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Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a tax on 95% of the profits of the largest U.S. corporations, including companies such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Chevron Corp. Companies that were mentioned by the senator himself as targets of his tax proposal.
“We cannot allow big oil companies and other large, profitable corporations to continue to use the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the specter of inflation to make obscene profits by price gouging Americans at the gas pump, the grocery store, or any other sector of our economy,” Sanders said in a statement.
Sanders said a company like Chevron could pay an additional $12.9 billion under his proposal, and a bank like JPMorgan would pay about $18.8 billion.
Under Sanders’ proposal, companies would pay a 21% tax on their pre-pandemic profits, and then would have to pay a 95% tax on profits after exceeding pre-pandemic income levels. If approved, it could take up to 75% of a company’s income within a few years. The initiative would apply to companies with more than $500 million in annual profits.
Sanders justified his intention by arguing that during both world wars, similar taxes have been implemented on the fortunes of the highest-income Americans. For him, this is an “emergency measure” and, if approved, it would apply for the years 2022, 2023, and 2024.
However, it is unlikely that the proposal will be debated in a Senate where the Democrats have a slim majority. His own party has moderate members who would probably oppose this measure, such as Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
Bernie Sanders: inflation and “corporate greed”
Despite the fact that the price of gasoline is getting more expensive due to the lack of oil coming from Russia, (which used to supply up to 14% of the daily demand) Sanders stubbornly claims that the increase in fuel prices in the United States is due to the accumulation of profits in the companies.
Dozens of ships waiting to land in the port of Los Angeles and cities with millions of inhabitants quarantined in China have not been enough to convince the senator that inflation in the economy has explanations other than “corporate greed,” as he calls it.
Nor does the leftist senator seem to find any relationship between the largest monetary expansion ever seen in the United States and recent inflation. Three stimulus plans were not enough to convince him that when you give people money, they are likely to spend it and demand more.
In Senator Bernie Sanders’ world, the laws of supply and demand don’t exist, and shortages of inputs and labor are not a rational explanation for rising prices in the United States. There seems to be only “corporate greed” and the need to resort to a wartime tax to correct it.
Economist, writer and liberal. With a focus on finance, the war on drugs, history, and geopolitics // Economista, escritor y liberal. Con enfoque en finanzas, guerra contra las drogas, historia y geopolítica