Bernie Sanders Targets CEO Pay in Effort to Keep Spotlight on Workers

[Donkees]

Under Bernie's new bill:

Walmart, which pays its CEO nearly 1,000 times more than its average worker, would pay up to $855 million more in taxes.

CVS, which pays its CEO 790 times more than its average worker would pay up to $450 million more in taxes.

Link to tweet

Bernie Sanders Targets CEO Pay in Effort to Keep Spotlight on Workers
Progressive senator’s proposals face resistance in closely divided Congress

March 17, 2021 5:00 am ET


Excerpt:

Sen. Bernie Sanders is using his new perch as Budget Committee chairman to try to keep Congress focused on measures designed to improve worker pay and job conditions, even as related legislation including a $15-an-hour minimum wage has stalled.

The Vermont senator is set to introduce legislation Wednesday that would seek to apply an additional tax on corporations where the CEO is paid more than 50 times the median worker. The proposal is among a handful of policies that the progressive ran on during his 2020 presidential campaign and is now pushing from atop the committee, where he can schedule hearings and call witnesses to testify.

Mr. Sanders’s panel is also holding a hearing Wednesday focused on wealth and income inequality, which will include testimony from an Amazon.com Inc. worker trying to unionize at a fulfillment center in Alabama. The senator said he plans to hold another hearing later this month on corporations’ tax obligations.

“I intend to talk about the most important issues facing working families,” said Mr. Sanders in an interview, adding that some of the measures he pursues as chairman overlap with those he pushed during his two presidential campaigns. “Right now, I happen to believe that this country is on its way to an oligarchy.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bernie-sanders-targets-ceo-pay-in-effort-to-keep-spotlight-on-workers-11615971600?

[Johnny2X2X]

1. CEO compensation, not salary needs to be the benchmark

These CEOs have creative compensation structures that include stock and other benefits not taxable at the proper rate, target those too.

CEOs find ways to have their entire life paid for by the companies they work for, none of it gets taxed at the income tax rate, that needs to change. You get to use the private jet for family vacations and the corporate suite in Maui, the value of that should be counted as regular income.

[Hortensis]

2. Keeping the spotlight on $7.25 federal minimum wage would be appropriate.

WHY did Senator Sanders seemingly betray everything he claims to be for by refusing to allow his committee to consider raising it to the $11 or so Manchin and others said they'd consider?

No to allowing Sanders to deflect the minimum wage workers' plight to evil CEOs. What Sanders bizarrely did is REAL. An $11 increase could have been signed into law now. WHY?

Which other senator would have refused to raise the minimum wage right now, when it was possible?

Btw, STATE legislators in VT were raising the state MW from $11 to, I think, $12.55 over a couple of years. Sander's decision to stand on $7.25 won't hurt VT voters, but low-income workers across the nation will be badly hurt. Every day. Every week. Every month. Every year. Until we are able to make another chance.

[jorgevlorgan]

3. You mean why did he fight for an increase to a basic living wage of 15/hr

A better question is why did 8 democrats betray everything they stand for by voting with Republicans to keep people at a poverty wage?

[Hortensis]

5. They would probably have accepted the $11 suggested by Manchin.

This huge discrepancy between what Sanders claims and what he does is not new.

Sanders' first big, meaningful action as chair of the budget committee was to refuse to consider raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $11.

WHY? Seriously, shouldn't you know?

[George II]

6. 8 Democrats didn't "betray" everything they stand for, they decided not to "betray" Senate rules.

[jorgevlorgan]

7. I just don't think changing the rules for that case is betraying anything.

The rules are ridiculous to begin with, and I'm personally on the side of every single of the 42 Democrats that chose to change them for this instance.

[betsuni]

4. +1