The System Rewards Wealth, Not Work
If you worked for wages your whole life, your income was taxed before you even saw it hit your bank account. Social Security checks? Taxed, depending on your income level. Pensions, 401(k) withdrawals, investment distributions? Taxed.
Meanwhile, billionaires don’t live off wages. Their money lives in assets — stocks, real estate, businesses. Those assets grow quietly, often untaxed, until they’re sold. And many times, they’re not sold at all. Instead, the ultra-wealthy borrow against them. Imagine having a $50 million stock portfolio. Instead of selling and paying taxes, you just take out a loan against your assets at a low interest rate, spend freely, and never trigger a taxable event. It’s called the “buy, borrow, die” strategy, and it keeps wealth growing while avoiding much of the tax system altogether.
That’s the heart of the inequality. Seniors are taxed on every paycheck, every benefit, every small distribution. Billionaires can let their wealth balloon untouched.
And it doesn’t stop there — because even when tax rates look high on paper, the reality of what billionaires actually pay tells a very different story.
