Personal finance expert Ramit Sethi isn't buying the claim that cutting taxes on the wealthy will somehow benefit the poor.
Responding to a recent post by economist and gold investor Peter Schiff, Sethi called the argument a lie, and said he knows, because he's rich.
Sethi Calls Out Trickle-Down Economics
“I’m rich & this is a lie,” Sethi posted on X recently. “When politicians lower my taxes, I don’t create additional jobs (only demand does that). I simply save that money.”
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His comments came in response to Schiff’s post, which claimed, “If you want to help the poor, then lower taxes on the rich.” According to Schiff, the poor benefit most from a productive economy that increases the supply and affordability of goods and services while generating more job opportunities.
In his response, Sethi said the idea that the rich drive the economy through tax cuts has been debunked over and over again. “Trickle-down economics has been repeatedly debunked yet conservatives lie to you so they can give their wealthy overlords more tax cuts,” he wrote.
He also pushed back on the commonly repeated claim that raising taxes on the wealthy would cause them to move to lower-tax states. “Despite what many people think, wealthy Americans don’t actually move when taxes go up,” he wrote.
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Sethi also posted a video in which he took it even further.
“You think I want to move to a red state so I can save $15,000 on taxes? F*** no,” he said. “There’s this myth in America that if you raise taxes on the wealthy, they will move and therefore you can’t raise taxes. Are you seriously still buying this b*******?”
Sethi said the idea was planted by the ultra-wealthy as a way to avoid paying more. “This is exactly what I would do if I were a wealthy person trying to prevent taxes from being raised on me. I would start a lie that says you can’t do that because otherwise all these rich people will leave.”
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To back it up, he pointed to his own life. “I’m rich and I live in two of the highest tax states in America. California and New York.”
Sethi explained that high earners often stay in those places because they want access to better services, larger talent pools, and proximity to businesses they own or work with.
He also argued that federal tax rates for the wealthy are still historically low. “So this entire line of reasoning, ‘if you raise taxes on the wealthy, we’ll leave,’ is a complete lie,” he said. “So please don’t let this myth continue.”
“My taxes should go up because they are historically low and we should be supporting the poor and middle class in America, not giving massive giveaways to people like me,” he said.
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