Thread by @Brian_Riedl

NEW from me: Progressives frame their agenda as solving inequality & prioritzing the poor.

Yet major progressive proposals provide **5 times** as much benefits to high-earners as low-earners. The upper-middle class & professional class benefit most. 1/

manhattan-institute.org/progressive-pr…

Distribution of benefits:

-Repeal SALT cap (top/bottom 20%) - $595 billion vs. $0
-Free college (families over $120k, under $35k) - $380 billion vs. $80 billion
-Student loan forgiveness (top/bottom 25%) - $544 billion vs. $192 billion

TOTAL: $1.5 trillion vs. $272 billion 2/

There is more: Medicare-For-All could hurt most of 75 million Medicaid families who already pay little-to-no premiums/copays, but would likely be included in broad based taxes needed to fund the *full* cost.

M4A would mostly redistribute from super-rich to upper-middle class. 3/

Carbon tax would raise costs 2% for bottom quintile, vs. 1% for top quintile. Rebate can solve this, but momentum is to spend the money on green new deal.

Also, zero-emission mandates will raise car/home prices, kill working-class fossil fuel jobs. Poor hardest hit. 4/

Surely some of the progressive agenda is aimed at the poor (Min wage, housing, child care, K-12), but from budget perspective, the savings are overwhelmingly distributed to upper-middle class.

Top 0.01% are taxed hard, and low-earners mostly left behind. 5/

Furthermore, using up all the plausible “Tax the rich” revenues to fund new benefits for professional class leaves few tax options to close the $103 trillion Social Security & Medicare shortfalls over 30-years – leaving the middle class on the hook to close that huge gap. 6/6