We are making progress in the tax debate in this country. In a year that has seen the introduction of “The Buffett Rule” and widespread public support for millionaire taxes, it is your voices and testimony that have helped open up the conversation.
From all of us at Wealth for Common Good, thanks for all that you do, and for your commitment to tax fairness!
Chuck Collins, Alison Goldberg and Ann Manning
Story of the campaign:
Over the past year, Resource Generation and Wealth for the Common Good have been developing a campaign to amplify the voices of young wealthy people for tax justice.
During the same weekend in September when our organizing team came together to shape strategies, the Occupy Wall Street protest was gathering steam. The team realized that this could be a powerful moment to identify publicly as people with wealth standing for a more just distribution of resources and fairer taxes.
To test out this theory, Resource Generation staff members Elspeth Gilmore, Jessie Spector and other New York RG members made signs, similar to those being carried by OWS protestors, identifying themselves as members of the 1% who stand with the 99%, and took to the streets. The signs provoked lots of reaction and discussion on the street, and a picture of Elspeth holding her sign went viral on facebook.
To keep in line with the messaging the Occupy movement was using, the team came up with the slogan: I am the 1 percent, I stand with the 99 percent. And so we decided to make the blog to mirror the site We are the 99 percent, and create a place where people with wealth and privilege people could voice their solidarity with the Occupy Movement.
What we’ve accomplished so far:
* There are now over 150 posts on the blog. The stories have been reposted, retweeted and reprinted thousands of times.
* Many of us have been on the streets at Occupy protests in cities all over the country, identifying as members of the 1% standing with the 99%. Some have even published their thoughts about what it’s like to hold up those 1% signs.
* We have been fielding tons of media requests, including Los Angeles Times, BBC World Service, Christian Science Monitor, CBS News, Marketplace, and Al Jazeera. Thanks to so many who have been willing to talk to the media, we’ve been able to share the story of our support of the Occupy Movement with national and international outlets, conducting over 50 interviews and generating over 100 media impressions.
* Some of us went to DC to lobby Congress directly as part of the Patriotic Millionaires lobby day to ask policymakers to increase millionaire tax rates. Many others called our lawmakers on our call-in day on November 16th with the message “Tax me! I support proposals to raise taxes for wealthy households like my own. No budget cuts until we raise revenue from those of us who have benefited the most and have the greatest capacity to pay.” And, we have now generated almost 100 signatures on the petition “Letter to the future: a plea for fair taxes from the next generation.”
* Inspired Legacies and Responsible Wealth have signed on as co-sponsors of the blog (along with RG and WFCG). And we’ve heard from many other organizations that work with folks in the 1%, who have declared their support and shared the link with their networks.
* Our tax team led an amazing workshop at Resource Generation’s annual retreat, Making Money Make Change, and introduced over a hundred young wealthy attendees to the campaign. The curriculum they developed will be used for future workshops and teach-ins.
* We are hearing from new volunteers who are interested in keeping the momentum going.
What’s next, and how 1 percenters can get involved:
We want to build on this momentum by organizing hundreds of other 1 percenters who can be a part of this movement and mobilize our community for action. We are working on tax justice workshops and educational materials and planning a mobilization around Tax Day in April.
Here are some ways 1 percenters can plug in:
1. Join our conference call on Tuesday, February 21st, 8 pm EST to learn more about tax justice and how the 1 percent can stand with the 99 percent. Sign up for the call here or contact us at westandwiththe99percent@resourcegeneration.org for details.
2. Join April 2012 Tax Day actions. Sign up to stay connected to our organizing at westandwiththe99percent@resourcegeneration.org.
3. Organize a tax justice workshop.
Take a look at the materials from our tax justice workshop. Contact us if you are interested in organizing a workshop or teach-in, and we can support you through the process. Or, just use these materials to start conversations about how our current tax system widens the wealth gap every year, and what we can do to create a progressive tax system.
4. Provide financial support for organizing.
One of the critical roles we can play in the Occupy Movement and its related organizations is through financial support. If you are looking for ideas, check out this extensive resource list. Resource Generation and Wealth for Common Good are also fundraising to continue this campaign. Contact us if you would like more information.
You can also…
5. Write a blog post or opinion piece.
We are recruiting writers for a tax justice blog series and can work with you to draft, edit, and place a piece.
