{"id":415406,"date":"2021-12-02T22:06:34","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T22:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=5d74f63673027956b12781ec206a869f"},"modified":"2021-12-02T22:06:34","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T22:06:34","slug":"2730-how-the-rich-rigged-our-tax-code-with-opportunity-zones-w-david-wessel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/12\/02\/2730-how-the-rich-rigged-our-tax-code-with-opportunity-zones-w-david-wessel\/","title":{"rendered":"2730 – How The Rich Rigged Our Tax Code With “Opportunity Zones” w\/ David Wessel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emma hosts\u00a0David Wessel<\/a>, senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, to discuss his recent book\u00a0Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age.,<\/a> and how bipartisan legislation on Opportunity Zones has created a tax haven for the ultra-wealthy under the guise of investing in low-income communities. They begin by covering what Opportunity Zones are, and how they work, looking at tech mogul Sean Parker\u2019s ingenious idea to promote investment in low-income neighborhoods to combat geographic inequality by giving massive tax cuts on capital gains as a reward, and how it made its way into Trump\u2019s 2017 tax cuts, with help from Tim Scott and Cory Booker. After exploring the actual tax breaks and tax deferrals in the policy, they dive into the actual impact of the legislation, exploring how investment opportunities for the wealthy, unsurprisingly, has resulted in a focus on making capital gains on your capital gains rather than actually putting the tax break back into low-income communities. Next, David Wessel walks through concrete examples, looking at the massive investments in \u201cOpportunity Zones\u201d that include a Ritz Carlton condo complex and hotel in Portland, and a Goldman Sachs-backed complex in Baltimore, and the effective impact of federally-backed gentrification that the policy has created. This brings him and Emma to the real estate industry and its focus on the exploitation of legislation, exploring the Mandalay Bay Opportunity Zone convention that saw wealthy investors come together and explore their new opportunities for tax avoidance, before they wrap up the interview by looking at the future of Opportunity Zones, including the billions of tax dollars it will lose in the coming decade, and whether or not it will meet any practical pushback. Emma also covers the nation waiting on SCOTUS\u2019 upcoming decision on Mississippi\u2019s abortion ban, the horrifying ramifications it could lead to, and Fox\u2019s anticipatory threats ahead of the conservative Court\u2019s vote.<\/p>

And in the Fun Half: Brandon<\/a> and Matt<\/a> join Emma to take on the role of musicals in this cultural moment, cover Brian Kilmeade continuing the whitewashing of the 80s with a discussion of the \u201coverhyped\u201d reaction to the AIDS epidemic, and BJ from Montana calls in on Governor Gianforte leaving Montana residents in ashes. They also cover puritan influencer Eric Metaxas\u2019 impure experience with COVID, Greenwald\u2019s poor pattern recognition as he goes after a Brazilian Petroleum Workers Union for their \u201cprivilege\u201d in understanding the inefficiencies and exploitation in the philanthropy model, and Matt and Matt rant on cryptocurrency\u2019s scams, plus your calls and IMs!<\/p> Purchase tickets for the live show in Boston on January 16th\u00a0HERE!<\/a>

https:\/\/thewilbur.com\/artist\/majority-report\/<\/a><\/p>

Become a member at\u00a0JoinTheMajorityReport.com<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>

Join the Majority Report Discord! http:\/\/majoritydiscord.com\/<\/a><\/p>

Get all your MR merch at our store\u00a0https:\/\/shop.majorityreportradio.com\/<\/a><\/p>

(Merch issues and concerns can be addressed here:\u00a0majorityreportstore@mirrorimage.com<\/a>)<\/p>

You can now watch the livestream on\u00a0Twitch<\/a><\/p>

Support the St. Vincent Nurses today as they continue to strike for a fair contract!\u00a0https:\/\/action.massnurses.org\/we-stand-with-st-vincents-nurses\/<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe to Discourse Blog, a newsletter and website for progressive essays and related fun partly run by AM Quickie writer Jack Crosbie.\u00a0https:\/\/discourseblog.com\/<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe to AM Quickie writer Corey Pein\u2019s podcast\u00a0News from Nowhere, at\u00a0https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/newsfromnowhere<\/a><\/p>

Check out Matt\u2019s show, Left Reckoning<\/a>, on Youtube<\/a>, and subscribe on Patreon<\/a>!<\/p>

Subscribe to Matt's other show Literary Hangover<\/a> on Patreon<\/a>!<\/p>

Check out The Letterhack\u2019s upcoming Kickstarter project for his new graphic novel!\u00a0https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/milagrocomic\/milagro-heroe-de-las-calles<\/a><\/p>

Check out Matt Binder\u2019s\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0channel!<\/p>

Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse<\/a> on Patreon<\/a>!<\/p>

Check out The Nomiki Show live at 3 pm ET on\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0patreon.com\/thenomikishow<\/a><\/p>

Check out Jamie\u2019s podcast, The Antifada, at\u00a0patreon.com\/theantifada<\/a>, on\u00a0iTunes<\/a>,\u00a0or at\u00a0twitch.tv\/theantifada<\/a>\u00a0(streaming every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7pm ET!)<\/p>

Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter:<\/p>

@SamSeder<\/p>

@EmmaVigeland<\/p>

@MattBinder<\/p>

@MattLech<\/p>

@BF1nn<\/p>

@BradKAlsop<\/p>

Check out Paul Prescod's campaign for State Senate in Pennsylvania here!<\/a><\/p> \n

This post was originally published on The Majority Report with Sam Seder<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emma hosts\u00a0David Wessel, senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, to discuss his recent book\u00a0Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age., and how bipartisan legislation on Opportunity Zones has created a t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415407,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415406\/revisions\/415407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}