Bill Gates says that if he set tax rates, the rich would be almost 70 percent poorer – but unlike Bernie Sanders, he would not ostracize billionaires.
The Microsoft co-founder said that “under the tax system I would prefer, the rich would have about a third as much.” He revealed his ideal tax policy in an episode of his new Netflix series “What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates.”
The comment suggests that Gates would like Elon Musk, the world’s richest man with a net worth of $249 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, to have only about $83 billion.
Applying the same calculation to Gates – who ranks sixth on the list of richest people – his personal wealth would be just under $54 billion, compared to $161 billion. He recently told The Independent that he would be “tens of billions of dollars poorer” if he wrote the tax code himself.
The co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said it was “kind of crazy” that there were billionaires and that he believed wealth of this magnitude should be “returned to society and not just consumed.”
Gates argued that a rich country like the United States should have a better social safety net and that tax increases would help finance universal access to health care, good housing and education.
He stressed that he was “not someone who believes that banning wealth above a certain size is the right way to go,” but added that as a billionaire himself, he was “biased.”
Sanders subsequently told Gates that he would prefer to get rid of billionaires altogether. The progressive politician told the computer pioneer that while he was a “very innovative guy” and deserved financial reward for his contributions, billions of dollars was an excessive payout.
“How much do you make? Can you live on a billion? Do you think you could support your family? Probably. Pay the rent? Maybe,” he joked.
Senator Bernie Sanders wants to raise the federal minimum wage. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The senator from Vermont said it was unacceptable to him that a tiny elite had such great wealth and power.
“I’m really worried about what I would call supercapitalism, this incredible concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, and what that means for our entire society,” he said.
In contrast, “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban said on the episode that billionaires show that the American dream is alive and well, and that it is patriotic to become “filthy rich” and then pay high taxes.
