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Comment by Reedx | Hacker News Reader

In the case of billionaires like Musk, Bezos, Gates... It's unrealistic to think that the government would make better use of that capital. It'll absolutely be wasted in comparison.

Taking ever more capital from the most effective/productive allocators and giving it to one of the least effective doesn't strike me as a good strategy.

A case like the Walton heirs is another story. I suspect we'd be better off taxing most of that wealth.

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So Elon, relying on NASA contracts to bootstrap Space X and government mandates to bootstrap Tesla may have to sell shares in those companies to other people to generate the cash to pay his wealth tax.

That doesn't affect the capital that either Space X or Tesla have to invest. It also doesn't affect whether or not Musk is still in charge of those companies.

> It's unrealistic to think that the government would make better use of that capital.

Yep, what has the government ever done for anyone!

let's say magically the number of tax dollars taken in by the government doubles. How would your life change for the better?

I imagine there could be more spent on improving the condition of the roads, public housing and health provisions, school budgets could be larger, any number of things.

I don't imagine tax take would double, however many billionaires got fleeced, but the premise that the government would necessarily be worse at disbursing the funds than private individuals is laughable.

Musk, Bezos, and Gates would have access to all of the funding in the world for any future ventures. What the government could do is lower taxes on everyone else.

I have not seen a single wealth tax proposal suggest the funds be used to lower taxes for others, and it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest any wealth tax proponents want to do that. These types of tax proposals are always to fund other services.

How's it disingenuous to propose that the government could do something with a wealth tax besides spending it on social programs? If we're talking about what leftist politicians would want to do with the money, then we shouldn't be talking about a wealth tax at all, because it's likely never going to ever pass a national scale.

It's disingenuous to propose it as a viable option when every proposal involves spending the money on something. These things do not happen in a vacuum.

Nobody is talking about "leftist politicians."

Who are these proposals coming from and what kind of traction do they have with voters? My answer to that is they are coming from politicians rallying their base for primary elections, knowing full well that the proposals are extremely unlikely to come into fruition.

I am suggesting something that might actually get the middle class, or those aspiring to join the middle class, to support and vote for the idea. I think it's pointless to talk about more radical concepts like a wealth tax or UBI without considering how such a thing could be made appealing to a majority of voters.

"I like Elon so he should keep his money."

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