Bernie Sanders has said poverty can be ‘abolished’ through higher taxation on billionaires, who he argues should not exist.
Speaking to PoliticsJOE, the Vermont senator highlighted how the wealthiest 1% of people in the world are richer than the bottom 95%.
Mentioning Donald Trump‘s ‘first buddy’ Elon Musk in particular, Sanders said it was “insane” for someone like the Tesla CEO to have so much wealth when many Americans can’t afford basic needs like healthcare and childcare.
He called for a ‘democratisation of society’ in order to “create an economy that works for all of us.”
“We can literally abolish poverty right now,” the independent senator said. “If we have the courage to make sure that this new technology, the creation of wealth, goes to all people, not just the people on top.”
When asked if he was calling for redistributive taxation in the form of a wealth tax on the super rich, Sanders said we should go further as a society, and tax billionaires into extinction.
He explained: “We should be saying right now, in a world in which globally the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 95%, and in nation after nation you’re seeing more and more income and wealth inequality, I would say that in the United States we should not have billionaires.”
Mentioning Musk, he continued: “The idea that somebody now has $300-$400bn when we have people sleeping out on the streets, when people can’t afford healthcare, can’t afford childcare – that is insane.
“So we need to democratise our society, get people involved and create an economy that works for all of us, not just the folks on Wall Street or the new high tech billionaires.”
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