Wealth tax best solution for taming deficit

Dear Editor:

The “polarization of wealth”— everybody talks about it, and nobody does a thing about it.

The COVID pandemic hit most people hard, but the super-rich cashed in.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the collective wealth of America’s 651 billionaires has jumped by more than $1 trillion since the start of the pandemic. They now have $4 trillion.

Meanwhile, our federal government is running a catastrophic deficit, and nobody wants to raise taxes. The solution should be obvious, but it isn’t. In today’s world, the solution may sound “far left.”

Under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, the highest marginal tax rate in America was 90%.

There were no super-rich back then. The super-rich popped up after the rich reshaped the tax systems.

The solution to our current federal deficit is not to raise taxes on ordinary people. The solution is a tax on wealth.

The rich can afford a 2% tax on assets higher than $20 million. Such a tax wouldn’t deplete them, their wealth would continue to rise. And, miracle of miracles, the deficit would dwindle.

Fact is, we can’t do without this added revenue if we are to accomplish what is essential: conquer the pandemic, combat climate change and restore a living wage to ordinary Canadians.

There are signs that the federal Liberals are considering new economic policies. In The Daily Courier, economist David Bond recently noted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is currently being advised by two innovative economic thinkers, Mark Carney and Michael Sabia. Bond suggested Carney and Sabia may propose a new Royal Commission on Taxation.

Is it off-the-wall for me to think that a Royal Commission might recommend a wealth tax? Canadians got used to the GST, which took money out of their pockets. A wealth tax only takes money from persons who can afford it 10 times over. It‘s a progressive tax, in a system that has been increasingly regressive.

Let’s be honest: Any wealth tax will meet with stiff resistance from the vested interests that make a wealth tax necessary.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, could be a major target of protest. Even some Liberals might attack her. But Freeland is not weak. And she may have strong personal convictions. It was she who in 2012 published a book entitled Plutocrats: The

Rise of the New Global SuperRich and the Fall of Everyone Else.

Gary Willis, Kelowna