How specifically doesn’t matter as long as it’s enough. The way I see it, the best ideas, other than all out socialism, is to have progressive taxes that start low and have extremely steep curves.
Just one example, we could have a progressive property tax. For people who own a single reasonably sized home that they actually live in, the property tax would be very low and reasonable. However, if people own multiple properties, properties they don’t live in, or extremely large properties, the tax rate would increase and then skyrocket to the point where a wealthy person has no choice but to sell those properties or lose money. All that selling will bring down the price of real estate. At the same time, nobody will be in a position to buy that real estate except for those who don’t already have much, because for anyone else the tax will be too high for it to work out. If they don’t sell, they pay enormous tax, which is also acceptable. Either way we reverse the transfer of wealth.
Apply this same progressive scale to capital gains tax and estate tax. Also income tax, but less so. Effectively this puts a cap on wealth. If a person tries to own more than their fair share of things, they won’t make more money. Of course you still allow people to be quite rich. There will be multi-millionaires with fancy cars and mansions. There will still be movie stars, sports team owners, and bankers. They will still live lives of luxury and want for nothing. They just won’t control our entire society.
How do you spend it? You spend it on anything that benefits labor and makes everyone’s lives better. You don’t use it on a fossil fuel subsidy. You don’t use it on defense contracts. You use it on universal health care, social security, education, FEMA, infrastructure. Pretty much you do the exact opposite of whatever DOGE is doing.
