j.r. leonard

Oh sure, he's a very nice guy, I just think neither Bill Gates nor Elizabeth Warren would remain nice people for long given absolute power over directing all of society's resources.

In the meanwhile, pooling Bill Gates' money with other billionaires' to massively reduce suffering here in the US, while also allowing him to continue giving away money to do other good things, seems like a net positive to me!

I just go back to my original point. The federal budget is a public document. And as a matter of policy, it is formulated separately from any new revenue measures. I’m not sure how many lines in the federal budget do more to alleviate suffering than what Gates is doing.

Oh sorry, I actually didn't initially realize what tweet you were responding to, my bad. Anyway, if there was a magic way to exempt Bill Gates from the wealth tax, I guess I would? But there's no objective standard to say "Bill Gates is exempt from wealth tax but not Elon Musk.

And besides... does the wealth tax *stop* Bill Gates from donating a bunch of money? Especially at 3% which is almost certainly less than his yearly ROI?

Personally, I don’t think a wealth tax is good policy. But I’m just responding to all the weird Tweets I’ve seen trying to play Gates as a bad guy by selectively quoting him and insinuating he doesn’t want to be taxed, when in fact, he said he’d be OK with 2X the tax bill

I mean he also refused to commit to supporting Warren over Donald "child separation" Trump so. I don't think he exactly came out smelling like a rose.

So what? Americans need to publicly declare their vote a year before the election? I despise Trump, but I’d push back if put on the spot like that I don’t think anyone is smelling Gates, to continue the metaphor. I think they’re all using this to deliver canned talking points