When billionaire former Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz mocked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), she wasted no time in torching him with a fiery comeback.
Schultz is mulling a potential run for president as an Independent in 202 0. Tuesday, during an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition, he mocked Warren’s plans to raise taxes on the wealthy as a “ridiculous publicity stunt,” The Huffington Post reports.
“When I see Elizabeth Warren come out with a ridiculous plan of taxing wealthy people a surtax of 2 percent because it makes a good headline or sends out a tweet when she knows for a fact that’s not something that’s ever gonna be passed — this is what’s wrong,” Schultz said. “You can’t just attack these things in a punitive way by punishing people.”
He spins her plan as “punishment” for the wealthy. But Warren’s plan is hardly punitive. It proposes a 2 percent “wealth tax” any net worth of $50 million and a 3 percent tax on net worth of $1 billion. That might mean one or two fewer yachts for some of the well-heeled. Perhaps.
Warren knows this quite well so her Schultz takedown is particularly apt and appropriate.
“What’s ‘ridiculous’ is billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else,” she tweeted. “The top 0.1 percent, who’d pay my #UltraMillionaireTax, own about the same wealth as 90 percent of America. It’s time for change.”
What's “ridiculous” is billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else. The top 0.1%, who'd pay my #UltraMillionaireTax, own about the same wealth as 90% of America. It's time for change. https://t.co/D04G5fNvpa
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 29, 2019
In an interview with Hill.TV, Warren noted Schultz’s hypocrisy.
“Look, this is the problem,” she said. “Billionaires think that this government works just great the way it is. But it’s not working for anybody else.”
This is a tax raise that means that the largesse that benefits the wealthy will now help the many.
“How about instead of leaving all that money with the billionaires, we take just 2 percent of it and move it over?” Warren said. “…How about instead of saying that they all get to walk away without paying those taxes — we say that what this government is about is saying everybody pays a fair share and then we make the investments in building opportunities — not just for the children of billionaires but for everyone’s children.”
That, she continued “is enough money to make a real investment in childcare for every kid across this country — to make a real investment in bringing down student loans for everyone across this country.”
Some Democrats are concerned that if an Independent candidate runs it may result in Trump being reelected by turning the election into a three-way race. In other words, shades of 2016, perhaps. Warren said she’s not sure what the outcome will be if Schultz decides to run.
“I think you need a pundit for that one,” she said. “Because I really don’t know.”
Later in the day, she added that Schultz may be in for a rude awakening if he decides to run.
“We have a billionaire who says he wants to jump into the race and the first issue he’s raised is no new taxes on billionaires?” she said. “Let’s see how that goes.”
It’s way beyond time to discomfort the comfortable.
In the video below, Warren discusses her ideas with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Featured image by MSNBC via YouTube video
