 Well, welcome to the billionaire bash Take that either way what a party. I mean This is truly wonderful. This made people interested in taxing Does anybody is anybody here a billionaire do we have any billionaires in the room? Just one one in the back Anybody want to be a billionaire? I hope you're more honest in your voting than you were just then And please vote make sure you vote. We'd really want to hear what you folks think about Some of these issues around taxes Even though your minds may change later on in the day But so we're not really here to bash billionaires. I mean some of my best friends work for billionaires and In fact, I think most of us do in one way or another Even the patriotic millionaires. I'm a member a group of lowly millionaires who want to tax billionaires But we're really here today to find the cure for excessive wealth disorder now I myself am a conflicted child Poster child sorry poster child for excessive wealth disorder. I woke up this morning And couldn't decide whether to wear a Brunello Cuccinella t-shirt or an Armani suit and I Decided to go incognito with a sport jacket These are the challenges of being rich making those decisions The reasons for increasing the taxes on the very rich go beyond the huge gap in income and wealth Even among the top point one percent with household income of roughly two million dollars or net worth of fifty million dollars You know for most people if you see a quarter on the ground You you stoop to pick it up. That's what we call stoop change If you're a billionaire you might not know what a quarter is and I think that is the problem that we're We're trying to deal with today. I I think the best way to do this is we've To explain excessive wealth disorder in a slightly light-hearted way, we're gonna show a short film that we made and See if it makes the point Can you believe all this bashing of billionaires that's going on they're saying insane things like pay your fair share eliminate student debt Divide safe water. It's ridiculous. We can't afford that. I Can't believe that so be spent 250 million on a New York City apartment find me one for 260 million Cold futures were up and I made $800,000 an hour without even having to go to work. Love it buy me a second jet Unfortunately, I have some bad news it says here you have EWD No, no, no, my doctor gave me pills for that years ago. Not ED. I'm talking about excessive wealth disorder It's something we see in rich people who make up the top point one percent But it's beginning to have an impact on the ninety nine point nine percent that make up everyone else You scored off the charts in wealth political contributions and government handouts and About as low as I've ever seen in taxes paid. I'm too smart to pay taxes That's why I have grats and clats and municipal bonds and you're missing the point the rules don't apply to me Unfortunately, they do well. I don't believe you. I didn't want to have to do this, but I guess this is the only way What in the world? I think you mean when in the world. We're in the year 1983 I'm the ghost of futures past. You mean like gold futures. Is this my hometown? What are we doing here? The Reagan tax cuts just kicked in and you're on the road the highway to riches Remember when you wrote the governor a big fat check to get him to lower your state taxes and then build a statue of you in the Middle of town, you'll have to be more specific. I've had so many statues made 1982 the statue had a mullet like the world has never seen and the money that built your statue was supposed to go towards fixing roads Why is he so upset? It's just a flat tire surely he has a spare car you can use it's 3 p.m This man's gonna be late for shrimp cocktail hour at the yacht club Sir, is your butler nearby to help you up? He can't see you. I thought you said everyone can see us But was the last one the EWD must be spreading to the brain. I don't have EWD Why are you showing me this wretched man? He would have been the next Lin Manuel Miranda, but he never got the chance Well, that's the guy who wrote Hamlet, right? Hamilton Remember the playhouse that showcased up-and-coming writers that your private foundation bought and then only allowed cats the musical to play Of course, I remember Well, this man wrote a masterpiece that no one ever saw because of you And you did the same kind of thing when you bought the local baseball team Driving up prices to make more money and now parents can't afford to take their kids to games It's time to go Is that me Yes, this is you in the not-so-far-off future Why am I crying? This seems ideal gold cash a toilet? You're crying because you realize that money hasn't bought you happiness your greed your thirst for power and Quite frankly your love for feline show tunes has left you alienated from your friends and family All you have is money That's great. You're really not getting it. Are you? This is your funeral We're in the year 2040 the president and just about every member of Congress owes you big time and even though the 0.1% brought economic growth to a complete halt You've been smoking Cuban cigars for 15 years ever since you bought Cuba sounds pretty great to me You and your buddies got to run the whole show You cut taxes and made yourselves richer you slashed government spending driving people into poverty Taking away their health care you eliminated regulations so opioid and drug use skyrocketed now That's a great way to make money food was unsafe to eat guns proliferated and worst You ignored the dangers of climate change, but I'm rich. Why did I die? Was it the cigars? Income inequality had skyrocketed people were mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore. Oh My god. Well, I have to pay estate taxes. Is there any cure for EWD? There may be if you can be patriotic show some concern for your fellow citizens and pay your fair share of taxes Can I still keep my airplanes? Nearly a hundred years ago in 1927 the Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said taxes are the price we pay for civilized society But I like to quote from a book written in 1866 Christian ethics or the science of duty which said taxes are what one pays for the protection of one's life and property and For the conditions of public prosperity in which one shares one ought to pay his portion of the expense of government Our tax system should promote growth and shared prosperity what I call gasp And then you're supposed to gasp growth and shared prosperity It should allow it should allow the excessively rich to pay their fair share of taxes I mean, there's not going to be unilateral surrender So if we had a change in the tax code the rich would feel better about paying their taxes There's a logic anyhow in the process we need to reduce the influence of excessive wealth in our lives Think of it this way. I Believe in the concept of a thousand points of light But when 999 of those thousand points are candles and one is the Yankee Stadium night game lighting system It might be okay for the 999 Candles to be in a vigil, but it will always be the stadium lights that determine where the game is going to be played and And it's that gap actually the British do a fantastic job You know you go into the underground in London, and it says mind the gap. I think they've We should try something similar We haven't taxed rich people since Reagan lowered the rates and why is that I Think it falls the two main reasons the first is that making is that we make taxes so complicated We debate the merits of loophole one loophole versus another we try to explain what a carried interest loophole is We basically scare people with proposals that opponents claim will cost Taxpayers their jobs, so I would start by keeping it simple and the second trap that Paul talked about is that we conflate the 1% with the point 1% There was a huge difference as everyone Knows I think that in the in the circumstances of someone earning $400,000 a year who for sure is well off, but still very different from somebody who's earning two million dollars a year Even the difference between one million and two million is Significant so we should stay focused on the excessively rich Starting with those earning over two million dollars per year. There should be a pledge No new taxes before the top point 1% pay their fair share At the end of this incredible journey. We're taking together today I hope you'll come to realize that the problem and the solution is fairly simple Total reported income of the top point 1% is $1 trillion Now that's a lot of zeros, but it's $1 trillion and this is just the top point 1% and it's just reported income The question is and it's a simple question really how do we most effectively? economically move some of that one trillion dollars from the excessively rich to the common good Now my vote and I don't want to prejudice your vote so But I'm going to My vote is the surtax as a starting place a 10% tax on incomes over two million dollars This could move as much as 75 billion dollars per year from the excessively rich to underwrite Universal child care and early childhood education. I mean do we really need all those yachts and I'm thinking of the program as something like yachts for youth. I would be some approach But seriously as I said in an op-ed I wrote for Fox business. Yes Fox business If we can put a person on the moon, we can find the cure for excessive wealth disorder But we better hurry up Before the billionaires own the moon, so thank you very much