I guess venture capitalist Tom Perkins just wants to be provocative since he continues to say things that have little purpose other than to make people angry. His latest foray into outrageousness is to propose a new electoral system in which only people who pay some kind of net taxation are allowed to vote, and the more you pay in taxes, the more votes you get.
“The Tom Perkins system is: You don’t get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes,” Perkins said.
“But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How’s that?”
This comes on the heels of the letter he had published in the Wall Street Journal last month that likened criticism of growing income inequality to Nazi pogroms against the Jews.
I have my own proposal. I say that we set an upward limit on how much wealth people can have. Any wealth above that level must be used to invest in job-creating endeavors or it will be confiscated. If any one resists this taxation or complains about it, they will dragged out of their house by an angry mob and tarred and feathered in the town square. Thereafter, their wealth will be redistributed to help fund anti-poverty efforts. This wouldn’t really discourage healthy venture capitalism, since they could either use or lose their excess wealth, but it would discourage the kind of venture capitalism done by firms like Bain Capital that seek to “rationalize” the market by bleeding corporations of all their money and assets while destroying jobs.
Of course, I’m not really serious. Like Mr. Perkins, I’m just being outrageous.
The audience at the Commonwealth Club reacted with laughter. But Perkins offered no immediate indication that he was joking. Asked offstage if the proposal was serious, Perkins said: “I intended to be outrageous, and it was.”
I’m not really serious, but if Perkins tries to implement his reforms, I will try to implement mine.