6. If you haven’t already, post your sign on the tumblr blog! Please encourage others to do the same.
7. Talk to friends and family members about wealth and taxes.
8. Support tax reform policies in Congress now – visit www.wealthforcommongood.org to learn about our campaigns.
9. If you’re under 35, join Resource Generation!
By Tamara Keith
Listen to the Story [4 min 37 sec] Download
For the second week in a row, the Senate on Thursday voted down proposals to extend the payroll tax holiday through next year. In the case of the Democrats’ proposal, Republicans objected to the “millionaires surtax” that would be used to pay for it.
Ever since the idea of the surtax was introduced weeks ago, Republicans in Congress have railed against it, arguing that it is a direct hit on small-business owners and other job creators.
The argument is that many small-business owners report company profits on their individual taxes because of the way their businesses are structured. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., says the surtax would hurt their ability to hire.
“It’s just intuitive that, you know, if you’re somebody who’s in business and you get hit with a tax increase, it’s going to be that much harder, I think, to make investments that are going to lead to job creation,” says Thune.
We wanted to talk to business owners who would be affected. So, NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview.
So we went to the business groups that have been lobbying against the surtax. Again, three days after putting in a request, none of them was able to find someone for us to talk to. A group called the Tax Relief Coalition said the problem was finding someone willing to talk about their personal taxes on national radio.
So next we put a query on Facebook. And several business owners who said they would be affected by the “millionaires surtax” responded.
“It’s not in the top 20 things that we think about when we’re making a business hire,” said Ian Yankwitt, who owns Tortoise Investment Management.
Tortoise is a boutique investment firm in White Plains, N.Y. Yankwitt has 10 employees and in recent years has done a lot of hiring.
As a result, Yankwitt says he’s had many conversations about hiring, “both with respect to specific people, with respect to whether we should hire one junior person or two, whether we should hire a senior person.”
He says his ultimate marginal tax rate “didn’t even make it on the agenda.”
Yankwitt says deciding to bring on another employee is all about return on investment. Will adding another person to the payroll make his company more successful?
For Jason Burger, the motivation is similar.
“If my taxes go up, I have slightly less disposable income, yes,” said Burger, co-owner of CSS International Holdings, a global infrastructure contractor. “But that has nothing to do with what my business does. What my business does is based on the contracts that it wins and the demand for its services.”
Burger says his Michigan-based company is hiring like crazy, and he’d be perfectly willing to pay the surtax.
“It’s only fair that I put back into the system that is the entire reason for my success,” said Burger.
For the record, both Burger and Yankwitt have made campaign contributions to Democrats in the past, but they say their views on the surtax are about the economics of their businesses and not their politics.
And they’re not alone.
“I, like any other American, especially a business owner, I want to make as much money as I can and I want to keep as much money in my pocket as I can, but I also believe in the greater good,” says Deborah Schwarz, who owns LAC Group, an information management firm with offices nationwide and in London.
Surtax or no, Schwarz says she hopes to keep hiring.
“We’re going to keep on writing proposals, going after contracts, hopefully winning them, and when we do we’re going to continue to hire people,” says Schwarz.
All of this contradicts the arguments about job creators being made by Republicans in Congress.
“Those I would say were exceptions to the rule,” responds Thune. “I think most small-business owners who are out there right now would argue that raising their taxes has the opposite effect that we would want to have in a down economy.”
But those small-business owners apparently don’t want to talk.
by Bonnie Kavoussi
Originally posted on The Huffington Post, 12/4/11
The movement to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans has gained an ally at the top of one of the United States’ largest banks. Ruth Porat, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Morgan Stanley, said on Saturday at the Economist’s World in 2012 summit that the government needs to raise taxes on the rich to address its budget deficit.
“The wealthiest can afford to pay more in taxes. That’s a part of the deal. That makes sense. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t agree with that,” Porat said. “The wealth disparity between the lowest and the highest continues to expand, and that’s inappropriate.”
“We cannot cut our way to greatness,” she added.
President Obama has said he would like to raise taxes on millionaires, but many Republicans oppose such a tax. Most millionaires, on the other hand, say that they would like to pay more in taxes.
Porat said that the global markets are more stressed now than they have been since the financial crisis in 2008. She said bank debt is now less trusted than other corporate debt, borrowing costs for European countries such as Italy have reached record highs, and banks have become less confident lending to one another. Since banks around the world now are focused on paying down their debt, they are less likely to lend to businesses and consumers, she said.
