On wealth and taxes

I think it is time for some straight talk about wealth and taxes in the US. So I have an idea for how things might be greatly improved. Simply put, it is for a tax on wealth. Wealth, not income. I'm putting up the first part of the scheme today, actually the first two paragraphs of a somewhat longer essay.

Suppose this was a nation where every family owned a million dollars. Since there are about 106.5 million families in the country, the total personal wealth of the country would be 1 million times 106.5 million, or $106.5 trillion dollars. Actually, the total wealth of the country in 2001 was at least $42.1 trillion (and was about $54.3 trillion dollars if government assets are included). If the personal wealth of $42.1 trillion) was spread equally across all families, each would have about $395,500. Not very close to a million but within striking distance.

In such a society, every family would be somewhat wealthy and everybody would pay taxes. Since few or none would be poor, most people wouldn't need Social Security. They probably would need less Medicare or Medicaid. Such a society can never be attained, but it can be approached much more closely than the society we have now, where we have a few hundred billionaires, several million millionaires, millions doing pretty good, and tens of millions just above or a little below the poverty line. How could we get to a society of all or mostly millionaires? The only way is a drastic redesign of our tax system.

(I will post more on this a little subject later, but not at any specified time or date.)

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