An Open letter to Bill Maher

Bill, with fondness and respect, sometimes you don't know what you're talking about!

Vermont is not a socialist’s paradise, or a liberal stronghold.  Vermonters chose Bernie Sanders for their senator by 65.41% in 2006, by 71% in 2012, by 67% in 2018 and 63.16% in 2024, quite a record!  But Phil Scott, a moderate Republican, won the governorship by 60.50% in 2016, 55.19% in 2018, 68.49% in 2020, 71.29% in 2022, and 73.60% in 2024.  In the most recent election where Sanders and Scott were on the ballot at the same time – 2024 – the Republican Phil Scott outperformed progressive Bernie by more than 10 percentage points.  Maybe Vermont is not such a liberal hotspot.

The Scandinavian countries – known for their happiness and their socialism – are NOT socialist economies.  Their taxes are higher than ours and they are a better run welfare state than the USA.  If you want a socialist economy, try Cuba.  Virtually EVERY “advanced” economy in the world is a “mixed” economy with capitalism at its core.  Bernie’s acceptance of the Democratic Socialists of America label is misleading.  The DSA (until just a few days ago) was NOT a socialist party, even though some of its members thought it was.  Young people tend to be ignorant about everything; youth and ignorance go together.

Your argument that the rich pay enough taxes because YOU pay 60% of your gross earnings is an anecdotal – not a statistical – argument and is therefore deeply flawed.  From the end of World War II, the top federal marginal income tax rate was 91% for 18 years, then 70% for another 18 years, then under Reagan and Bush I, 50%, 35% and 28%, then Clinton raised it only a few points and crafted FOUR years of surpluses.  We have gone to hell since, with deficits that exploded the Debt to nearly $40 Trillion today, with an historically low top marginal tax rate of 37% today.  In other words, if our federal income tax ever soaked the rich, President Reagan put a halt to that 45 years ago.

You quote the ever quotable factoid that the top 10% of American taxpayers pay 71% of the entire federal income tax bill.  And the bottom 50% pays only 3% of the total federal income tax bill, while they earn 12% of our total taxable income.  This last factoid is attributable to higher tax rates on higher marginal incomes.  But maybe we should look at who really has the ability to pay income taxes.  Give this a look!

Compare our country’s tax rate to any Scandinavian country and you know where this is going.  Then explain why all of these high tax countries always score at the top of anyone’s Happiness Index, where no one bitches quite like American taxpayers.  Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Costa Rica(!), Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Israel(!).  The USA is 23rd.  Ironically, we spend more on health care and we get worse results.  How can we reconcile our low taxes and a high cost of healthcare and not doing well in either case: in a word, corruption.   We’re the champs at corruption (we’re not the worst but we are in the top 1/6th).  And income and power inequality.  Who can we blame it on if not – ultimately – We the People?

Two last points, Bill.  One, Elon Musk and his multi-billionaire friends pay NO income taxes whatever, as they declare no “taxable income” at all.  Talk about soaking the rich!  Two, would your life change in any significant way if you paid even more taxes?  With a net worth of $140 million and an annual wage of $10 million, would your life be any different if you had NO net worth and an annual spendable amount of $4 million (your 60% tax rate)?  I suspect that the answer is NO.

As to the über-wealthy moving out of state (or country) if their taxes are raised, you haven’t moved!  If Elon Musk’s wealth were taxed at 95%, leaving him with a mere $50 billion, would his lifestyle change by a plate of waffles?  No.  How about 99%, leaving him with a mere $10 billion.  If he – or any human being – couldn’t live on $10 billion for the next 50 years ($200,000,000/year, $547,945/day, $22,831/hour), fuck him!  Finally, talk about patriotism, love of country (or state).  Sitting on wealth in the billions of dollars that could be used for a purpose is anti-social or sociopathic or worse.  The case could be made that any wealth tax ought to be federal and never at the state level.  Nevertheless, the tax on these über-wealthy who move – out of state or out of country – because of higher taxes ought to be: “don’t return, you will be arrested.”