Remember Tom Perkins, the billionaire who wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal saying that we’re on the verge of treating rich people like the Nazis treated the Jews? Believe it or not he’s now said something even more loathsome and idiotic than that.
The venture capitalist offered the unorthodox proposal when asked to name one idea that would “change the world” at a speaking engagement in San Francisco moderated by Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky.
“The Tom Perkins system is: You don’t get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes,” Perkins said.“But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How’s that?”
The audience at the Commonwealth Club reacted with laughter. But Perkins offered no immediate indication that he was joking. Asked offstage if the proposal was serious, Perkins said: “I intended to be outrageous, and it was.”
Perkins seemed to be aware that he was courting controversy, saying that his voting proposal would “make you more angry than my letter to the Wall Street Journal.”
Oh, there’s a simple way to do this. We’ll just count non-rich people as 3/5ths of a human being.