Ann just wants to punish the Koch Brothers in the process, but there's a better reason to agree.
Good government acts like a curb on a street, steering behavior. That's what taxing the rich used to be all about.
How so?
Once enacted in 1916, high taxation of ordinary income didn't result in high revenues for government. That's why the income tax was extended to almost all earners instead of just the rich when it became clear within a few years that government wouldn't have enough money to play in the international sandbox without more dough. For their part the rich won long term tax concessions through diverting derivation of income from capitalist enterprises, the latter benefiting not just themselves as owners but also individuals with jobs, the country with productivity, and the government with additional multiple streams of revenue. It was an intricate but effective way of benefiting all concerned.
The mistake with the Reagan Revolution was that it misunderstood human nature. It thought lots of new untaxed ordinary income would end up getting invested just the same way, and turn America into something never before seen. But the money didn't get invested the same way. It fled abroad where the cost of doing business was cheaper. It helped create middle classes wherever it went, but ours withered on the vine. Meanwhile the number of US billionaires mushroomed, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay went ballistic, and general income inequality increased dramatically. Real incomes for most people have barely moved up since the 1970s.
And now here we are with an America never before seen indeed, where libertarian advocates of this destructive system tell us with a straight face that this is patriotism.
Unfortunately, none of this is in the pea brain of AOC, let alone in Ann Coulter's, Kevin McCarthy's or Donald Trump's.
