House Republicans cut a deal with President Joe Biden to extend the debt limit until January 2025, but only after they threatened to make us default on our debt obligations. They claim to be concerned about the national debt, but the deal does little to resolve that. By January 2025, the national debt will still be a problem.
The changes that Republicans negotiated to food stamps will actually cost more money than they save, and the cuts to IRS funding would hurt revenue by making it harder to go after billionaire tax cheats. Making the ultra-rich pay their fair share, on the other hand, could significantly reduce the national debt.
Sign the petition: Make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.
Republicans literally laughed off the suggestion of even raising taxes for the wealthy. So when Biden proposed some of that in negotiations, it was dismissed out of hand.
Not only would raising taxes for billionaires bring down the national debt far more efficiently than any budget cuts that Republicans wanted, but it is also politically popular with voters across the spectrum. And moreover, it is the morally right thing to do.
The ultra-wealthy have had a pretty good decade, to say the least. According to an analysis of Wealth-X’s database by the Institute for Policy Studies, the number of Americans with a net worth of $50 million or more nearly doubled from 33,470 in 2012 to 64,500 in 2022. Their total collective wealth has grown 55.4% over the same time period and sits at $12.5 trillion.
The wealth of the billionaire class has not only skyrocketed over the past 10 years, but it accelerated and accumulated wealth at an astounding rate since mid-March 2020, when stay-at-home orders were first enforced nationwide. The combined wealth of more than 700 U.S. billionaires stood at more than $4.5 trillion in 2022.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax plan, which she first proposed in her 2020 presidential campaign would levy a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth over $1 billion. This could have raised over $224 billion in 2022 alone.
Biden’s Billionaire Minimum Income Tax, which was in his most recent budget proposal, would have raised $360 billion over the next decade, by taxing wealth instead of work.
Now that the debt limit has been extended, it’s time to pressure Congress to tax billionaires. We cannot play debt ceiling chicken again in 18 months.
Republicans know that if they’re serious about shrinking the national debt, making the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share is the most fiscally responsible approach available. Now is the time to tell them that we know it, too.
Sign the petition to Congress: To truly solve the national debt, tax billionaires.
Paul Hogarth
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