent of all SNAP spending, paying workers poverty wages, then collecting the government benefits those workers need to survive. The taxpayer is subsidising Walmart’s profits.
One in ten American workers lives in a household receiving SNAP. Not because they won’t work. Because their employers won’t pay living wages.
Now, Stephen, this is where you and your ilk come in
95% tax = $950 million to the state.
Net take home = $50 million
Do you remember when you craved just 1 million? Ah! Man feel like a king; fuck you money. At 95% tax on each billion would leave you with 50 times fuck you money, and you couldn’t spend that in your lifetime.
The flip side: $950 million would pay for
Universal healthcare for the US costs approximately $3.5 trillion per year.
Free childcare: around $500 billion per year.
Free public transport: roughly $100 billion per year.
So, a one-time wealth tax on existing billionaire assets covers roughly two years of universal healthcare, plus childcare and transport.
The sustainable model would need the annual income tax at 95% on billionaire earnings to sustain it, which on current wealth growth rates of $1-2 trillion per year among US billionaires generates $950 billion to $1.9 trillion annually.
It doesn’t fully fund everything indefinitely from billionaires alone, but it closes a vast amount of the gap, and that’s before touching corporate taxation, closing tax havens, and taxing inheritance properly.