Sam and the Magical Money Tree

A Political Bullshit Story

Photo by Monica Bourgeau on Unsplash

Sam pays taxes. Has for thirty years. Works hard, plays by the rules, does the right thing. Sam isn’t looking for a handout—just wants the basics to work. Roads without potholes. Schools that aren’t falling apart. Maybe a healthcare system that doesn’t bankrupt you if you get cancer.

But every time someone proposes funding these things, Sam hears the same question: “Where will you find the money?” Said with the kind of serious concern usually reserved for violating the laws of physics.

It’s a reasonable question. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Sam has a household budget, after all. Sam gets it.

But here’s what’s bothering Sam: The money tree question only seems to come up for certain things.

When we cut taxes on corporations or the wealthy, nobody asks where the money will come from. When we spend $800 billion on defense, the money materializes—poof. When we bailed out Wall Street in 2008, we found trillions overnight. When Trump cut taxes in 2017, adding $1.9 trillion to the deficit, the conversation was about growth and competitiveness, not magical money trees or fiscal responsibility.

But suggest the wealthy pay a bit more in taxes so we can fix infrastructure or ensure kids can see a dentist? Suddenly we’re living in fantasy land.

Sam is starting to suspect something: The magical money tree appears and disappears depending on who benefits.

Sam isn’t a socialist. Sam can do math.

Sam has a friend named Sally. Sally works two jobs and drives for Uber on weekends to support her kids. Her husband died in a car accident three years ago.

Sally just found out she’s losing Medicaid coverage.

Her daughter survived childhood cancer. But now Sally can’t afford the diagnostic care to make sure the cancer doesn’t return. The monitoring appointments that could catch it early, when it’s still treatable—those cost more than Sally makes in a month.

Sam thinks about Sally when people talk about “tough choices” and “fiscal responsibility.”

Sam thinks about Sally when Elon Musk gets a $1 trillion compensation package—not a typo, trillion with a T—approved by Tesla’s board.

Sam also thinks about Sally when reading that Elon Musk fed USAID to the woodchipper. Sam isn’t sure why he did that. But Harvard estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have already died from the shutdown—600,000 deaths, two-thirds of them children. Deaths from HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio. Deaths from malnutrition. Deaths that were preventable.

A program that saved 92 million lives over two decades, gone.

Nine months later, Tesla’s board approved Musk’s trillion-dollar compensation package.

Sam can do math. The money tree exists. It just doesn’t bear fruit for Sally. Or for the 600,000 who died when USAID got shut down.

So when Sam looks at polls about taxing the wealthy, Sam isn’t thinking in abstractions. Sam is thinking about whether we live in a country where Sally’s daughter gets cancer monitoring or Elon Musk gets his trillion-dollar payday. Where children get nutrition programs or we accept 600,000 deaths as the cost of government efficiency.

Turns out two-thirds of Americans think Sally’s daughter should get the monitoring. The consultants think that’s politically impossible to run on.

Sam also realizes something else: Maybe a modest tax increase on Sam would feel fair, especially if it means Sally can take her daughter for cancer screenings to monitor her remission. Sam makes decent money. Not wealthy, but comfortable. And if paying a bit more means Sally doesn’t have to choose between her daughter’s health and her rent—that seems like a reasonable trade-off.

The libertarians say Sally is a moocher. The venture capitalists call people like Sally “groundlings”—lower vibration humans who fail the marshmallow test. But when you threaten to tax billionaires, suddenly these same venture capitalists become passionate defenders of the common people.

They say she should have made better choices, saved more money, bought better insurance, not relied on government handouts. They say it’s not Sam’s responsibility to pay for Sally’s daughter’s healthcare. That forcing Sam to do so through taxes is theft. That Sally’s problems are Sally’s problems, and if she can’t afford cancer monitoring, well, that’s unfortunate but it’s not anyone else’s obligation to fix.

Sam has thoughts about this.

Sam thinks that Sally’s husband dying in a car accident wasn’t a “choice.” That childhood cancer wasn’t a “choice.” That working two jobs and doing Uber on weekends isn’t “mooching.” That a society where a child might die of preventable cancer because her widowed mother can’t afford screenings isn’t a society that deserves to call itself civilized.

