Senator Elizabeth Warren was caught completely off guard after she was called out over her latest “Ultra-Millionaire Tax” proposal.
Warren appeared on CNBC with host Joe Kernan who clashed with the Senator.
Kernan confirmed that Warren wanted to set tax levels for the rich at 2% and 3%.
Kernan asked, “If you’re going to do two percent [tax] on 50 million [dollars], and then when you get up to a billion [dollars] and you’re going to three percent [tax], if we’ve made, if we’ve crossed the rubicon … why not make it truly progressive and do 10 percent [tax] at a billion [dollars], do 20 percent at 10 billion [dollars]?”
Kernen continued his line of questioning: “Why not do it that way once you get started and raise some real money? What would be the problem? Why would [Amazon founder and CEO Jeff] Bezos do three percent when some poor schmo at only 50 million [dollars] does two percent?”
Warren was caught completely off guard and tried to dodge the question.
“So, look, um, you know, I’m just a girl from Oklahoma. I think $3 trillion actually sounds like a lot of money. And raising $3 trillion that we can reinvest in our economy,” she said.
Warren tried to claim that the $3 trillion was good enough “for universal pre-K. It’s enough to make sure that every baby in this country has good care and raise the wages of every child care worker and pre-school teacher in America.”
Kernen knew the Senator was dodging his questions and started to smirk as Warren continued to spout talking points without giving any real facts.
Kernen laughed before cutting her off: “Senator, you didn’t answer! You didn’t answer me! Make it 10 times as good!”
Kernen continued to press Warren, saying, “This looks to me like we’re changing the rules of the game that go back centuries for — if you’ve paid your taxes on the way in and accrue this. And a lot of these people would rather do really good things with the money then that they don’t think the government does it well.” Kernen rephrased his first question to Warren: “Why not make it five percent or 10 percent on people that are really loaded?”
Warren dodged the question again, “Okay, I’m loving this morning. I cannot believe that I’ve gotten you to say that we should tax the rich more, Joe.”
She never answered the question.