Porat said she expects global economic confidence to hit bottom next year and that the eurozone ultimately will avert a breakup by becoming more fiscally integrated.
“The optimistic scenario is low growth, and we only have that if in fact we see this conscientious move toward greater fiscal integration,” she said.
Porat said that there is potential for an economic recovery in the U.S. to gain momentum next year, once companies become confident enough in the economic climate to make more investments.
“Where there’s any sort of sense that we’re turning the corner, you’ll see a lot of cash coming in,” she said. “There is this cash on the sidelines waiting to be put to work.”
But Porat said that with the extreme level of political polarization in Congress, “right now there doesn’t seem to be a path forward,” suggesting more “slow growth” in the future.
An equitable tax system — paying for public services we all use, as well as offering support and a hand-up to those who’ve lost out in life’s lottery — should demand more of us.
Distributed by Other Words, November 14, 2011
In their unbending opposition to raising a penny more in taxes from even the wealthiest Americans — even in the midst of a government debt crisis and shrinking public budgets — extremist politicians paint all rich people as self-made, entrepreneurial “job creators.” If we ask any more in taxes from such paragons of industry, they argue, we’ll not only crimp the economy, but perversely “punish success.”
I was born into an affluent family and lived in a good neighborhood, and so received a top-notch public education. I went to one of America’s great public universities, the University of California, Berkeley, emerging debt-free. Later, I inherited money and married a man with a high-paying profession.
It’s true that I’ve appreciated the opportunities afforded me and made responsible choices. But personal effort, choice, and virtue played no role in creating the opportunities. They were just handed to me, by good luck.
That’s why I support higher taxes for me and for people like me. Taxes are a way of evening out the blind fortune that plays such a central role in all our lives. Because luck runs both ways — as has become especially clear during this Great Recession.
Wealthy people like me should pay our fair share because, like everyone else, we depend on the public services that taxes fund. I benefit everyday from living in a safe neighborhood protected by great police and fire departments. I travel on public transit, use public libraries, and rely on public utilities. These are services that we collectively, as a society, provide efficiently, democratically, and on a scale that individuals — even rich ones — could never afford on their own.
I want a fairer tax system because I would rather have adequately funded housing services than pass by homeless people languishing in the streets. I’d rather have an aggressive response to the unemployment crisis than worry about my friends losing their jobs and wondering how they’ll make ends meet. None of us, even those lucky enough to be well off, live apart from the world around us. I want the America that I am part of to be a better, fairer place.
I have been to Mexico City, where the rich live behind barbed wire and only go out with armed guards, while desperate people without clean drinking water or adequate sewage systems live in squalor. Is this who we want to be? I’m afraid we’re getting close. I don’t want to live in this divided world, and I can well afford to give up some of my luxuries so that others can have the necessities.
Yes, some rich people started with nothing, worked long hours, sacrificed, saved, and well deserve their good fortune. However, they are wrong if they believe they made it entirely on their own. Education, health, safety, and opportunity always play a role. None of us creates these things for ourselves.
They are gifts that each American child receives because all Americans contribute their fair share to the common good. And while hard-earned, dazzling success is to be congratulated and admired, it should also be recognized as rare. Many talented people with good ideas work hard their whole lives without ever accumulating wealth.
And many rich people, like me, owe their money to factors entirely beyond our control. That’s why an equitable tax system — paying for public services we all use, as well as offering support and a hand-up to those who’ve lost out in life’s lottery — should demand more of us.
A good start would be to end the Bush-era tax cuts for high-income households like my own. We can certainly handle it. And if we’re truly honest with ourselves, we know it’s only fair.
Because luck matters.
Betsy Malcolm serves on the organizing committee of Act Now and is a member of Wealth for the Common Good. wealthforthecommongood.org
by Bruce Watson
Originally posted on Daily Finance, December 1, 2011. Please visit the original article to see the video.
Occupy Wall Street is slowing down a bit as winter sets in, but the conversation it inspired is still gaining momentum. Millions of Americans who once viewed themselves in general terms like “middle class,” “struggling” or “comfortable” now see the world more sharply divided into two groups: the 99% and the 1%.