But the libertarians have their principles. And apparently those principles say that Sally’s daughter should just die quietly so Sam’s taxes don’t go up by a few hundred dollars a year. That 600,000 people—400,000 of them children—dying is acceptable if it means cutting government spending.

Sam finds this morally repulsive.

So Sam looks at some polls. Nothing fancy—just the kind of thing that’s supposed to matter in a democracy.

And what Sam discovers is fascinating: Consistently, across multiple polls and years, roughly six to seven in ten Americans—including substantial numbers of Republicans—think the wealthy should pay more in taxes. Pew finds that 61% say the wealthy don’t pay their fair share. Gallup consistently finds 60-70% say upper-income Americans should pay more. A Fox News poll found 70% support raising taxes on those making over $10 million annually.

Sam stares at the Fox News poll. Seventy percent support.

And yet when politicians propose doing exactly what this majority wants, they’re called radical. Far left. Socialist. They’re told they’re engaging in class warfare, punishing success, practicing wealth redistribution—said with the same tone you’d use for ritual sacrifice.

Sam pauses here, genuinely confused. If roughly two-thirds of Americans support something consistently across different polls and framings, how is it far left? Isn’t that the center? Isn’t that literally where most people are?

Sam is beginning to suspect the center isn’t where the people are. It’s where the money is.

But it gets weirder. When Sam asks about this contradiction, the establishment types—consultants, strategists, people who run campaigns and go on cable news—they all say the same thing: “You can’t get elected on that.”

Never going to happen, they say. Raising taxes. A third rail. Political suicide.

Sam gestures at the polls. Two-thirds support. Across party lines. For years.

“But you can’t get elected on it,” the consultant repeats, slower this time.

“But the voters want it,” Sam says. “That’s what the polls say.”

“Right, but it poses electability challenges,” the strategist explains. “Voters say they want one thing, but what they really respond to is something else entirely.”

Sam is getting a headache. “So when two-thirds of voters say they want something, that’s not what they want?”

“It’s more complicated than that. You have to consider media narratives. The way these things get framed. The Republicans will run ads. Better to find a middle ground.”

“Middle ground between what?” Sam asks. “Between what two-thirds of people want and what economic elites want? And why is the middle ground always closer to the elites?”

The pragmatist sighs. Sam just doesn’t understand how politics works.

But Sam has a question for the consultant: “You say voters don’t really want what the polls say they want. That when they say ‘tax the wealthy,’ they don’t mean it. Fine. Let’s accept that for a second.

“But then explain Trump’s 2016 campaign to me.

“He ran attacking elites. Promising to fight for working people against the system. ‘Draining the swamp.’ The consultants said he couldn’t win on economic populism—it was unrealistic, too radical, voters wouldn’t buy it.

“And yet he won. By telling working people that the system was rigged against them.

“Now, Trump was lying. He gave massive tax cuts to the wealthy. He filled his cabinet with Goldman Sachs executives. He did the opposite of what he promised.

“But here’s what’s interesting: He understood something you don’t. He understood that voters are angry about wealth concentration. That they feel the system serves elites. That they want someone who’ll fight for them against the wealthy.

“He was lying about being that person. But he was telling the truth about what voters wanted.

“So when you say Democrats can’t run on taxing the wealthy because it’s politically impossible—you’re saying Democrats can’t tell the truth about the same thing Trump successfully lied about.

“You’re saying the authentic version of what worked for Trump can’t work for Democrats.

“You’re saying voters will believe a billionaire who lies about fighting elites, but won’t believe Democrats who actually propose doing it.

“Does that sound right to you? Or does it sound like maybe you’re more afraid of your donors than of losing elections?”

The consultant doesn’t have an answer for this.

Because the answer is uncomfortable.

Sam isn’t a socialist. But Sam can do math. And whether or not the deficit is the crisis they claim it is, they’re certainly using it as one.

Here’s what really gets Sam: The money was always there. Over forty years, wealth in America has grown enormously. We’re absurdly richer than we were in 1980. We have the wealthy racing to space for fun.

