The Big Democratic Fight Over How to Tax the Rich
Wealth has emerged as an early dividing line in the 2020 primaries.
Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz.
Photographer: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images
The Democratic presidential field is growing larger by the week, but the early fault line in the party’s primary has already emerged: wealth.
Elizabeth Warren spent her inaugural trip to Iowa as a likely 2020 candidate bashing bankers and billionaires, and soon after she proposed a first-of-its-kind wealth tax (2 percent on net worth above $50 million; 3 percent on billionaires). Bernie Sanders, another likely contender, is pushing a sharp increase to the estate tax. And though she isn’t running for president, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turbocharged the Democrats’ fixation on wealth by using her media stardom to advocate income tax rates as high as 70 percent.