Consider the wealth tax

It's back — and it's still not clear why

I’m not really sure why, but Elizabeth Warren rebooted the wealth tax debate at the beginning of the month with Bernie Sanders and others cosponsoring.

During the course of the 2020 primary campaign, she embraced two different versions of wealth tax proposals, and Sanders campaigned on a third, different proposal. The fact that the wealth tax keeps bouncing around with different numbers attached is a bit odd. So is the fact that what it’s financing is always changing. For Warren, it was originally the workhorse of her campaign plans for expanded child care and other things. But then when she felt pressure to develop a Medicare for All financing plan, a bigger wealth tax became part of that. Sanders’ wealth tax seemed designed to be higher than Warren’s just so he could be the true left candidate.

Now, the latest wealth tax iteration is vaguer in its purpose.

Warren, in the roll-out release, says “this is money that should be invested in child care and early education, K-12, infrastruc…