Tax the rich.

Billionaires, because of their hoarding, are a principle cause of wealth inequality. They make the world a worse place for the rest of us.

Billionaires use their money creatively. They use their money to influence and control politics, to manipulate and mould culture and society in ways that are useful to them, and to further diminish the tax that they (mostly don’t) pay. They engage in these activities mostly anonymously via tax exempt, dark money organizations that use 501c3 non profits to remain anonymous. Their ability to do that was a gift to them from the United

States Supreme Court in Citizens United.

When billionaires want to scrub their reputations, they do so publicly by spending small allotments of their money openly and publicly for “charitable” purposes.

Billionaires pick and choose from their own pet projects for philanthropic investments. Are the pet projects of billionaires what everyone wants and needs? Not necessarily. But they are a great vehicle for making something that’s also not necessarily done altruistically or for the purpose of doing good, seem like it’s something good. There is also the issue that philanthropic endeavors may end up not being beneficial at all for many people. Yes, no, maybe so. That’s generally not the point. Billionaires spend money to make money or to get other things for themselves. They use philanthropy to do this.

So, is it good for ordinary people to accept the gift of philanthropy from billionaires? Is it a good thing for people to think they depend on the goodness of billionaire philanthropists to get good things in life? Doesn’t the philanthropy of billionaires establish a sort of obligation because of the gifts they give? After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch, is there?

Question:

Would it perhaps be better to simply tax billionaires sufficiently enough so that instead of passively receiving billionaire pet project gifts that they think we need and want, we can have what we want and need and do those things that would be of the most benefit for the most people, without billionaires having to make those decisions for us?

Why not adequately tax the rich so that we can dispense with their philanthropy and get what we truly need and want, not what they want for us?