But even in the middle of the protests, the division isn’t as stark as one might think. From the beginning, some of Occupy Wall Street’s strongest supporters have come from America’s richest families. Who are these wealthy few who have crossed the boundary, and what are they doing to help the other 99%?
Among the first 1% rebels was Robert S. Halper, a former vice chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange — and an early enabler of Occupy Wall Street. A friend of OWS mastermind Kalle Lasn, Halper was one of the first to hear about the decision to take over Zuccotti Park. When Lasn unveiled his plans, Halper gave him $20,000 to set things in motion. But while Halper was quick to pull out his checkbook, he chose to remain mostly on the outside of the occupation, only visiting occasionally to see what his money had helped ignite. By comparison, some 1% rebels have dived in to work more closely with the 99%.
Afraid and Isolated
Critics of the 1% tend to paint the wealthy as arrogant and self-centered, convinced that they deserve their wealth, and blind to their own good luck and the societal support that allowed them to prosper. But Chuck Collins, director of the Institute for Policy Studies’ Program on Inequality and the Common Good, suggests that the relationship between rich people and their money isn’t quite so clear-cut.
“Sure, some buy into the idea of wealth creation and claim that they are completely responsible for their money,” says Collins, “but most realize that their wealth has to do with the society that we live in.” Once they reach that conclusion, he argues, it often informs their decisions. “Many people in the 1% for one reason or another have realized that the economy should not be organized to keep funneling wealth to the top.”
For Collins, the relationship between the 1% and the rest of the country isn’t theoretical. A great-grandson of Oscar Meyer, he is an heir to the family’s extensive meatpacking fortune. He argues, however, that his wealth doesn’t shield him from economic inequity. “As a parent, do I want my child to grow up in an apartheid society? Do I want to live in Brazil, where I have to surround my family with bodyguards as we take armored cars from one rich enclave to another? That’s kind of where we’ve been heading for the last 30 years. Do this for another 20 years and you’ve got another Sao Paolo.”
Karen Pittelman (pictured above, and right, with Elspeth Gilmore), a philanthropist and author ofClassified: How to Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Work for Social Change, echoes this sense of exclusion: “Class privilege often comes with a lot of isolation and fear, and that can be passed down through the generations along with an inheritance.” Part of the problem, she argues, lies in upper-class discomfort about the benefits they enjoy. “Being open and honest about how so much is rigged in our favor is a threat to the way things run. That stuff is supposed to stay quiet, behind the scenes. That’s the real reason why people who grow up with class privilege are taught never to talk about money.”
The Broader Community
Part of the solution, Collins claims, is for rich people to recognize that wealth cannot shelter them indefinitely. “We don’t live on islands. Well–some of us do,” he says with a laugh. “But most of us live in communities where we can see the results of 30 to 40 years of public policy that have increased inequality.”
Jessie Spector (right), the program director atResource Generation, a organizing group for young philanthropists, argues that the best tool for developing a more equitable society is tax reform. “I am focused on taxation as one key tactic for creating economic justice. It’s the best system we have on a scale large enough to create a more equitable society.” The burden, she notes, rests on the rich: “We need to pay our fair share. The wealthy need to pay much more if we hope to maintain opportunities for everyone in our society.”
Collins echoes the idea that higher tax rates broadly benefit society. “In the 1950s and 1960s, we taxed ourselves at a high level and used the money to pay for public investments that made our generation’s prosperity possible. Now, however, we’re stripping those investments in order to benefit a very small portion of the populace. Are we leaving anything for the next generation?” In addition to hollowing out the middle class and crucifying the lower class, Collins argues, this sort of thinking is devastating for the upper classes. “We also need to think about the health of the economy. Too much inequality undermines the basis of prosperity.”
Helping Others Find a Voice
Lobbying for tax reform isn’t the only way that wealthy people can help their communities. Spector has worked with Occupy Wall Street, and has used a large part of her inheritance to help fund small grass-roots organizations: “My priorities have been to give money to work led by the people who are most directly affected by injustice. I work withPoor Magazine, a media group that is organized around economic injustice.”