But where did that wealth go? It went up. Systematically, deliberately. Tax rates on the wealthy were slashed. Corporate taxes were gutted. Capital gains were taxed at lower rates than wages. Loopholes proliferated. Enforcement withered.

And here’s something Sam finds strange: Even before Trump’s tax cuts, even when the wealthy were paying the higher rates that existed last year, they were getting richer faster than at any time since the Gilded Age. The top one percent was accumulating wealth at historic rates. And somehow they were still able to afford their yachts, their private jets, their space companies.

Sam doesn’t hate entrepreneurs. Sam thinks it’s really inspiring that people move to California or New York and start new companies and make it big. That’s great. That’s the American dream working.

But Sam is confused about why they need a tax cut. They were already becoming phenomenally successful under the old rates. They were already getting wealthy beyond imagination. They were already starting companies, creating products, building empires.

So what exactly was the tax cut for? What problem did it solve? Were entrepreneurs sitting around saying “I’d love to start this company, but the tax rate is too high, so I guess I won’t”? Because that doesn’t seem to be what was happening.

The companies got started anyway. The entrepreneurs got rich anyway. The innovation happened anyway.

But now we’re told that asking them to go back to paying what they paid last year—when they were already getting phenomenally wealthy—would be catastrophic. That it would destroy the economy. That it’s confiscatory. That it’s punishing success.

Sam notes this strange observation: They were paying these taxes last year. And they were fine. Better than fine. They were getting richer faster than almost any time in American history.

So what changed? Why is the rate they paid twelve months ago suddenly impossible? Why is asking them to contribute what they contributed last year suddenly radical socialism?

The money tree was already here. We just decided to give even more of the fruit to people who already own orchards.

But Republican leadership has a solution for the deficit: Throw poor people off healthcare. Remove housing subsidies. Cut food assistance. They call it making “tough choices.” They call it “fiscal responsibility.”

And the Democratic establishment? They say raising taxes is a non-starter. Because their donors will get really mad.

Sam isn’t a socialist. But Sam knows that throwing poor people off healthcare, removing housing subsidies, and cutting food assistance is a morally outrageous thing to do. You do not have to be a socialist to think this. You simply have to be a moral monster to object to the notion.

Here’s the thing about deficits: You can address them from either end. Cut spending or raise revenue. Republican leadership wants to cut spending on poor people and calls it “tough choices” and “fiscal responsibility.” Democratic leadership won’t raise revenue because it would upset their donors. Somehow, mysteriously, neither side ever suggests cutting defense contractors or farm subsidies for agribusiness or tax breaks for fossil fuel companies.

Apparently “fiscal responsibility” only applies to programs for poor people. Apparently “tough choices” never means asking the wealthy to contribute more.

And when you suggest the alternative—raise revenue by taxing the wealthy—they look at you like you’ve suggested training dolphins to rob banks. Politically impossible, they say. Can’t get elected on it. Everyone knows this.

Everyone except the roughly two-thirds of Americans who keep saying they want exactly that.

Here’s what really twists the knife: Even Trump’s tax cuts polled underwater with voters. Consistently. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act never got above 45% approval and often polled closer to 40%, while disapproval sat around 50-55%. Even many Republican voters thought the cuts primarily benefited corporations and the wealthy, not them.

And yet the establishment kept insisting this was what voters wanted, what was politically smart, what would help Republicans win.

They keep saying things about the Overton window that aren’t true. That’s self-serving. That represents—you’ll excuse me for saying—a class interest to the exclusion of everybody else.

They don’t live in the real world. They live in a bubble where everyone they know is horrified by taxing the wealthy, where donor conversations have convinced them that what’s unpopular in their social circle must be unpopular everywhere.

Sam watches political influencers on social media explain that government-subsidized healthcare is “socialism.” That if we go down that path, we’ll be like Venezuela or the former Soviet Union.

Sam looks around. Canada has publicly funded healthcare. So does Japan. France. Germany. The United Kingdom. Australia. Every other developed country, in fact.

None of them have become Venezuela. None of them have abolished capitalism. They have thriving market economies, private businesses, wealthy people. They just also decided that maybe people shouldn’t die because they can’t afford insulin.

Then Sam hears about the medical concierge services. For an annual fee—often $25,000 to $50,000 or more—wealthy people get their doctor’s personal cell phone number. Same-day appointments. House calls. Doctors who spend an hour with them instead of fifteen minutes. Coordinated care across specialists. No waiting rooms with sick people.

Sally can’t afford cancer monitoring for her daughter. The wealthy pay more than Sally makes in a year just for the privilege of texting their doctor.

We already have a two-tier healthcare system in America. We already have socialism for the rich—concierge medicine, the best care money can buy, no waiting, no bureaucracy. And we have brutal market capitalism for everyone else—Sally choosing between her daughter’s cancer screening and rent.

But when someone suggests maybe Sally’s daughter should also get healthcare, that’s socialism. That’s Venezuela. That’s the end of freedom.

When the wealthy pay $50,000 a year for their doctor’s cell phone number while Sally’s daughter can’t get cancer screenings, that’s just the market working.

Sam is starting to think the people who scream about socialism don’t actually object to socialism. They object to sharing it with people like Sally.

And once again—because apparently this needs repeating—a majority of Americans want these policies. They want some form of universal healthcare. The polls show this clearly and consistently.

Yet the very same consultants who claim to represent the “center” say this is radical, outside the Overton window, politically impossible.

Sam is really confused about what they’re talking about. The Overton window is supposed to describe what’s politically acceptable to the public, right? Not what makes donors comfortable. Not what fits within the ideological preferences of think tank fellows who’ve never worried about affording a doctor’s visit. Or people who pay $50,000 a year for concierge medicine.

If the majority of Americans want something, and every other developed country does it, and it works fine in those countries, how is it “outside the Overton window”?

Unless the Overton window isn’t actually about public opinion at all. Unless it’s just a fancy term for “what economic elites will tolerate.”

It’s starting to feel like gaslighting. The consultants point at policies that most Americans want, that work in other countries, that would solve real problems—and they say “that’s radical, that’s impossible, that’s outside mainstream political discourse.”

Meanwhile, they point at policies most Americans oppose—like Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy—and say “that’s realistic, that’s centrist, that’s smart politics.”

Sam is beginning to think the consultants aren’t confused about where the Overton Window is. They’re deliberately lying about it.

And people wonder why Congress has a 15% approval rating.

Maybe, Sam thinks, it’s because you keep telling people that what they want is politically impossible while pushing things they don’t want and calling it realistic.

The experts explain that ideas like Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax will create complex challenges. It will be a paperwork nightmare for the kinds of people who spend tens of thousands of dollars on elite accountants to save them millions in taxes every year. The same people who spend $50,000 annually for concierge medical services. Sam is supposed to be very concerned about their paperwork burden.

And here’s what really keeps Sam up at night: Some of these consultants are good people. Smart people. People who got into politics because they wanted to help.

But they’ve spent years in rooms with wealthy donors. Years at fundraisers where everyone agrees that wealth taxes are crazy. Years in social circles where “fiscally responsible” means cutting programs for the poor, not raising taxes on the rich. Years around people who pay more for their doctor’s cell phone number than Sally makes in a year.

And slowly, without quite noticing it happening, they’ve started to believe that their donors’ preferences are electoral wisdom. That what’s unpopular in their social circle must be unpopular everywhere. That what would upset the people they have dinner with must be politically impossible.

They’ve mistaken the views of the hundred wealthiest people they know for the views of the hundred million voters they claim to understand.

And the really sad part? They probably can’t see it. When you spend years optimizing for donor approval, you start to believe that donor approval and electoral success are the same thing. You start to think that what’s good for your career is good for the party. You start to confuse your own class interests with strategic necessity.

Sam isn’t angry at them anymore. Sam is sad for them.

Because they’ve trapped themselves in a system where giving good advice means losing clients. Where telling the truth about what voters want means making donors uncomfortable. Where being right about electoral strategy means being wrong for their career.

They’ve built themselves a cage and convinced themselves it’s a fortress.

