Read the full story in Politico
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Politico’s Bernie Becker highlighted how Democrats are taking a bolder position to combat unprecedented wealth inequality, which they see as a critical threat to the U.S. economy and our democracy at large. The story features a new “Five and Dime” proposal, which would break up this wealth concentration by imposing a 5% tax on households with wealth over $50 million and a 10% tax on households with wealth over $250 million.
New analysis by the Tax Policy Center for Tax the Greedy Billionaires found that the “Five and Dime” tax would:
- raise $6.8 trillion in the first ten years.
- slow the emergence of new billionaires.
- reduce the total share of wealth controlled by billionaires.
“Five and Dime” is the latest in a number of proposals to tax the ultra-wealthy to combat dangerous concentrated wealth hoarding. In 2021, Rep. Don Beyer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen introduced legislation that would apply a 10% surtax to adjusted gross income over $1 million for single filers and $2 million for joint filers. New analysis from the Yale Budget Lab shows that this surtax would raise $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
Taxing the ultra-wealthy is deeply popular among the public, particularly as working class Americans feel the economic strain caused by corporate greed and politicians gutting critical social safety nets programs in order to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans.
- A recent Morning Consult poll found that 70% of Republicans believed “the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes,” up from 62% six years ago.
- Taxing the ultra-wealthy could be a boon for Democrats in swing districts. A recent Impact Research poll of CA-13, which Rep. Adam Gray won by less than 200 votes in 2024, found that the majority of votes favor increasing taxes on billionaires and support a variety of proposals to do so, including “Five and Dime.”
- Nearly two-thirds (65%) of CA-13 voters support raising taxes on billionaires, and that support is intense, with 49% strongly supporting.
- Voters would much rather raise taxes on billionaires than just block new tax cuts for them. When voters are forced to choose, they prefer “raising taxes on billionaires” over “opposing new tax cuts for billionaires” by a 24-point margin (53% to 29%).
The scope of wealth hoarding in the U.S. is massive. There are approximately 130,000 American households with wealth exceeding $50 million, and they’re collectively sitting on over $35 trillion. That staggering accumulation of wealth is roughly equal to the entire U.S. national debt and exceeds the country’s 2024 GDP by approximately $6 trillion dollars. This concentration of excessive wealth is at the heart of numerous crises facing our nation today.
The revenue raised by taxing billionaires could be spent on public investments that benefit working families and rebuild the working class (e.g. debt-free college, childcare, affordable housing, and resilient infrastructure). But, as TGB’s Igor Volsky pointed out in Politico: “What’s changed now as a result of Trump’s re-election is an understanding that this isn’t just about pay-fors, that it’s really about power in the economy and power over our democracy.” Taxing the ultra-wealthy is the single best way to begin breaking up the dangerous concentrations of economic power threatening our economic growth, democracy, and climate.
About Tax the Greedy Billionaires
Throughout the tax debate, the TGB coalition will continue working with constituencies and groups across the country to highlight how excessive concentrations of wealth are making life harder for all of us by undermining family stability, rising housing and health care costs, eroding racial justice, and devastating the climate.
For more information about the Tax the Greedy Billionaires campaign, visit https://taxgreed.org/
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