The reasoning on projecting tax revenue side I strongly disagree with,
Do you disagree with the details of the projections (i.e. the wealth tax or some other aspect), or with the fact that she did the projection at all (it being political suicide given the number of special interest groups who are now arrayed against her)?
Way more detail that you probably were expecting than wanting below. Sorry about that.
I disagree with putting out projections that are clearly incorrect -- the wealth tax is the one I've dug the furtherest into -- because it was politically expedient and I disagree with the healthcare head tax because it put avoiding having to compromise on a campaign promise above protecting vulnerable americans.
For the wealth tax specifically my broad concern before was that the amount of revenue projected seemed unreasonable looking at other countries that have tried a wealth tax and adjusting for our GDP, but that seemed like something where it could simply be different people approaching the same data in different ways and coming to different conclusions. I can think an answer is wrong without thinking the people who came up with that answer did anything wrong or sloppy.
With the plan to pay for Medicare for All without a private option however, the campaign just took the amount of revenue which would be raised by the original wealth tax, doubled the percentage, and assumed this would double revenue from the wealth tax on billionaires. But while higher percentage taxes generally do raise more revenue, they don't do so on a one to one basis. In this case the 6% per year tax on billionaires (effectively 9.5% given the interactions with capital gains and changes to the capital gains tax rate) is likely to drive more hiding of assets through either loopholes or fraud, more people to relocate out of the USA, and more people to accelerate charitable giving than than the original 3% per year tax. Even if none of those things happened, because this is a tax on wealth rather than income harvesting 9.5% of personal wealth over $1B per year in taxes means that the amount of personal wealth over $1B in the USA will either decline faster or grow more slowly than if the government only harvests 3% of that wealth per year. So a higher percentage means collecting a bigger slice of a smaller pie over time.
On a policy level, I disagree with her plan for "head tax" on companies hiring employees.*
For each new employee, companies would have to pay $9,500 to the government. I work for a fairly good employer (big public university) and they contribute about $4,560/year towards the cost of my health insurance, so this would cost then about 2x as much, but it's certainly absorbable. For people working lower paying jobs with the potential to be automated or outsourced, a group of people who often lack access to quality healthcare, the exact people who we should be trying to help with healthcare reform, a $9,500 head tax is going to accelerate automation and outsourcing of work. So they may gain health insurance at the same time they lose a job.
I think both the sloppy projections about revenue and making tax decisions that hurt some of the most vulnerable americans are both being driven by Warren having backed herself into a corner by promising medicare for all without a private option
without any new taxes on the bottom 99% of society or having anyone pay any premiums without having done the math in advance on what it was going to take to deliver on that promise.
The willingness to propose policies that in some cases won't work and in other cases would hurt the people I worry about the most (those with limited financial resources working low paying jobs) rather than adjust a campaign promise (as well as the willingness to make campaign promises without first doing the math to make sure they can be delivered upon) is what is making me reevaluate my opinion of Warren as a potential president. But the sad thing is that, if we limit ourselves to people polling in the top three nationally, I'm still not sure who, if anyone, I'd prefer. ... maybe Biden? I don't know. Is just generally discouraging.
*It's import to distinguish this from the transition "maintenance of effort" tax which would be at different levels for different companies.