Drawing the “Muppet Gothic” in the background was so much fun!
It’s funny when the extremist rhetoric I make up for my caricatures of rich right-wingers is less extreme than what some real billionaires say. In 2014, billionaire Tom Perkins wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal:
I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one percent,’ namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich.’ …Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent ‘progressive’ radicalism unthinkable now?”
Billionaire Sam Zell rushed to defend Perkins, adding: “The 1 percent are being pummeled because it’s politically convenient to do so.”
Billionaire Leon Cooperman, reacting to Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax, said “this is the fucking American dream she is shitting on.”
To be fair, not all billionaires are such bad people (although it’s bad that any exist at all). In 2024, over 250 million- and billionaires signed a letter called “Proud to Pay More,” calling for taxes on extreme wealth and saying such taxes would not change their standard of living.
We ask you to tax us, the very richest in society. This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. The first three show a wealthy, middle-aged couple in their luxurious living room with their poodle. I’ll call them MAN and WOMAN.
PANEL 1
The man leaps up from the sofa, staring with horror at his phone. The woman, sitting beside him, looks concerned.
MAN: Oh my God!! How could they do this?
WOMAN: What? What’s happened?
PANEL 2
A close-up of the anguished man holding his phone toward us. The phone displays a news page with the giant headline “NEW TAX.”
MAN: They’ve passed a new tax on billionaires!
PANEL 3
Back in the living room, the man sits hunched forward with his face in his hands. The woman throws her arms into the air, wailing.
MAN: Why are they doing this to us?
WOMAN: Because billionaires are the only minority it’s still acceptable to pick on! They won’t stop until we’re absolutely crushed!
PANEL 4
A large caption says “TWO YEARS LATER.”
The Woman from the first three panels is with a friend, relaxing in swimsuits on cushioned lounge chairs on a yacht, beside a swimming pool. A waiter approaches with a tray.
FRIEND: So how did that “billionaire tax” turn out for you two?
WOMAN: Devastating! We still haven’t recovered.
WAITER: Hors d’oeuvre?
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is old-fashioned cartoonists’ slang for little unimportant but hopefully fun details in the art.
Panel 1: The painting on the wall is American Gothic, but with Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show. The coffee-table books are titled “RICH: YOU DESERVE IT!,” “POOR: THEY DESERVE ZIP!” and “MIDDLE CLASS: WHO CARES?” A poodle naps beside the couple, while a Koons balloon-dog sculpture is on the coffee table. Outside the window, a giant hand atop a building flashes a peace sign.
Panel 2: Other stories on the phone include “ABE VIGODA FOUND ALIVE,” “SHOCKER! RICH IDIOT BUYS $40,000 PHONE!” and (in a partially cropped off thumbnail) “CROP truncate shorten cut off.” The “$40,000 phone” image shows the same phone the man is holding up —and even the same hand. (And yes, that phone — the “Agent Q Himalaya Alligator Gold & Diamond” — is real.)
Panel 3: The coffee-table books now refer to Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine: “WHO — FIRST,” “WHAT — SECOND” and “DON’T CARE — SHORTSTOP.” A framed photo of the Monopoly Man sits on the end table. A rat in a tux holds a cocktail. The poodle pees on the Koons sculpture.
Panel 4: The poodle wears sunglasses and reads a magazine. The Loch Ness Monster (but with a duck head) swims in the ocean. The rat from panel 3, wearing swim trunks, is doing the back float in the pool.
Ironically, taxing billionaires is such a good idea, even billionaires can’t always argue with it.
Although it is interesting billionaires complaining about such a tax get much more attention.
Even leaving aside the ideological content, “Person from group X saying X shouldn’t be taxed” is just… what we’d all assume is happening anyway whether X is billionaires, shoe manufacturers, accountants, single mothers, whatever. The opposite is more novel, and thus should be more newsworthy.
So nice to see a political cartoon about sports that isn’t about trans people.
Though, do we know that Who, What, and I Don’t Know are cis? Have they undergone the required sex verification test?
What kind of taxes are you proposing? Income? Wealth? Property?
Congress (with the President’s signature) has a lot of leeway with income taxes. Wealth taxes at the Federal level are unconstitutional. There’s no such thing as a Federal property tax, so maybe that’s a way to go, I’d have to think about that.
If Elon Musk’s income from the sale of Paypal had been taxed at confiscatory levels then SpaceX, Tesla, et. al. might never have happened because he wouldn’t have had the capital to invest in them. Perhaps what’s needed is a tax schedule that doesn’t touch money that’s re-invested within a certain length of time.
I spotted “Abe Wigoda found alive!” right off. Horrible of you to raise my hopes just to cruelly dash them.
Ron, I was imagining this cartoon as being about a state tax proposal, not federal.
1) Maybe something like Prop 40 in California. The problem is that prop 40 is a one-time tax, and I’d prefer something more ongoing.
2) There’s also something like a 4% wealth proceeds tax, applicable only to high-income households. One advantage of this is that it piggybacks off already-existing federal tax reporting requirements, so it would be pretty simple to impliment.
Minnesota is already doing this at a 1% level, but I’d like to see it be at least 4 times that high.
3) There’s also the millionaire’s tax in Washington – basically, much higher tax rates for income over $1 million. Simple to understand, definitely legal.
So that’s three options to consider. And of course, we could do a combo.
To answer your Musk question: Back in 2002, Musk wasn’t yet a billionaire – he had “only” the $180 million Paypal windfall – so option 1 wouldn’t have applied to him at all when he was starting those companies.
Option 2 would have cost him, if we assume 100% of the $180 million was taxed, an extra $7 million. Option 3, $18 million. In both these cases, he would have had plenty of the $180 million left for his Telsa and SpaceX investments.
And of course – contrary to the Musk mythology – Musk hasn’t been the sole investor in either Telsa or SpaceX. It’s not plausible to suppose that those companies, or their competitors, would never have been financed had Musk not existed.
Ron, I’m already convinced that taxing the rich is a good idea. No need to present utopian visions to convince me.
Literal LOL!
“Perhaps what’s needed is a tax schedule that doesn’t touch money that’s re-invested within a certain length of time.”
This is broadly speaking, the Swedish system – a relatively high tax on dividends, but a low tax on investments.
However eventually, most wealthy people want to take out dividends, so they’ll get hit with the steep tax eventually. And they’ll argue “why should I invest in my next business? They’ll just take it off me eventually”