Kudlow: Wealth Tax Is ‘Taxing Investment’ — ‘Going to Weaken the Economy’

Wednesday, former White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow warned against a wealth tax, something Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reportedly plans to propose.

Kudlow argued on Fox Business Network’s ‘Mornings with Maria” that a wealth tax would “weaken the economy” by being a tax on investment.

“It’s going to mean higher taxes for everybody, and it’s going to weaken the economy, and it’s going to kill jobs, no question about it,” Kudlow declared. “You know, I don’t know how far that is going to go, but in the Biden platform, they are going to double the capital gains tax, increase the tax on upper-end successful earners. They’re going to tax energy to death. In fact, they’re going to wreck the whole energy sector.”

“Let me make this simple point: You are taxing wealth. You’re really taxing investment, right?” he continued. “Those people at the upper end are essentially investors. They plant the seeds that grow into fruitful economies. So, I will argue this point: investment — call it capital investment whatever you want — investment is the working person’s best friend. And if you look carefully at the Trump tax cuts, particularly the business tax cuts but also individual tax cuts, it was precisely the middle-income and the lower-incomes who benefitted the most — substantially more than the upper-income. Now, if you tax upper income, you are going to damage productivity, investment. Real wages will fall, and jobs will fall. So, this is a very negative thing. The far-left loves this stuff, class warfare, and all the rest of it. Guess what. It doesn’t work. And the wealth tax may not even be constitutional. Some people are arguing that. But the key question I think for the market is how quickly this is going to be proposed, Maria.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent