New Federal Program: Tax The Rich, Then Ask Them To Invest In Government Programs

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

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It is a devilishly clever plan. The federal government proposes to raise taxes on hedge funds and private equity firms. Once that it accomplished, the Administration wants these same firms to invest in securities that need to be establish liquidity and legitimacy by being traded in the open markets.

The plan is simple.

According to The Washington Post, well-heeled investment firms “would be invited to buy up recently issued, highly rated securities. These securities finance consumer lending, such as credit cards and student and auto loans.” The government would loan as much as $1 trillion to these private money managers so that they could buy fairly “safe” paper.

The plan seems a bit off center. If the risk of these investments is so modest, why would the government want to loan out money so rich funds can buy them? If the fruits of the process will be such remarkably high yields why doesn’t the government put up the capital directly and give the anticipated gains to taxpayers?

The other reason the program may meet some resistance is the “class warfare” between the Administration and the wealthy which will cause a much higher tax bite for hedge funds and similar operations. Being beat up by the government and being asked to be its partner at the same time many not go down well with these firms.

Other than that, it is a great idea.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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