Fact check: Warren misleads on her wealth tax pitch
Warren pitched her wealth tax plan as just a drop in the bucket for the country's richest Americans on Tuesday night.
“Your first $50 million, you can keep free and clear. But your 50 millionth and first dollar, you got to pitch in two cents. Two cents,” she said.
But Kyle Pomerleau, an economist and tax policy expert at the Tax Foundation, noted on Twitter that her pitch is a bit misleading.
Pomerleau explained to NBC News after the debate that he is evaluating the tax as an income tax. He said that an annual 2 percent tax — on an asset with a hypothetical 5 percent return annually — actually taxes about 40 percent of that asset's income. On an asset with a hypothetical 2 percent return, it could even be a 100 percent tax on that asset's income.
Of course, this only applies to uber-rich Americans' wealth above $50 million. But a 2 percent tax wealth does — at times — look more sizable when you consider it like an income tax.
By The Numbers: The attacks of Night 1 of the second Democratic debate
We tracked who and what the candidates in Night 1 of the second Democratic presidential debates were attacking, and this is what we found:
- Candidates delivered more than 95 attacks through the debate.
- President Donald Trump was the target of 34 of those attacks.
- Of the 30+ directed at the candidates on the stage, Bernie Sanders was targeted 13 times, and Elizabeth Warren 10 times.
- Beto O'Rourke, John Hickenlooper and Marianne Williamson were not attacked.
- Sanders, Warren and Amy Klobuchar did the most attacking, Hickenlooper, Williamson and Pete Buttigieg the least.
- More than half the attacks came in the first 60 minutes of the actual debate.
Progressive candidates lead in speaking time
Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg spoke the longest during the debate. NPR posted the totals.
Trump's been uncharacteristically quiet tonight
The last time the president tweeted was at 7:26 p.m.
Fact check: Would Warren's wealth tax proposal be unconstitutional?
Delaney, a millionaire, said Warren's wealth tax proposal could be "unconstitutional."
"I think the wealth tax will be fought in court forever. It’s arguably unconstitutional and the countries that have had it have largely abandoned it because it’s impossible to implement,” Delaney said.
Tax experts have in fact argued this, though not definitively.
The Constitution places limits on the federal government's ability to levy taxes and Congress previously had to enact the 16th Amendment to impose taxes on income. Other types of taxes have to be apportioned among the states by population, which could be difficult to reconcile with Warren’s plan.
“So the question is, what is and is not a direct tax?” analysts for the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit that studies tax policy, asked in January.
The group’s analysis points out several Supreme Court rulings on the issue. Some rulings struck down taxes deemed "direct," while other taxes, such as inheritance and estate taxes, were upheld by the high court on the grounds that they were “indirect taxes on the transfer of wealth.” Other taxes, like corporate income taxes, were also upheld on the basis of involving transactions. The Warren wealth tax does not involve transactions, the analysis points out.
“I’d argue that the term ‘direct tax’ is a proxy for incidence, as there’s solid evidence from the Founders that’s what they were getting at by using the term,” the Tax Foundation’s Joseph Bishop-Henchman wrote. "Based on that and the precedents, my inclination is that Warren’s proposal would be found unconstitutional. But it's not a slam-dunk case, as the precedents go both ways."
Anticipating the issue, Warren's office said she consulted with outside legal scholars ahead of the proposal's release, and over a dozen affirmed that it passed constitutional muster.
ANALYSIS: Marianne Williamson and the politics of emotion
In her closing statement, Williamson pressed for a “politics that speaks to the heart” and a presidency that captures “something emotional and psychological.”
It’s this kind of high-flown, highfalutin language that earned Williamson so much mockery in the first debate. But it might be worth taking seriously, since so many voters in the party’s base feel traumatized after nearly three years of President Trump.
The language of emotion and psychology — not to mention memorable, spiritually charged turns of phrase like the “dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred” — could strike a powerful chord with the party faithful.
My colleague Dart raises a related point: William spoke passionately and earnestly about race, showing off an honesty that isn’t restrained by years in Congress or professional politics, like virtually everyone else in the field.