When Karen Pittelman protested at Occupy Wall Street, she carried a sign that poked fun at her own wealth: “Another Trust Fund Baby for the Radical Redistribution of Wealth. She stresses that philanthropy isn’t just about giving away money; it’s also about giving away power. With part of her inheritance, she endowed the Chahara Foundation, which funded grass roots groups in Boston that were run by and for low-income women of color. She quickly learned, however, that the privilege that she was taught to take for granted could get in the way of her own philanthropy. “Part of the thing about being raised with class privilege is that you are always taught that you know best, that you have the solution to everything,” she says. “After the foundation’s first round of giving, it was so clear to me that, had I been making the decisions, I never would have even known about so many of these amazing, small, grassroots groups they were supporting because I wasn’t from those communities. The women making the grant decisions had been working as activists in their communities their whole lives, so they knew what was going on in a way I never would.”
Giving away power not only taught Pittelman about her own expectations, but also about her ability to change the world. Looking back, she says: “When you have a lot of resources and are willing to put them behind radical causes, it can make some people nervous.”
Bruce Watson is a senior features writer for DailyFinance. You can reach him by e-mail at bruce.watson@teamaol.com, or follow him on Twitter at@bruce1971.
Why should I pay no taxes while someone who gets up and goes to work every day does?
By William Rice,
Distributed by Other Words, December 5, 2011
Despite popular fascination with the rich and famous, most working people have little understanding of the finances of the wealthy. And the rich use that unfamiliarity to their advantage as they wield their outsized influence over public policy.
Take the competing tax proposals of the Republican presidential candidates. Going almost unremarked amid all the discussion of the 9-percent federal sales tax in Herman Cain’s “9-9-9″ plan, or the surviving deductions in Rick Perry’s 20-percent flat tax, is that under both plans capital gains wouldn’t be taxed at all. Perry would also not tax dividends, and the other GOP hopefuls would largely exempt from taxation both of these kinds of passive income as well.
Now, if you’re a middle-class wage earner for whom dividends and capital gains are, at most, modest entries on your annual mutual fund statement, their exemption from taxation is a minor consideration when examining the merits of a tax plan. But if you’re among the independently wealthy who live almost entirely on dividends and capital gains, such a provision holds great appeal. It means you would pay no federal income tax at all. Nothing. Nada. Zero.
Of course, all the candidates would also eliminate the estate tax, meaning that rich people would never be taxed on their inherited assets or income. As in pre-revolutionary France, taxes would be left entirely to the middle-class and poor.
I’m quite familiar with these permanent passive-income tax holidays promised by the GOP presidential hopefuls, because I’m one of those independently wealthy people who would benefit so handsomely. I’m no Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, but I do have enough money that it makes enough money for me to live on. I mostly volunteer my time to worthy causes, and though I occasionally pull down a paycheck or charge a client fee, the bulk of my income comes from interest, dividends, and capital gains.
Why should I pay no taxes while someone who gets up and goes to work every day does? The reason usually offered for taxing passive income at a lower rate than wages, salaries, and small-business income is that such preferential treatment encourages investment and job creation. And that may be true of entrepreneurs who start businesses, seek investors, and then sell off their creations and start all over again.
But I don’t do any of those things, and there are millions of rich people like me who don’t either. Like a lot of them, I inherited stock in big companies like IBM and General Electric. I support myself primarily by depositing dividend checks. Occasionally I sell some shares at a profit. And conservative tax reformers believe I should be rewarded for this great exertion by exempting me entirely from taxation.
This is neither fair nor logical at a time of rising federal debt and severe budget cuts. True “job creators” could be encouraged without benefiting those like me who don’t need any more economic breaks. The preferential treatment already accorded capital gains and dividends from startup companies could be increased. Those who make a majority of their money from working could be encouraged to save and invest by taxing their investment income at lower rates than those of the already independently wealthy.
To his credit, Mitt Romney would still tax the passive income of those making over $200,000 a year.
But to ensure such sensible approaches are adopted, those of us who live off inherited wealth and believe in tax equity must speak up.
We have to blow the whistle on the giveaways in the proposed tax overhauls that most working folks are too busy to notice.
William Rice has promoted progressive causes and candidates both in the Washington, DC area and in northern New England, is active in the political arts world, and is a member of Wealth for Common Good.
by Nick Hanauer
Originally posted by Bloomberg, 11/30/11
Nick Hanauer is a founder of Second Avenue Partners, a venture capital company in Seattle specializing in early state startups and emerging technology. He has helped launch more than 20 companies, including aQuantive Inc. and Amazon.com, and is the co-author of two books, “The True Patriot” and “The Gardens of Democracy.” The opinions expressed are his own.
