Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) campaign took its beef with the wealthy a step further, rolling out $25 “Billionaire Tears” mugs on the presidential hopeful’s campaign website.
Warren has made billionaires her target in recent weeks, arguing in favor of a “wealth tax.” She claims it could fund universal childcare, free college, the cancellation of student debt, and “much more,” as detailed by her latest campaign ad, which demonizes billionaires.
Her proposal, dubbed the “Ultra-Millionaire Tax,” imposes a two percent tax on individuals with over $50 million in assets. It goes up to three percent for those with more than $1 billion in assets, although Warren has floated raising the percentage on billionaires, asking them to “pitch in six cents on each dollar of net worth above $1 billion” to help fund her $52 trillion Medicare for All plan.
While she has not taken her rhetoric as far as her ideological similar Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who said that billionaires “should not exist,” she has upped her target of the group in recent weeks.
Her campaign recently rolled out $25 “Billionaire Tears” mugs, cheekily urging supporters to “savor a warm, slightly salty beverage of your choice in this union-made mug as you contemplate all the good a wealth tax could do”:
The description reads:
In November 2019, billionaire and former Goldman Sachs executive Leon Cooperman (who as recently as 2017 settled with the SEC on insider-trading charges) was brought to tears on live television while discussing the prospect that a President Elizabeth Warren might require him to pay his fair share in taxes. Savor a warm, slightly salty beverage of your choice in this union-made mug as you contemplate all the good a wealth tax could do: universal childcare, student debt cancellation, universal free college, and more.
Twitter users took the opportunity to mock Warren.
“I see you’re using capitalism to your advantage,” one user wrote.
“I fixed it for you: ‘Billionaire Tears Of Joy,’” another remarked.
“Billionaires are so afraid of Warren they send her money,” another added.
As Breitbart News reported, Warren has, in fact, received contributions from at least 30 billionaires over the course of her political career:
Warren prides her presidential bid as a 100 percent grassroots-funded campaign. While she has raised millions — an impressive $24.6 million in the third quarter — she reportedly used $10.4 million in leftover funds from her 2018 senatorial bid to cushion her current campaign. During the course of her senatorial campaign, Warren happily attended fundraisers and accepted money from big donors, sparking questions surrounding her newfound commitment to keep big donors out of politics.
The New York Post analyzed Warren’s past campaign contributions and found that she has accepted donations from at least 30 billionaires throughout her political tenure.
Those included donations from venture capitalist Christopher Sacca; GitHub founder Tom Preston-Werner’s wife, Theresa; and Susan Pritzker, “wife of Hyatt heir Nicholas Pritzker II,” as the New York Post reported.
Warren, while not a billionaire, is wealthy herself. She has a “$12 million fortune,” according to Forbes.
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