Democratic presidential candidate and billionaire Michael Bloomberg is trying to run on an economic message focused on inequality.
“We have an extraordinary progressive agenda, and we want to do it by taxing wealthy Americans, much like we did in New York,” said Bloomberg campaign spokesman Stu Loeser.
Liberal populist notions regarding inequality and the structure of the economy have gained currency within the Democratic Party in the past few years, and candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have made bashing billionaires and corporations cornerstones of their campaigns.
Bloomberg entered the race in part as a centrist, more business-friendly alternative to Sanders and Warren, but the evolution of the Democratic primary electorate’s views on inequality and the rhetoric of his fellow 2020 candidates has also pushed him, the eighth-richest person in the world with over $60 billion in personal wealth, to embrace an anti-inequality agenda.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg said in an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that, to curb inequality, “We have to raise taxes on the wealthy.”
“And that’s where we get money to do the things that we need to do that keeps this country safe and to keep the economy going,” Bloomberg said.
“Today, the share of national income going to workers, rather than to investors, is near an all-time low,” Bloomberg said in a campaign speech on his economic agenda in Chicago earlier this month.
“Too much wealth is in too few hands and too few places, as well. We have an economic inequality that is distributed unfairly across this country,” said Bloomberg.
The former mayor of New York City describes inequality as a “top priority” but, unlike Warren and Sanders, doesn’t explicitly blame corporations and the rich.
Bloomberg favors the creation of personal fortunes and successful businesses and also taxing them at higher rates. Sanders and Warren, in contrast, cast rich people and corporations as villains who have unfairly rigged the system in their favor and whose wealth should be diminished through taxation.
Bloomberg, Loeser said, “wants to attract ideas, companies, and people who will create jobs here. We want them here, like we did in NYC, so that we can tax wealthy people and use the money for those who haven’t had an equal chance and are less fortunate so they can start climbing the economic ladder.”
And Bloomberg hasn’t embraced much of the left-wing economic agenda endorsed by Warren and Sanders. He does not favor a wealth tax. He told Colbert that the policy shouldn’t be pursued because it “just doesn’t work. It’s been tried elsewhere.” He also said he thought the wealth tax was unfair because it was being done for “the heck of it,” just “to be mean.”
Liberal activists are not ready to welcome Bloomberg to the fold.
“Naturally, there is some profound skepticism of a former Republican billionaire doing some pivoting, even conversion on economic issues,” said Neil Sroka, communications director for Democracy for America, a liberal political action committee.
“It’s hard to look at one of the wealthiest men from one of the richest cities in the world, who has no strong record on inequality, suddenly becoming a champion against it,” said Sroka. His organization plans to back a liberal candidate such as Warren or Sanders, he said.
Bloomberg is falling in line with mainstream Democratic talking points, Sroka said, but his approach to income inequality is not particularly novel or enticing.
“At the end of the day, Michael Bloomberg wants to cut Social Security, let Wall Street banks and credit card companies keep cheating people, and keep in place laws that are fundamentally rigged for the powerful against working people,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group allied with Elizabeth Warren.
Bloomberg’s economic agenda includes raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and increasing spending on education and career training programs. He has also made the general promise to “send billions of dollars to communities across the nation to help create jobs and grow incomes.”
One of Bloomberg’s economic plans is to reform the earned income tax credit and to increase the child tax credit and the low-income housing credit. It’s not clear yet what initiatives he will use to pay for these changes, such as taxes on the wealthy.
In contrast, Sanders and Warren have been more specific and aggressive about their economic agendas. Both candidates have plans to take on Big Tech and Big Banks as well as give all Americans healthcare, free college, and a number of other social programs paid for by higher taxes.
Many liberals point to Bloomberg’s record and rhetoric as mayor of New York City to highlight their skepticism of his ability to make big changes to economic inequality.
“If we could get every billionaire around the world to move here, it would be a godsend that would create a much bigger income gap,” said Bloomberg on a radio show in 2013, when he was mayor of New York City.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could get all the Russian billionaires to move here?” Bloomberg added.
His argument at the time was that billionaires and wealthy individuals are the people who spend the most money at stores and restaurants and thereby are critical to keeping the economy afloat. As mayor, he said that the city depended on tax revenues from the ultra rich in order to “help people throughout the entire rest of the spectrum.”
Bloomberg’s campaign pushed back, saying that, unlike other Democratic candidates who have interesting yet untested plans regarding economic justice, Bloomberg got results when he was mayor of New York City.
“Income inequality went down in four of five boroughs when Mike was mayor,” said Loeser. “We raised income and property taxes on the wealthy and used that on police, public schools, and health programs.”
Loeser highlighted the fact that, unlike most big cities in the country, New York City’s poverty rate did not go up under Bloomberg because of the earned income tax credit expansion, an increase in jobs, and a “robust social safety net.”
Loeser said Bloomberg wants to recreate what he did in New York City on the national stage.
