Bill O’Reilly And Marc Lamont Hill Get In Shouting Match Over Proposed ‘Wealth Tax’
Marc Lamont Hill stopped by The Factor tonight to talk about a proposed “wealth tax” with Bill O’Reilly. The majority of the interview consisted of O’Reilly trying to argue why such a tax would naturally lead to government inspectors in private homes, and Hill trying to explain to O’Reilly why his line of argument makes no sense.
O’Reilly highlighted a growing movement for some kind of “wealth tax,” which he said was “off-the-chart unconstitutional.” Hill argued that if done properly, that kind of tax could make the United States “more democratic and fair.” He explained that taxing beyond income and getting to someone’s personal wealth would be an effective way to get the richest Americans to pay more in taxes, throwing out a modest 1 percent tax on an individual’s net worth as a starting point.
O’Reilly argued that such a tax would require a government agency to “go in and examine the books” in order to determine how much someone owes, which Hill laughed off as an “Orwellian picture.” When Hill tried to explain to O’Reilly why he was wrong, O’Reilly said he was making an argument that’s “impossible to understand.”
O’Reilly maintained that in order for an individual’s wealth to be determined, someone is going to need to actually calculate that wealth. Hill argued that people’s total wealth would need to be revealed the same way as people file taxes in the U.S., to which O’Reilly told Hill, “You don’t understand economics.”
As the two men continued to argue, Hill tried to get O’Reilly to listen to his points as O’Reilly insisted that if there are no inspectors, the government then just “arbitrarily assigns a number” to decide what people can pay. Constitutionally speaking, O’Reilly argued a wealth tax would be considered a “private property seizure.” Hill accused O’Reilly of trying to play a technicality, and in any case he would suggest an amendment in order to make such a tax constitutional.
Watch the video below, courtesy of Fox News:
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