And every time they tell candidates that popular policies are politically impossible, they’re not protecting those candidates from electoral reality. They’re protecting themselves from having to choose between their donors and the voters.

Expertise? Cynicism? No. It’s depressing.

Sam thinks about Sally a lot these days.

Sally, who will lie awake tonight wondering if her daughter’s headaches are just headaches. Who will decide whether to take her daughter to the doctor and risk the bill, or wait and hope it’s nothing. Who will do math in her head: If I pick up an extra Uber shift on Tuesday, and skip the car insurance payment, and eat rice and beans for two weeks...

Sally, who is living the consultants’ “tough choices” while they collect six-figure fees explaining why we can’t ask Elon Musk to contribute a bit more from his trillion-dollar compensation. While their wealthy clients text their concierge doctors from their phones.

Here’s what Sam wants the consultants to understand: You think you’re being pragmatic. You think you’re operating in reality. You think you understand “how politics works.”

But you’ve never had to make Sally’s choices. You’ve never had to decide between your child’s cancer monitoring and your rent. You’ve never had to calculate whether an Uber shift is worth your daughter’s safety.

You’ve made different calculations. Like: “If I push for taxing the wealthy, will I lose this donor?” “If I tell candidates what voters actually want, will it hurt my access?” “If I acknowledge that sixty-five percent support something, will I still get invited to the right parties?”

Those are real calculations. Real career concerns. Real professional risks.

But they’re not Sally’s risks. And when you optimize for your career risks instead of Sally’s life risks, you’ve stopped doing politics and started doing something else. Something that looks like politics but functions like its opposite.

The consultants will read this and think: “This is oversimplified. This person doesn’t understand the complexity. Governance requires trade-offs. Resources are finite.”

Fine. Let’s talk about trade-offs.

Elon Musk’s $1 trillion compensation package could fund Medicaid for every Sally in America for years. Decades, probably. It could have funded USAID—the program that saved 92 million lives over two decades before Musk fed it to the woodchipper—for generations.

Sam isn’t sure why Musk shut down USAID. But 600,000 people are dead now. Two-thirds of them children.

Nine months later, Tesla’s board—apparently comfortable with this moral horror—approved his trillion-dollar compensation package.

The consultants will explain why taxing Musk is impossible—market dynamics, shareholder value, you can’t just redistribute wealth like that.

But we did just redistribute wealth like that. We redistributed it upward. We made it possible for one person to receive a trillion dollars while Sally’s daughter loses cancer monitoring. While 600,000 people died. While the wealthy pay $50,000 a year to text their doctors and Sally can’t afford basic screenings.

That was a choice. Not an accident. Not a force of nature. A choice.

And when the consultants say “you can’t get elected on changing that choice,” they’re not offering electoral analysis. They’re offering protection for the people who made that choice and benefit from it.

Sam isn’t a socialist. Sam just thinks Sally’s daughter should get cancer monitoring. Sam thinks 600,000 people—400,000 of them children—shouldn’t have died.

You don’t need to be a socialist to think this. You don’t need an ideology. You don’t need a PhD in economics. You just need to be capable of basic moral reasoning.

But apparently that’s too radical for the consultants. Apparently choosing Sally’s daughter over Elon Musk’s trillion dollars is “far left.” Apparently thinking 600,000 deaths is too high a price for government efficiency is “politically impossible.” Apparently suggesting that healthcare shouldn’t be rationed by wealth—that Sally’s daughter should get the same access to doctors that wealthy people get through their $50,000 concierge services—is “unrealistic.” Apparently representing what sixty-five percent of voters want makes you unelectable.

The consultants have convinced themselves they’re pragmatists operating in reality. But they’re not in Sally’s reality. They’re in a different reality—one where donor comfort matters more than children’s lives, where professional positioning matters more than democratic representation, where protecting their access matters more than protecting Sally’s daughter. Where 600,000 deaths is an acceptable outcome of cutting government spending. Where concierge medicine for the wealthy and no care for Sally is just how things work.

And they can’t see it. Because seeing it would require admitting what they’ve become.