“This is sort of how it would sound if Oprah actually did run for president,” Dart says.
It's time for closing statements
BULLOCK: Tells his personal story and explains why he is able to take on Trump and corruption based on his record as governor.
WILLIAMSON: It’s not about intellectual debates, it’s about being real about diagnosing the causes of our deeper issues and the Democratic Party needs to stand up to deeper corruption in our society.
DELANEY: Trump is the symptom of a disease afflicting the country, and Delaney says he is the only one talking about the real solutions that will solve it.
RYAN: Hopes he captured voters imagination for how to make a new and better U.S.
HICKENLOOPER: Says he loved tonight. Mentions his record as governor of Colorado and says it best positions himself to be president. Says he’s a pragmatic progressive.
KLOBUCHAR: I will stand up to companies that are taking advantage of Americans. I win in the Midwest and can win Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc. She says she can get through congressional gridlock because she has experience doing so.
O’ROURKE: We need hope in one another and in the future of this country to defeat Trump and his ideology. Talks about his rise from local politician to the national stage.
BUTTIGIEG: Our country is in trouble. We need to overwhelmingly defeat Trump to begin fixing these issues.
WARREN: My government won’t be on the side of the rich and powerful and connected, it will be on the side of everyday Americans. We will build a grassroots movement across the country to take back power. Won't just defeat Trump in 2020, will make real change in 2021.
SANDERS: I’m running to transform the U.S. and stand with the working class. Join me and take on the greed and corruption in this country.
That’s all for these 10 candidates until the DNC’s September debate. But not all of these candidates are expected to qualify, since the party is upping the threshold for its next contest.
To get on this stage, candidates needed to hit 1 percent in three qualifying polls or raise money from 65,000 unique donors.
But next time, that threshold is higher.
Candidates will have to hit 2 percent in four qualifying polls AND raise money from 130,000 unique donors.
Voters send mixed signals on age
Pete Buttigieg, the youngest candidate on stage tonight at 37, was asked whether voters should take age into account (while standing next to the oldest person on stage, Bernie Sanders, 77).
"I don't care how old you are," Buttigieg said. "I care about your vision. But I do think it matters that we have a new generation of leaders stepping up around the world."
Just 33 percent of Democrats in a March NBC News/WSJ poll said they'd be enthusiastic about or comfortable with a presidential candidate who was at least 75 years old.
Yet, Sanders and Joe Biden, 76, remain two of the top performing candidates in the polls.
Where in the world is Beto O’Rourke?
O’Rourke, who came close to conquering Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2018 midterms and seemed to galvanize millennial voters in ways reminiscent of Barack Obama, entered the presidential race with great fanfare. But, as countless pundits and commentators have observed by now, he has generally floundered in recent months, failing to gain much traction in the polls or public consciousness.
He has felt like a marginal figure for much of tonight – outshined and overshadowed not just by Buttigieg, the other fresh young voice in the field, but even by low-polling moderates. Delaney and Bullock, for example, seemed to cut into his airtime.
Does he make it to the next debate?
Low-polling candidates look for opening to move on. Here’s who may have.
Tuesday’s debate featured five candidates who were barely registering in any of the Democratic primary polls. Each of them needed to have some sort of breakout to even have a chance of making the next debate in September, which has a higher threshold for qualification.
So, who helped themselves out?
First and foremost, Williamson, with answers on questions of race and student debt that got big cheers in the Detroit venue and were praised online. Arguably, Williamson had one of the best nights of anyone on stage after her first performance was widely panned.
Next up, Delaney, but mostly as a factor of him getting so much air time on CNN, which repeatedly used him as a moderate foil to the leading progressive candidates on stage, Warren and Sanders. The moment for Delaney that will likely be most remembered was when Warren took aim at him and asked why he is even running for president if all he’s doing is telling others on stage what isn’t possible.
For the rest — it didn’t seem as if they had their breakout performance. Bullock got plenty of time to speak but didn’t have any particular stand out moment. Hickenlooper and Ryan had few chances to cut through.