It is a tenet of American economic beliefs, and an article of faith for Republicans that is seldom contested by Democrats: If taxes are raised on the rich, job creation will stop.
Trouble is, sometimes the things that we know to be true are dead wrong. For the larger part of human history, for example, people were sure that the sun circles the Earth and that we are at the center of the universe. It doesn’t, and we aren’t. The conventional wisdom that the rich and businesses are our nation’s “job creators” is every bit as false.
I’m a very rich person. As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, I’ve started or helped get off the ground dozens of companies in industries including manufacturing, retail, medical services, the Internet and software. I founded the Internet media company aQuantive Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in 2007 for $6.4 billion. I was also the first non-family investor in Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)
Even so, I’ve never been a “job creator.” I can start a business based on a great idea, and initially hire dozens or hundreds of people. But if no one can afford to buy what I have to sell, my business will soon fail and all those jobs will evaporate.
That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is the feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion a virtuous cycle that allows companies to survive and thrive and business owners to hire. An ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than I ever have been or ever will be.
Theory of Evolution
When businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it is like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it’s the other way around.
It is unquestionably true that without entrepreneurs and investors, you can’t have a dynamic and growing capitalist economy. But it’s equally true that without consumers, you can’t have entrepreneurs and investors. And the more we have happy customers with lots of disposable income, the better our businesses will do.
That’s why our current policies are so upside down. When the American middle class defends a tax system in which the lion’s share of benefits accrues to the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.
And that’s what has been happening in the U.S. for the last 30 years.
Since 1980, the share of the nation’s income for fat cats like me in the top 0.1 percent has increased a shocking 400 percent, while the share for the bottom 50 percent of Americans has declined 33 percent. At the same time, effective tax rates on the superwealthy fell to 16.6 percent in 2007, from 42 percent at the peak of U.S. productivity in the early 1960s, and about 30 percent during the expansion of the 1990s. In my case, that means that this year, I paid an 11 percent rate on an eight-figure income.
One reason this policy is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the average American, but we don’t buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. Like everyone else, I go out to eat with friends and family only occasionally.
It’s true that we do spend a lot more than the average family. Yet the one truly expensive line item in our budget is our airplane (which, by the way, was manufactured in France by Dassault Aviation SA (AM)), and those annual costs are mostly for fuel (from the Middle East). It’s just crazy to believe that any of this is more beneficial to our economy than hiring more teachers or police officers or investing in our infrastructure.
More Shoppers Needed
I can’t buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed andunderemployed Americans can’t buy any new clothes or enjoy any meals out. Or to make up for the decreasing consumption of the tens of millions of middle-class families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages.
If the average American family still got the same share of income they earned in 1980, they would have an astounding $13,000 more in their pockets a year. It’s worth pausing to consider what our economy would be like today if middle-class consumers had that additional income to spend.
It is mathematically impossible to invest enough in our economy and our country to sustain the middle class (our customers) without taxing the top 1 percent at reasonable levels again. Shifting the burden from the 99 percent to the 1 percent is the surest and best way to get our consumer-based economy rolling again.
Significant tax increases on the about $1.5 trillion in collective income of those of us in the top 1 percent could create hundreds of billions of dollars to invest in our economy, rather than letting it pile up in a few bank accounts like a huge clot in our nation’s economic circulatory system.
Consider, for example, that a puny 3 percent surtax on incomes above $1 million would be enough to maintain and expand the current payroll tax cut beyond December, preventing a $1,000 increase on the average worker’s taxes at the worst possible time for the economy. With a few more pennies on the dollar, we could invest in rebuilding schools and infrastructure. And even if we imposed a millionaires’ surtax and rolled back the Bush- era tax cuts for those at the top, the taxes on the richest Americans would still be historically low, and their incomes would still be astronomically high.
We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Middle-class consumers do, and when they thrive, U.S. businesses grow and profit. That’s whytaxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.
So let’s give a break to the true job creators. Let’s tax the rich like we once did and use that money to spur growth by putting purchasing power back in the hands of the middle class. And let’s remember that capitalists without customers are out of business.
To contact the writer of this article: Nick Hanauer at Nick@secondave.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this article: Max Berley at mberley@bloomberg.net.