They got into this work to help people like Sally. Most of them, anyway. They believed in something once. But somewhere along the way—after enough fundraisers, enough donor meetings, enough conversations where everyone agreed that wealth taxes are crazy—they forgot who they were supposed to serve.

They started serving the people in the room instead of the people they’d never meet. The people who write checks instead of the people who need them. The people like them instead of the people like Sally. The people who can afford concierge medicine instead of the people who can’t afford any medicine.

And they told themselves this was pragmatic. Strategic. Realistic. They told themselves they were playing the long game, that you have to work within the system, that compromise is governance.

But Sally’s daughter doesn’t have a long game. Sally’s daughter has cancer monitoring she can’t afford while the consultants explain why asking Elon Musk to pay a bit more is politically impossible. While their clients text their concierge doctors. The 600,000 who died when USAID got shut down don’t have a long game either. They’re dead.

Two plus two equals four. Sixty-five percent of Americans want to tax the wealthy. Elon Musk got a trillion-dollar compensation package nine months after shutting down USAID. Sally’s daughter lost her cancer monitoring. 600,000 people died. The wealthy pay $50,000 a year to text their doctors while Sally can’t afford screenings. And the consultants say the problem is that Democrats are too far left.

The magical money tree exists. It bore a trillion dollars in fruit for Elon Musk. It produces $50,000 a year for concierge medical services. It couldn’t produce enough to keep 600,000 people alive. It can’t seem to produce enough for Sally’s daughter’s cancer monitoring.

When consultants read about Sally, some of them will feel something. A twinge. A discomfort. They’ll think about their own kids. They’ll imagine having to make Sally’s choices.

And then they’ll go to their next donor meeting and explain why wealth taxes are too complicated. They’ll go on cable news and say that fiscal responsibility requires tough choices. They’ll advise candidates that you can’t win on what voters actually want.

Because admitting the alternative—that they’ve spent years giving advice that serves donors over voters, that protects Elon Musk’s trillion over Sally’s daughter’s health, that defends 600,000 deaths as necessary government efficiency, that defends concierge medicine for the wealthy while Sally can’t afford basics, that maintains a system where democracy means nothing if you’re not wealthy—would require admitting what they’ve become.

And that’s too expensive. Not financially. Professionally. Psychologically. Morally.

The cage they’ve built around themselves is comfortable. It pays well. It comes with status and access and invitations to the right parties. Their doctors’ cell phone numbers are in their contacts.

Sally’s reality isn’t comfortable. Sally’s reality is lying awake at night doing math about cancer monitoring and car insurance and Uber shifts.

The consultants don’t live in Sally’s reality. They live in a reality where Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar compensation is defensible and Sally’s daughter’s cancer monitoring is unaffordable and 600,000 deaths is just the cost of government efficiency and $50,000 for concierge medicine is normal while Sally’s daughter can’t get basic care and this makes sense somehow.

Sam lives in Sally’s reality. Two-thirds of Americans live in Sally’s reality.

The consultants have chosen differently.

And when Sally’s daughter gets that headache, and Sally has to decide whether she can afford to find out if it’s nothing or if the cancer has come back, the consultants will be somewhere else. Somewhere comfortable. Somewhere where people agree that tough choices have to be made. Somewhere where they can text their concierge doctor if they’re feeling unwell.

Just never choices that are tough for people like them.

Sam isn’t a socialist. Sam just thinks democracy should mean that when sixty-five percent of people think Sally’s daughter matters more than Elon Musk’s trillion dollars, that should count for something. That 600,000 lives matter. That healthcare shouldn’t be rationed by wealth—that Sally’s daughter should be able to see a doctor without Sally choosing between that and rent.

Turns out that’s a radical position these days.

But Sam suspects—hopes—that somewhere, reading this, a consultant feels something. Sees Sally. Sees their own daughter. Sees the 600,000 who died. Sees the two-tier system where their clients text their doctors while Sally’s daughter goes without care. Sees what they’ve chosen and who they’ve chosen it for.

And maybe—maybe—decides the cage isn’t worth it.

That would be worth more than a trillion dollars from the magical money tree.

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