Bernie Sanders calls out Bezos, Musk, Bloomberg, and Buffett in billionaire tax push: 'The richest people in America

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

have never ever had it so good’

As wealth taxes gain momentum from Sacramento to Washington State, Sen. Bernie Sanders says 938 people stand between most working Americans and a $3,000 check.

In a scathing op-ed published Wednesday in the Guardian, the Vermont senator named every name and put every number on the table. “The richest people in America have never ever had it so good,” he wrote, while mentioning that 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and 85 million are uninsured or underinsured.

“We have a tax code that is totally rigged—written by representatives of the wealthy to benefit the wealthy,” he wrote in the op-ed, while also referencing estimates from the Rand Corporation that found nearly $80 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1% over the past 50 years.

Sanders is making headlines for once again calling for billionaires to pay up. Last month, he and Rep. Ro Khanna introduced the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act that would put a 5% tax on the estimated 938 billionaires in the country and raise an expected $4.4 trillion over a decade. A portion of the first year’s revenue will be redistributed in the form of $3,000 checks to anyone making less than $150,000 a year.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/bernie-sanders-calls-bezos-musk-163411806.html

[RandySF]

1. Why is Bernie calling out Buffet?

He's supported raising taxes on himself for decades.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Agreed

There are plenty of deserving targets.
Buffet isn't one of them.

[betsuni]

3. In his 2023 book his oligarch list is "Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Buffet, the Waltons, the Kochs, and their ilk"

Last edited Sun Apr 5, 2026, 02:13 AM - Edit history (1)

and I wondered.

"The fight against American oligarchy -- and the plutocratic arrangements that foster it -- has nothing to do with personalities. Inequality isn't about individuals; this is a systemic crisis." They're all the same no matter what, even if they support raising taxes on themselves?

[RandySF]

4. I never saw wealth as intrinsically bad

as long as everyone pays their fair share of taxes and not impede upward mobility for others.

[betsuni]

5. The myth that all dysfunction in government is caused by money and everyone and everything's corrupt

and rigged by billionaire oligarchs except the populist saviors who are the only ones fighting for The People against both sides elite establishment blah blah blah blah blah blah..

Buffett on a list of bad oligarchs, and now bad billionaires...

[DFW]

6. And Gates has so far given away $100 billion, and considers that a start.

His plans are to give away $200 billion more over the next 20 years, which should deplete just about all of his fortune. Maybe Bernie Sanders thinks he know better what to do with Gates's money, but Sanders remains a politician and a bureaucrat, whereas Gates already has decades of experience actually being involved in his foundation's activities. He doesn't hold rallies. He goes out and gets his hands dirty. That sounds better to me than a bureaucrat who wants to confiscate and then decide what to do with what he has confiscated.

Anyone who tosses Gates and Buffett into the same pot with Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg does not get to claim piety to me. Besides, as someone who faces 73% in income taxes because no one in Congress, including Bernie Sanders, will say a peep about enacting Residence-Based Taxation**, I don't take Congressional shouting about tax fairness seriously anyway. Every time the Democrats Abroad try to meet with members of Congress about it, they either "have no time," or, more honestly at least, say no. At 9 million strong--about the population of Virginia--you'd think someone in Congress might do something about it. The last one that really sounded like he would was Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who, unfortunately, got defeated trying to defend his Senate seat from (ugh!!) the despicable Ron Johnson, who probably thinks "abroad" is a 1930s slang term for "a woman."

**Every country on earth DOES recognize Residence-Based Taxation EXCEPT Eritrea and the USA,

[betsuni]

7. Absolutely.

The double taxation thing is outrageous! I feel so sorry for anyone paying that much, really unfair.

[DFW]

9. Consider the headlines and the work involved

You get more headlines delivering some standard soundbytes about 900 people, some of whom are not paying their "fayah shayah" than you do by taking up the cause of four million Americans who are being asked to pay more than their "fayah shayah," because one gets you a spot on the news, and the other would involve months of hard, involved work, and long-term coordinating with tax lawyers, foreign finance ministers and other members of Congress.

[WarGamer]

8. He's not wrong...

[Nanjeanne]

10. It's not that he is calling out "bad" billionaire trillionaires vs "good" oligarchs. He is simply saying

ALL uber wealthy should be paying more. And pointing out how less that 1000 people (including Buffet) own more wealth than the bottom 90%. And showing how an increase in taxes on these people would raise — and the uber wealthy would still be uber wealthy.

Has nothing to do with calling out specific people - it’s about calling out an obscene tax policy that benefits only these 938 people instead of benefitting the millions of Americans left outside that circle.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended

Thanks for the thread Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin