- We The 66
- Posts
- 🌊 Money in My MAGA Account
🌊 Money in My MAGA Account
Is the Trump-themed savings account a good idea?
Did someone forward you this? Subscribe here free!
By Max Frost
Capitalism is not popular among young people today.
In 2022, Pew found that more 18- to 29-year-olds hold a positive view of socialism (44%) than capitalism (40%). In an international survey of 34,000 people in 2020, 56% agreed that "capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world." Harvard has found that a majority of adults between ages 18 and 29 do not support capitalism.
Could the MAGA account change that?
On Monday, House Republicans unveiled their draft version of “The One, Big, Beautiful Bill” (the bill’s official name), the legislation that will eventually contain Republicans’ taxation priorities. The first draft jumpstarts months of negotiations as Capitol Hill nails down a final bill.
The initial 389-page proposal contained several of Trump’s promises, including no taxes on tips or overtime pay. It did not exempt Social Security income from taxation, as Trump had promised, but did grant many retirees an additional $4,000 tax deduction.
And it included a new proposal, geared toward boosting support for capitalism: The “money account for growth and advancement,” or MAGA, account.
For years, political and economic thinkers have been arguing that support for capitalism is declining because too few people are reaping its benefits, evidenced by the fact that only 62% of US adults own stocks. One proposal – which has been endorsed by Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, as well as Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Todd Young (R-IN) – is to give each child investments at the time of their birth.
The rest of this report is for paid subscribers, who fund our journalism. If you start a two-week free trial today, you’ll be automatically entered to win a free year. Once you sign up, you can access all of our articles here!
Editor’s Note
Thanks for reading. Please send us your thoughts: Good idea or bad? Why do you think support for capitalism is so low? Should it be?
We received a ton of feedback on yesterday’s story, about a populist Republican proposal to raise taxes on the highest-earning Americans. We’ve featured some of those replies below the recent stories.
Ian from Virginia wrote:
Well, the far Right and the far Left are both wrong in this debate (big surprise).
I've always felt like the odd man out as a conservative who supported tax hikes on the ultra-wealthy in exchange for cutting taxes for the middle class. By ultra-wealthy, I'm talking about the top 10% of the top 1%, whose annual household income minimum is just shy of $18,000,000 according to the IRS. There should be a tiny tax bracket at the very top for those mega-earners that's increased over the current 37% income tax bracket, but doesn't touch a local business owner who has had a pretty darn good year.
Let's break it down for context:
The top 10% of taxpayers pay almost 70% of the national federal taxes.
The center 11-50% of taxpayers pay around 27% of the taxes.
The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay just 3% of the taxes.
The middle class primarily falls into that center category, but the upper-middle class leaks into the top as well. We, the middle class, hold the heaviest tax burden when it comes to daily life.
Sure, the top 0.1%ers pay more in taxes, but they can still afford multiple McMansions and a personal chef. Meanwhile, for the average middle-class family, a cup of coffee is like $10 now, inflation has been cutting into paychecks that increasingly have max annual increases of 3%, a townhouse in my childhood neighborhood is $750k, and the average price of a new car is almost $50,000.
The middle class needs a break more than the ultra-wealthy need to hold onto their billions.
All that being said, the ultra-wealthy still earn all their money, and don't deserve to have it squandered by a bloated and ineffective government, so those calling for insane tax rates well over 50% are as out-of-touch as the ultra-wealthy they so vilify.
Marcellus wrote:
I think Trump should cut spending. Taxing the rich, to me, means taxing high income. Wealthy people have little to no income. They have their assets in long term investments or real estate. Tax the second, third, or fourth home that they buy.
And Darlene from Kansas wrote:
High earners needs a definition. The top 1% pay over 40% now. The top 50% pay 97% of all taxes. So in a nutshell, most Americans do NOT pay any taxes. The best argument for NOT taxing the wealthy is that they are also the INCOME producers. They finance businesses that create jobs and produce income. The ONLY argument for taxing the wealthy is that they have the income. Not a valid reason.
The answer is to curtail what government funds. Many things that our taxes pay for are NOT a function of government. Americans today are dependent upon government to meet their wants not just their needs. A big difference. Personal responsibility is all but disappeared in America. Subsidies also hurt. I have a small delivery business. No One pays for my fuel. No one buys my vehicles. But, not mentioning any names, many businesses would not survive without our tax money. Our whole tax system is out of whack and needs restructuring.
I could go on and on and on .....
Please keep the debate going tomorrow by replying to this email. See you then!
Max and Max