j.r. leonard

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

Public figures who refuse to say clearly that they will vote for the Democratic nominee over Donald Trump have earned the public pushback they will inevitably receive. They have a right not to declare anything, we have a right to complain.

But it’s not “public pushback.” It’s people chasing Twitter clout. This is again how the politically involved drastically overestimate how important this stuff is to everyone else. I get that a bunch of Twitter pundits are going to pounce. But why should I care?