Lawmakers in Argentina on Friday approved a new one-time levy on the country’s richest citizens to raise money to address the devastating health and economic consequences of the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
Senators passed the bill, which imposes a tax of at least 2% on individuals with assets worth more than $2.45 million, by a margin of 42 to 26, Reuters reported Saturday.
Government revenue has declined amid the Covid-19 outbreak and resulting lockdown measures, and proponents of the legislation — dubbed the “millionaire’s tax” — hope it will generate $3.7 billion for the pandemic recovery process.
“This is a unique, one-time contribution,” said Senator Carlos Caserio, a member of the committee responsible for the bill, according to a statement on the Senate’s website, Bloomberg reported Saturday.
“We’re coming out of this pandemic like countries come out of world wars, with thousands of dead and devastated economies,” Cesario added.
According to the BBC, the funds will be used to pay for medical supplies, emergency aid for small and medium-sized businesses, financial support for students and social programs, and natural gas development.
“We must find points of connection between those who have the most to contribute and those who are in need,” said Senator Anabel Fernandez Sagasti.
While Argentina is unique for having passed a coronavirus-specific wealth tax to confront the current crisis, people in other countries are clamoring for similar measures, although most politicians have so far opposed such efforts.
As Christo Aivalis explained in Jacobin on Friday, there is “massive support” for a tax on Canada’s super-rich, but 90% of the country’s parliamentarians last month voted against a proposal to establish one.
“A policy supported by nearly 80% of Canadians cannot muster 10% of the vote in the national parliament,” Aivalis pointed out, arguing that this demonstrates how politicians in the North American country are “just as much in thrall to big money as their U.S. counterparts.”
“There is no reason U.S. billionaires should hold more than $1 trillion in wealth while food lines stretch for miles and millions are on the brink of eviction. Tax the rich.”
— Robert Reich
A recent poll conducted last week by the New York Times and Survey Monkey found that two-thirds of the U.S. electorate support a tax hike on individuals with annual incomes of more than $400,000.
In August, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) introduced a Senate version and a House version of the Make Billionaires Pay Act, legislation that would establish a 60% tax on the wealth increases enjoyed by billionaires between March 18, 2020 and January 1, 2021 in order to pay for all medical expenses for every person in the U.S. for a year.
Unlike their counterparts in other wealthy countries, millions of Americans have lost healthcare coverage since the pandemic began.
Number of citizens who lost health care coverage since the pandemic began:
14,600,000 United States
0 Australia
0 Belgium
0 Canada
0 Denmark
0 Finland
0 France
0 Germany
0 Italy
0 Japan
0 Norway
0 South Korea
0 Spain
0 UK— Gravel Institute (@GravelInstitute) December 3, 2020
Months after Sanders and Omar introduced their bills to tax a portion of the wealth amassed by U.S. billionaires during the pandemic, the Institute for Policy Studies found in late November that the nation’s 650 billionaires had collectively gained more than $1 trillion since March, as Common Dreams reported.
It’s shameful that billionaires profit off the suffering of working families as the pandemic ravages the economy and kills thousands every day.
I introduced the Make Billionaires Pay Act to address our massive wealth inequality and ensure the .001% pay their fair share in taxes. https://t.co/9js0MEmcyQ
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) December 3, 2020
“There is no reason U.S. billionaires should hold more than $1 trillion in wealth while food lines stretch for miles and millions are on the brink of eviction,” tweeted Robert Reich last week. “Tax the rich.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.