Somewhere on the left, between a meme and a moral screeching to 'TaX tHe RiCh,' an entire fantasy version of finance has taken root. In this world, billionaires apparently keep their wealth in something resembling your checking account, just with a few extra zeros, and they selfishly refuse to hand it over to us peasants out of pure spite. It’s a worldview powered by economic illiteracy, sustained by social media applause, and completely detached from the reality of how wealth, assets, or taxes actually function. But that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the foundation for some very loud, very confident demands.
That’s why this post exists; not as a defense of billionaires, but as a reality check from an X user who seems to actually understand the difference between net worth, liquidity, and taxable income. You don’t have to like the ultra-rich to grasp basic finance but pretending they’re hoarding cash in a Regions checking account only proves how unserious the entire leftist argument has become.
I've come to the realization that most people think that billionaires actually have a billion dollars in their checking account.
— Hank Venture (@HankVenture5) January 2, 2026
He follows this up with a point that the 'democratic socialist' left has never been able to comprehend:
I'm going to follow up this banger with another observation.
— Hank Venture (@HankVenture5) January 2, 2026
The top 5% of taxpayers in this country pay for an inordinate amount of the taxes that make everything possible.
Rather than squeezing them for more, it would make more sense to squeeze the government to waste less.
That last line lands where the conversation SHOULD be but rarely goes. The same people convinced the rich are hiding Scrooge McDuck vaults of cash somehow go silent when billions evaporate through government waste, 'misplaced' funds, politicians' pockets, or the fraud stories that keep popping up in the news with alarming regularity. Apparently, accountability is only urgent when it involves other people’s money but once it reaches Washington, the standard becomes *shrug.*
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The question becomes this: Why are our folks on the left NOT concerned with government waste and overspending, but instead focused on the net worth of a handful of people who are NOT committing fraud or theft?
The answer is that because focusing on net worth is emotionally satisfying, while focusing on government waste is intellectually inconvenient for leftists and their Democrat overlords.
For many on the left, billionaires serve as a moral proxy villain. You can point to a small, static group of wealthy individuals, assign blame, and promise that taking their money will magically fix systemic problems without ever having to explain budgets, incentives, or outcomes. Government waste, by contrast, requires acknowledging that the programs they support are often inefficient, poorly managed, or outright abused. That’s a much harder sell.
So true. They don’t know or care how worth really works. Bottom line is, you have money and they want it.
— David Cho (@DavidChovan84) January 2, 2026
And therein lies the rub. Envy is the root of socialism.
Half the country effectively pays ZERO taxes or gets paid to exist when you factor in their zero dollar federal tax bill and offset their medicare/social-security contributions with how much they consume in social services.
— Hank Venture (@HankVenture5) January 2, 2026
BINGO.
How much better do you feel your life would be if you took Musk's $600B in assets, liquidated it and gave every American a check for $1765? This is a Karl Marx level of eat the rich dipshittery.
— Hank Venture (@HankVenture5) January 2, 2026
We are really starting to like this Hank guy.
Imagine hating someone simply because they are wealthy.
— Ignaci0 (@aytoozeeusa) January 2, 2026
There’s also a control narrative at play for the Democrats. Wealth held by private individuals feels 'unaccountable,' even when it’s legal and taxed, while government spending is assumed to be virtuous by definition...despite overwhelming evidence of fraud, bloat, and failure. Once money is routed through the state, scrutiny suddenly becomes 'attacking institutions' and 'racism' instead of basic oversight.
Hating someone for being wealthy? Imagine hating someone not for what they’ve done, but for what they have. Not for fraud, theft, corruption, or abuse of power, and all just for succeeding to a degree that makes other people uncomfortable. It’s a strange moral shortcut, one where wealth itself becomes the offense and resentment is rebranded as virtue. At that point, the issue isn’t justice or fairness; it’s the belief that someone else’s success is inherently illegitimate unless it’s first run through the government and properly diminished.
That's insane, but that's just us.
Then you need to admit that you also want to tax people when their home or 401K or IRA increases in value, even though they are unrealized gains.
— Hank Venture (@HankVenture5) January 2, 2026
Or, just cut to the chase and admit you're envious of those who have more than you do.
See? Envy. Jealousy. It's a green-eyed monster.
'Tax the rich' isn’t a serious policy (mainly because we already DO), it’s a slogan for people who don’t understand how wealth works, how taxes are paid, or how much money government already wastes. It’s easier to rail against success than it is to confront incompetence and one's own ignorance. Or, perhaps in this case, it's their very willful stupidity.