It's a convenient target because the super-rich have never had as much wealth and power in the entire history of the U.S. as they do now. Inequality is worse now than it has ever been.
Consider an extreme hypothetical, where one person in a country has all the wealth, and everyone else has zero. That obviously cannot sustain a functional democracy. Now consider the other extreme, where everyone is mandated to have exactly the same amount as everyone else. Both are distpoian, but we are far closer to the former than the latter.
The only way to make an amount of extra taxmonies actually worth getting up for is to tax the middle class. Alas, economics is not a zero-sum game, some people have invest their wealth to actually produce stuff to make it all work, and this mostly comes from the wealth of the middle class.
I haven't but others have (e.g. Warren). A 2% wealth tax on assets over $50M will generate $3.75T over 10 years. Even if the actual number is half of that, it's still plenty to pay for many progressive programs.
Source: https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/ultra-millionaire-tax
If it does become law, though, I fully expect that $50m ceiling to come down year by year as the economic situation worsens until sub-$1m. Or maybe they keep it the same and hyperinflation will meet it on the way up for the same net result.
The real extractable money is in the middle class, whose wealth passes through government-controlled bank accounts. Of course, when the time comes the lefties will be all "well actually anyone making above 80k is superrich - have you seen the homeless lately? CYP!"
>They are advocating basic healthcare and education, not exactly consumer services.
You could either give them the money directly, in which case it'll go to consumer services. Or you can subsidize their healthcare, in which case they will use the money they save on consumer services. The difference is that the government has a long track record of inefficiency and waste when it comes to subsidies.