Sen. Elizabeth Warren and billionaire Ken Langone debate wealth taxes

is negative compound interest what it is you're right i made all the money i paid the government what i owed them what i had left i put at risk i could have lost it all i could have lost it all but i paid my share i have a bigger issue for the senator that i think i would hope she would address that that to me is apple pie and motherhood senator can we talk about the wealth tax just for a minute before we change subjects here senator i have an easy one for you and you're going to be shocked that i'm bringing it up from a fat cat wall street guy how do you rationalize giving me three thousand dollars a month check every month with all my wealth why don't you people have the courage to address entitlements as to what should no longer be an entitlement i shouldn't get social security second thing i pay a minimum alternative tax i pay a tax no matter what my deductions i owe the government so much money why don't corporations have a minimum tax third what about the carried interest why not address that these are home runs in terms of right versus wrong in my opinion i'll give you one example this is shocking take all the corporate taxes paid in america last year as told by the government what they got in home depot paid one percent of all those taxes one company one company that didn't exist 42 years ago we take good care of our associates our vendors love dealing with us it's profitable we give back to our community and by the way our shareholders have compounded at 27 a year from the day we went public 40 years ago everybody has done well and we've paid full taxes why don't you address these these are slam dunk senator tell me why i should get a check and my wife gets another thousand bucks on top of that take it away from me have the courage to do it i know it's the third rail of politics but do it so let's start with the wealth tax that's where we work you know you don't want to address the issue of how i'm getting four grand a month from the government and i shouldn't be getting it can can i answer some of these questions sure please all right thank you so i'll start with the first one and that was the question about the wealth tax remember let's look at someone like jeff bezos who is worth a bazillion dollars he has not paid taxes on all of that wealth don't describe it that way in fact jeff bezos many years has either paid nothing in taxes or has paid about one percent why because his income is very very small but he continues to grow his wealth through all of his amazon stock and how does he then fund a lifestyle like he does not by cashing in amazon stock but by borrowing against it right now we have a tax system because it focuses principally on wealth that actually doesn't capture the folks at the very top it makes middle-class folks pay it makes working-class folks pay but it doesn't make those at the top pay a wealth tax is an opportunity to say if you're at the very very top you have to make a contribution too now i think you also ask why we don't have a minimum tax for corporations actually i've proposed something very much like that it's called a real corporate profits tax and it says that the amount of tax that giant corporations have to pay that is corporations that made more than a hundred million dollars in profits last year that those corporations should have to pay a tax on what they report not on what happens after they've done a zillion loopholes and excuses and and not paid their underlying taxes that would be another way that we could pay for universal child care and roads and bridges and you ask about social security i think social security really is the thing that is structured differently it's structured as an insurance policy and you paid in year after year after year and part of the contract was if you would pay in you would get this kind of return on the back end it's not somebody's welfare it's not somebody's charity it was an agreement that every employee in the country who is eligible for social security paid into and gets a return at the back end surely you wouldn't want to be the person who would go on national tv and say after a contract has been negotiated and someone has paid into it for 40 years that the federal government should turn around and say oops we changed our mind we're not going to give you the payout that you earned by making those payments all those years shepard smith here thanks for watching cnbc on youtube

Channel: CNBC Television

Views: 307,904

Keywords: Squawk Box U.S., CNBC, business news, finance stock, stock market, news channel, news station, breaking news, us news, world news, cable, cable news, finance news, money, money tips, financial news, stock market news, stocks

Id: C_pKROQGwAk

Length: 5min 18sec (318 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021