Bernie Sanders Goes Nuclear On Billionaires With Craziest Tax Proposal Yet

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.) is rolling out yet another exercise in class-warfare fantasy legislation on Monday, this time a proposal to extract a staggering $4.4 trillion from the nation’s roughly 1,000 billionaires through an annual 5 percent annual wealth tax, according to The Washington Post.

The bill will be introduced in the House by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a co-chair of Sanders’s 2020 campaign and a vocal supporter of California’s own billionaire-tax scheme. The funds would be funneled into a familiar laundry list of progressive wish items – including $3,000 cash payments to Americans earning under $150,000 annually, a $60,000 minimum salary for every public-school teacher, and an expansion of Medicare to include dental, vision, and hearing coverage, along with other big-government expansions, according to the Post.

“In a democratic society, we can no longer tolerate a rigged economy where so few have so much while so many have so little,” Sanders said in a statement obtained by the Post. “This revenue would be used to substantially improve the lives of the American people and address some of the major crises facing working families.”

“The billionaire class no longer sees itself as part of American society. They see themselves as something separate and apart, like the oligarchs of the 18th century, the kings and the queens and the czars, they believe they have the divine right to rule and are no longer subject to democratic governance,” he added.

The bill echoes the Vermont socialist’s 2020 campaign pitch, when he floated a progressive wealth tax starting at 1 percent on fortunes above roughly $32 million for couples and climbing to 8 percent above $10 billion, projected then to raise about $4.35 trillion over a decade to bankroll Medicare for All, housing, childcare, and the rest of the socialist wishlist.

Sanders’ push for more taxes on billionaires comes as California is actively debating its own wealth-tax proposal targeting billionaires, including levies on unrealized gains, a plan that has already sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley. As we previously reported, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin ditched California for the business-friendly state of Florida, while Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg did the same, shelling out $150 million for a Miami mansion.

Even Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder, major Democratic donor, and longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate, has broken ranks to call California’s billionaire tax a “horrendous idea” that would accelerate the flight of tech founders and executives from the state.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who is viewed as a top 2028 candidate in Democrat and Republican circles, says he hates the proposals too.

“This will be defeated – there’s no question in my mind,” Newsom said last month. “I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state.”