Opinion: No Tax Cuts for Billionaires

Love, Justice and Climate Change

The U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world. Our economy has been tremendously productive and our total wealth has grown dramatically. Yet millions of people in the U.S. don’t have enough to eat; millions lack adequate homes; and millions still lack health insurance. We seem unable to adequately fund our schools or to find the funds to address the climate crisis.

The problem is that the tremendous wealth our nation has accumulated is distributed in a grossly unfair manner.

• The top 1% holds 30% of the wealth of the nation.
• The top 10% holds 66%.
• While the bottom 50% holds only 2.5%.

At the very top, the wealth of the nation’s 801 billionaires is greater than all the wealth of the bottom 50% (66.5 million households) of the nation combined.

This is simply the way our current political-economic system works. It funnels wealth to the already wealthy. According to Time magazine, since the time of Ronald Reagan, the economy has moved $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of the population to the top 1%. It doesn’t have to work this way.

The top marginal tax rate for the wealthy today is 37%. In 2021 the 400 wealthiest families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2%. The average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13%. During the 8 years of the Eisenhower Administration the marginal tax rate for the wealthy was 91%.

Clearly the nation could be taxing the wealthy at much higher rates – high enough to generate the funds required to meet domestic needs and for the international climate crisis. The most effective way to do this is probably with wealth taxes– taxing all the assets of the ultra rich, rather than just their annual income.

Instead, we have President-elect Donald Trump proposing to extend his tax cuts for the wealthy as one of his early signature actions. Some analysts say these cuts will dramatically increase the federal debt. Some MAGA leaders are proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for the tax cuts for the rich.

I don’t know if we can stop these cuts. I don’t expect progressives to win many battles on the federal level in the next few years. However, I think there are good reasons to be vocal and cause an uproar now over these proposed benefits for the already wealthy. While I think the entire tax cut package should be opposed, I think it will be strategic to emphasize, “No Tax Cuts for Billionaires: they are not paying their fair share of taxes.”

First, whether we win or lose, a campaign against them will be an excellent opportunity to broaden and deepen public awareness about the extreme disparities in wealth in this country and the advantages our tax system already gives to the rich.

Secondly, the ultra rich have been manipulating our politics for decades with their campaign contributions and control of politicians. For the most part they have stayed in the background, out of sight. Now they are out in the open. Their effect is far more public. The opportunities to build opposition to them are greater now.

It’s easy to see that Elon Musk is wielding political power simply because of his money, without ever having been elected by anybody. It’s not just Musk. Trump’s cabinet picks include an unprecedented 13 billionaires. The total wealth of the billionaires in his administration is in excess of $382 billion. For comparison, the total wealth of Biden’s cabinet is $118 million. This means that Trump’s picks are more than three thousand times wealthier than Biden’s.

I do believe it is possible for wealthy individuals to be effective political leaders on behalf of all the people – John Kennedy and FDR come to mind. But none of Trump’s picks, as far as I can tell, have any history of true public service and none have indicated a desire to respond to the needs of poor and working people. They appear to be ready to dismantle the regulations that protect the safety, health, and equity of all of us, clearing the way for unlimited corporate greed.

I think Bernie Sanders has it right when he says that billionaires should not exist. We don’t need for anyone to have that much wealth. Heather Cox Richardson, an historian and insightful observer of the current political scene, wrote recently that “popular anger at billionaires seems to be increasing daily.” Perhaps we can start now to create a public movement to “tax the rich” that will influence the 2026 congressional elections, and maybe even stop tax cuts for billionaires this year.

Russ Vernon-Jones was principal of Fort River School 1990-2008 and is currently a member of the Steering Committee of Climate Action Now-Western Massachusetts. He blogs regularly on climate justice at www.russvernonjones.org.