Michael Bloomberg is a moderate! Or so we’re told.
Yes, he might have no regard for the civil liberties of black people, want to ban everything from sodas to mint-flavored Juul pods, and be a creepy sexist, but at least the former New York City mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate offers voters a moderate alternative, right? Not really.
The candidate released a proposal on Saturday to raise taxes — by $5 trillion. According to Jon Levine of the New York Post, the plan includes “rolling back President Trump’s corporate tax cuts; a new 5% surtax on incomes above $5 million a year; taxes on capital gains; lowering the threshold for the estate tax; and restoring top rates back to the Obama-era 39.6%.”
To put this in perspective, $5 trillion is a lot of money. The entire federal budget right now is roughly $4.5 trillion. But among a field of far-left Democratic candidates such as Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a mere $5 trillion in tax hikes makes Bloomberg a moderate, at least relatively speaking.
The New York Times categorized his tax proposal as “less aggressive than those from his most liberal rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.” The paper offered this description in part because Bloomberg did not endorse the same sweeping, arguably unconstitutional “wealth tax” many of his competitors have proposed. Additionally, the sheer total of his $5 trillion tax hikes, while whopping, is markedly less than that proposed by Sanders, $16 trillion, or Warren’s tax plan, which includes $26 trillion in increases.
Yup, that’s right: When you compare Bloomberg to other top Democrats such as Warren and Sanders, a $5 trillion tax hike is now “moderate.” That’s the Democratic Party in 2020 for you, folks.
