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FACT CHECK: Does Bernie Sanders Want a 90% Tax?

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rangerrebew:
FACT CHECK: Does Bernie Sanders Want a 90% Tax?
"I think the highest marginal tax rate was something like 90 percent."
January 2, 2016
Daniel Greenfield
 

Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders complained that Trump is lying about him.

"It appears that Donald Trump, a pathological liar, simply cannot control himself. He lies, lies and lies again," Sanders stated. "Today, he repeated his lie that I want to raise taxes to 90 percent. Totally untrue."

Is it actually untrue?

The usual media outlets, including Fact Check and CNN, have backed up Bernie Sanders. But there's no way to be certain because Bernie Sanders refuses to release a tax plan. While he gives a lot of stump speeches, there are no actual details. And he's been hedging on the numbers for a long time.

According to his debate statement, the exact number is still pending. “We haven’t come up with an exact number yet” for the top tax rate “but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was 90 percent.”

So does that mean 89 percent? You would think that Bernie Sanders would have an actual number by now. But he's thrown around other numbers before.

    In a 1974 article titled “Concentrated Wealth Is Causing Economic Illness,” from an unidentified newspaper that was in his papers at the University of Vermont library, Sanders is described as wanting to “make it illegal to amass more wealth than a human family could use in a lifetime.” He would do that, the article said, with “a 100 percent tax on incomes above this level ($ one million per year)” and “would recycle this money for the public need.”

Sure that's 1974. But he seemed interested in it even in the 90s. Just this year, Bernie Sanders talked about a 90 percent tax rate.

    When talking about President Dwight Eisenhower's administration, Sanders said, "I think the highest marginal tax rate was something like 90 percent."

    CNBC's John Harwood then said, "It was 90. When you think about 90 percent, you don't think that's obviously too high."

    Sanders replied, "No. What I think we've seen, and what frightens me again, when you have the top one-tenth of 1 percent owning almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Does anybody think that that is the kind of economy this country should have? Do we think it's moral?"

Bernie Sanders has since flip-flopped, denying any support for a 90 percent tax rate. But he still won't give an actual number.

We don't know how high Bernie Sanders might want to set tax rates. It's also important to remember that politicians will be more reluctant to openly state their views during a political campaign. Considering Bernie Sanders' troubling history, Trump's suggestion that Sanders might want a 90 percent tax rate is not implausible.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/261326/fact-check-does-bernie-sanders-want-90-tax-daniel-greenfield

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