Bernie Sanders is very careful not to mention any specific numbers when asked how he would pay for all the things he would do as president but it wasn’t always that way.
Bloomberg reports:
Bernie Sanders Flirted With 100 Percent Marginal Tax on the Rich, Maximum Wage
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders distanced himself from the Eisenhower-era top marginal tax rate of 90 percent during last week’s Democratic presidential debate, but as he prepares to detail his support of democratic socialism in a major speech Thursday, documents from his past show him supporting an even higher rate of taxation on the nation’s highest earners.
In several articles dating back to the early 1970s, Sanders is described as supporting a top marginal tax of 100 percent for high earners or the establishment of a maximum wage.
During Saturday’s debate in Des Moines, Sanders said “we haven’t come up with an exact number yet” for the top tax rate “but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was 90 percent.”
“I’m not as socialist compared to Eisenhower,” he added.
Earlier this year, in an interview with CNBC, Sanders sounded like he supported a top marginal tax rate even higher than 90 percent. Asked by John Harwood if 90 percent was too high, Sanders responded: “No. That’s not 90 percent of your income, you know? That’s the marginal.”
In a 1974 article titled “Concentrated Wealth Is Causing Economic Illness,” from an unidentified newspaper that was in his papers at the University of Vermont library, Sanders is described as wanting to “make it illegal to amass more wealth than a human family could use in a lifetime.” He would do that, the article said, with “a 100 percent tax on incomes above this level ($ one million per year)” and “would recycle this money for the public need.”
Also in 1974, when Sanders was the Liberty Union’s candidate for Senate in Vermont, he told the Burlington Free Press that “nobody should earn more than $1 million,” a line that was mentioned in passing in a July story in Politico. The Sanders campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Bernie is a pretty generous guy.
As long as he’s spending other people’s money.
