Top banker and Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said on Monday that centrist Democrats must accept the increasing popularity of the redistributive economic policies favored by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, such as the wealth tax.
“Moderate members of the Democratic Party must recognize the popular resonance of a wealth tax, even if, like me, they don’t support it,” Rubin said in an opinion piece, highlighting a poll that shows 74% of American voters, including a majority of Republicans, support a 2% wealth tax on those worth more than $50 million.
He added, “a wealth tax is on the table.”
Furthermore, Rubin indicated his support for other policy initiatives to reduce economic inequality through tax hikes, such as raising corporate, capital gains, and personal income tax rates; strengthening the estate tax; and imposing a financial transactions tax that has been proposed by several Democratic presidential candidates, including now Michael Bloomberg.
Rubin’s acceptance of such tax changes is indicative of a shift among Democrats. Rubin and his centrist brand of economic policy have been criticized by Warren and Sanders as contributing to the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of inequality. Rubin was supportive, for example, of the 1999 legislation that repealed the Glass-Steagall law separating investment and commercial banking.
