Should government tax wealth that is not booked as income?

In principle, maybe. Yeah, I mean, you rightly said, you know, folks like Bernie are to my left. I don't know the details of the state and local proposal you just mentioned, but those sound on their face like they're further than I would go. But look, in reality, we tax across a variety of things, right? There's income taxes, payroll tax, there's property tax. Wealth tax would be kind of along the lines of a property tax. And the thought, of course, is that you've got a lot of folks who have become incredibly wealthy. And importantly, the way taxation works now, less and less of the way the wealthiest people accumulate their income is actually booked as income, right? I mean, this is why you have these stories of multi-billion dollar corporations or multi-billion dollar individuals somehow paying an effective tax rate that's lower than a teacher or a firefighter. And I think most people get that that's wrong. So, I guess my overall take is, everything has a balance, everything has limits. But if you're asking me the question, are the wealthiest people in America right now paying too much tax or too little tax? I would say the wealthiest are paying too little tax. And whether you adjust that through income tax, whether you adjust that through, you know, something like a wealth tax, and there's a lot of ways to do it. I think what's important is that it's fair, that it makes sense, and that you do it in a way that can make sure that the people who are spectacularly rewarded by our system are contributing to it without being so extreme that, you know, you're crushing wealth creation.

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I mean, I'll just say we've cut taxes seven times in Pennsylvania. We've got one of the lowest income taxes in the entire country. That's why I'm joking with you. You should come to Pennsylvania and locate here. And look, I mean, that kind of tax that you're describing is not something we have here. It's certainly not something on my agenda. I do think people need to pay their fair share. I think you'd agree with that. We need to make sure that we are easing the burden on those who are working and who are at the lowest sort of economic point on the scale. We got to make sure that folks at the top are paying their fair share in order to sustain our society. I think we've struck a really good balance here in Pennsylvania. I think our growth numbers bear that out. I think seeing more people coming to the state bears that out. I think there's an important stat. One of the things you cited in those entrepreneurs as you were going through your question is, these are people who kind of started with a dream, with an idea that someone might have looked at and said, jeez, I don't know about that, but they stuck with it. And they built up their companies. We see here in Pennsylvania, particularly when it comes to life sciences, right? We're seeing people plant a flag here in Pennsylvania. Start with an idea that others might think, boy, I don't know about that. But then because of our tax environment in Pennsylvania, because of our pro-growth approach in Pennsylvania, we're seeing more of those small businesses, more of those small companies, especially in life sciences, survive that sort of valley where a lot of those companies go out of business and sustain themselves here. Because again, I think we're showing that we're pro-growth. We've got a smart tax environment for them. And by the way, after we invest in them, after we give them a shot, and after they do well, we expect them to pay their fair share back to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And I think that's the approach we've taken and it's working.

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