During an interview on ABC’s This Week, Bernie Sanders went to town
on Trump after the billionaire lied and claimed that Sanders
would raise taxes to 90%.
Transcript via ABC’s This Week:
SANDERS: Well, if I had to respond to every absurd thing that Trump said, I would spend my whole life doing it. But I do want
to — you raised the issue of taxes. Trump raised that issue.
Let’s talk about it. What we have seen, George, in the last 30 years,
as most of Americans know, is a massive redistribution of wealth.
Unfortunately, it’s gone in the wrong direction, it’s gone from the
middle class and working families to Trump and his friends, the
top one tenth of 1 percent.
And, yes, let me be very clear, if we are going to make public
colleges and universities to tuition-free, as I believe we have to do in
the 21st century, yes, we are going to have a tax on Wall Street
speculation.
Yes, we are going to ask Trump and his billionaire friends to pay more in taxes…
STEPHANOPOULOS: What rate?
SANDERS: — yes, we are going to end these — we’ll come up with that
rate. But it will be a damned lot higher than it is right now.
When you see the rich getting much, much richer, and in their
effective tax rates, as Warren Buffet often reminds us, is lower than
the effective tax rates of truck drivers and nurses, yes, the wealthy
have got to pay more and corporations…
STEPHANOPOULOS: You said that…
SANDERS: — who, in some cases, make billions of dollars, billions of
dollars a year in taxes, billions of dollars in profits, don’t pay a
nickel in taxes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You said…
SANDERS: That has to change.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You said a damned bit more. Previously,
you’d been asked if a 90 percent marginal rate is certainly too high and
you said no.
Sanders went on to say that the tax rate on the wealthy would be
higher than it is now, but he would focus on loopholes that allow the
wealthy and corporations to hide their money overseas. Sanders is going
to go after the ways that the super rich make more money without paying
taxes.He said that taxes would not have to be raised beyond the 1%.
From calling him a communist to completely distorting his tax plan, Trump is flat out lying about Bernie Sanders on the campaign
trail. Trump isn’t lying because he is afraid of Sanders as much as his
lies are designed to help him sell his own massive tax cut for the rich
as a tax cut for all.
As with everything Trump does, his motives are selfish. Trump
doesn’t want to pay higher taxes, and he is looking to sell himself as
the ultimate benevolent capitalist by lying about Bernie Sanders.
Sen. Sanders’ messages about income inequality and unfairness are
resonating, so Trump is trying to shoot the messenger, but Bernie
Sanders is fighting back.
Trump picked the wrong Democratic presidential candidate to lie about.
