Trump should revive the wealth tax he called for in 1999. America needs it more than ever. A solidarity wealth tax would lower deficits, reduce inequality, and retrain workers. It was a good idea when Trump pitched it in 1999. It still is.

Darrell M. West | Opinion contributor

In 1999, billionaire Donald Trump proposed a “one-time” net worth tax of 14.25 percent on people worth $10 million or more to help pay off the national debt. He claimed it would raise $5.7 trillion and would wipe out the debt in one fell swoop, as CNN put it. In a written statement, he said that “no one has put forward a plan to make this country entirely debt free as we enter the next millennium. The plan I am proposing today does not involve smoke and mirrors, phony numbers, financial gimmicks, or the usual economic chicanery you usually find in Disneyland-on-the-Potomac.”

His rationale was based on the idea that the top tier held much of the country’s wealth. Trump noted that “by my calculations, 1 percent of Americans, who control 90 percent of the wealth in this country, would be affected by my plan. The other 99 percent of the people would get deep reductions in their federal income taxes.”

According to him, his plan would have other benefits as well. Trump claimed it would save the federal government $200 billion a year in interest payments and enable leaders to cut taxes on the middle class and make Social Security “solvent through the next century.”

Emphasizing the strong leadership personified by this proposal, he argued, “It is a win-win for the American people, an idea no conventional politician would have the guts to put forward.”

It's time to revisit Trump's tax plan

Trump’s initiative went nowhere, but it warrants another look as the United States faces mounting deficits, high inequality and a digital revolution with the potential to put a significant number of people out of work. As I note in a new book on the future of work, studies on the likely impact of robots, artificial intelligence and automation estimate that anywhere from 14 to 54 percent of the workforce will be impacted by such technology. Even if reality looks more like the low end of these forecasts, considerable resources will be needed to retrain displaced workers.

In order to finance the upcoming transition period, philanthropist Bill Gates proposed a “robots tax” to help displaced workers develop needed skills. His argument was that robots are taking jobs in the workforce and therefore need to be part of the solution for those adversely affected by technological change.

"If a human worker does you know, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed," he observed. "If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think we’d tax the robot at a similar level.”

Reaction to Gates' proposal largely has been negative. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers accused him in a Washington Post column of “rejecting technological progress” and “singling out robots as job destroyers.” Summers pointed out that technology promotes efficiency and therefore should not be discouraged through additional taxes.

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Another way to generate resources is to raise income taxes on those earning more than $466,000 a year. This has been a popular proposal among liberals in recent years because it focuses on the top 1 percent of earners. That group comprises of about 1.4 million taxpayers, and they pay $542.6 billion in federal income taxes.

At current rates, a 10 percent surcharge would generate about $50 billion in new revenue each year, assuming no major increase in tax avoidance. This type of approach, though, is not likely to raise the amount of money needed to deal with the projected needs of an aging nation facing significant economic disruption.

Given the limitations of these alternatives, it is time to revisit Trump’s plan and consider a solidarity tax to address economic disruptions and economic inequality. A number of countries already tax the net property, stock, pension and financial assets owned by high net worth individuals.

Wealth tax has worked elsewhere

France has a solidarity tax of 0.5 to 1.5 percent on net assets of more than 800,000 euros for those with a net worth greater than 1.3 million euros. Norway taxes net assets over 1.48 million kroners at the rate of 0.85 percent. Spain has a wealth tax of 0.2 to 3.75 percent on net assets over 700,000 euros (excluding 300,000 euros for a primary residence). Argentina taxes net assets of 1.050 million pesos at a rate of 0.25 percent.

In the United States, a 1 percent solidarity tax on net personal assets over $8 million would fall on households in the top 1 percent — a group that owns around 40 percent of the nation’s personal wealth. If there were no exclusions, that tax would generate several hundred billion dollars in government revenue each year.

In a recent Democracy Journal essay on “new old Democrats,” former Hillary Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan raises the idea of a targeted wealth tax and writes, “It’s time for that debate to enter the mainstream.”

A solidarity tax would lower budget deficits, reduce inequality, and retrain workers during a period of economic restructuring. In 2015, as Trump was running for president, Jake Tapper of CNN asked him on the air whether he still supported the net worth tax. “It was a great proposal,” Trump replied. “A lot of my wealthy friends liked it.”

That latter sentiment might no longer be the case, but this is the type of bold proposal that the president should embrace the way he did 19 years ago.

Darrell M. West, vice president of governance studies and director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, is author of the Brookings book “The Future of Work: Robots, AI, and Automation." Follow him on Twitter @darrwest