AGENDA250

If a picture tells 1,000 words, the “Trillion Dollar Inauguration Photo” told us all we need to know. Cue the locusts. On January 20th, the oligarchical coup Patriotic Millionaires has been predicting for a decade officially seized the queen on the chess board with the capture of the remaining two branches of the U.S. federal government.

I don’t need to emphasize the stakes, but it can be helpful to name the enemy. Morris Pearl said it aptly, “While my reasoning skills may be inadequate, I do not believe our opponents are mentally ill. I believe our opponents are rational people, who are trying to accomplish goals I consider evil.”

In this pivotal moment, affluent Americans are asking themselves two questions:

1) What am I going to do?

     a) Something

     b) Nothing

2) If A, with whom?

No one person can fix what is broken, but a small group of committed people certainly can. “In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” After much discussion with allies and many of you, in this memo, I outline the incredible opportunity this dark moment provides and offer my thoughts on the best way to leverage our unique brand to ensure that this moment marks the apex of the New Right’s power in the U.S. and around the world.

By the way, prepare yourself for daily shock and awe. The New Right will flood the zone with as many different things as possible, as quickly as possible. Expect it. It’s designed to keep you off kilter, unfocused and incapable of responding. A grotesque game of Whack A Mole with human victims. Don’t allow it to confuse you. The story hasn’t changed. This is about power and money and money and power, a story as old as time itself. Rather than shrink from the deluge, overwhelmed and exhausted, instead embrace the freedom and possibility afforded by this moment.

Punctuated Equilibrium

Years ago Michael Waldman, Executive Director of the Brennan Center, spoke to me about the idea of “punctuated equilibrium.” Things move along fairly steadily and then everything changes all at once. We are in the vortex of that dynamic. And we have spent 15 years preparing for it.

Patriotic Millionaires will use this historic moment to advance our vision for the country we want and could have, and spread that vision until we realize it.

After the Barry Goldwater defeat in 1964, a group of millionaires began the long term planning that eventually turned the entire American political establishment – including the Democratic Party – to the right, permanently rigging the nation’s political economy in favor of the rich. While the results of those efforts have touched every aspect of American life, with largely disastrous results, Patriotic Millionaires centers its work – and will continue to center its work – on correcting the specific effect this well-funded, patiently executed ideology has had on the basic structure of the U.S. political economy. The bookends: Taxes and Wages.

Most working class Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, believe that the economy is rigged against them (it is), that their wages are too low (they are) and that rich Americans don’t pay enough taxes (they don’t). Most of them can’t stand politicians of either party. As wedded as they may seem now to Trump’s vision for America, they have suffered a long history of politicians talking out of both sides of their necks. We should know, we’ve spent the last three years talking to them in North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia.

From our founding 15 years ago, we’ve argued that the country’s political economy was unsustainable, that the way it was structured would guarantee that we would become more unequal, more quickly over time. By structuring the economy to direct its benefit to a small group of elites, while an increasing number of citizens saw their economic fortunes decline, our lawmakers would ultimately dismantle our democracy. A rigged economy, held up by a corrupt political campaign system, could not last. We sounded the alarm, too few listened, and now we all suffer the consequences.

But there is a political economy that can work. There is a way to structure an economy so that it creates a few wealthy people; lots of very, very rich people; a huge number of quite comfortable, thank you very much, people; and a small number of people who might be struggling but who can see a path to a stable future.

In consultation with some of the leading economic minds in the world, over the last 15 years, we have developed a simple, easy to understand, easy to sell economic that will,

  • Put thousands of additional dollars directly into the pockets of working people
  • Stop President Trump from taxing working Americans into poverty;
  • Permanently connect the fortunes of American families to the fortunes of American business permanently; and
  • Create the pre-conditions necessary to dismantle the techno-corporate complex that threatens the country and world civilization.

Our job – in this pivotal moment – is to sell that alternate vision to the American public, lawmakers and elites.

Perspective: We will continue to advance our vision from the perspective of self-interest. Our members think structuring an economy this way is bad for society and horrible for business, as ally Nick Hanauer said so eloquently a decade ago. And as we promote our vision to a broader audience, let’s all remember, no one is asking anyone to don a hairsuit. The way we want to live is BETTER. The country we want is BETTER. And if we get the basics right, we can have it.

Although I am always compelled to point out what Morris so often says, I’m not any more altruistic than the next guy, I’m just greedy for a different kind of country than some other rich people.

We are going to remain laser focused on these priorities, leveraging 15 years of proven thought (and action and yes, moral) leadership.

January 20th marked the official beginning of the Age of Oligarchs. The root problem with this economy is that the wage floor is too low and too porous, so the fortunes of American families are disconnected entirely from the fortunes of American billionaires and millionaires. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have an economic plan that will address that.

Top line take aways:

  • Patriotic Millionaires’ perspective on the economy, specifically taxes, is one of the most important in America today;
  • The PM brand is extremely well-leveraged, generating significant media attention relative to its total budget; the PM brand is also quite under-leveraged relative to its potential, particularly on social media platforms;
  • The general economic perspective of Patriotic Millionaires (working people don’t make enough money and millionaires don’t pay enough taxes) enjoys broad bi-partisan support particularly among working people and young voters. This economic perspective has a significant potential audience, but the organization lacks the scale and some of the expertise necessary to increase exposure among cultural influencers.
  • The PM brand is well known and well respected among most democratic lawmakers. Many PM members have close relationships with lawmakers and are seen as representatives of PM. These relationships are under-leveraged.
  • The Democratic Party has utterly failed to take public responsibility or acknowledge the pivotal role its leaders played in the decimation of the working class beginning when President Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law. There is significant overlap between communities broken by NAFTA and those where MAGA is the strongest is clear.

Looking ahead:

  • Until Democratic leaders recognize the singular failure, they are unlikely to embrace the only economic framework that will correct it.
  • Patriotic Millionaires will be encouraged to limit their campaign contributions exclusively to those lawmakers who see the problem that we see and offer a proven commitment to fixing it.
  • Patriotic Millionaires are encouraged to refrain from supporting any party committee until further notice.
  • Lawmakers with questionable ethics and/or those who are stuck in old economic paradigms should step aside. These lawmakers include, but are not limited to: Rep. Richie Neal, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Sen. Maggie Hassan, and Sen. Dick Durbin.
  • Patriotic Millionaires should use TAXPAC to increase its exposure and alignment among ideologically diverse lawmakers.

THE PLAN 

MAXIMIZE OUTREACH TO OTHER MILLIONAIRES / TURBO CHARGE RECRUITING

First and foremost on Patriotic Millionaires’ 2025 Agenda is recruiting more elites to our cause. We engaged The Moonshot Company last year to reimagine our organization’s membership pitch for this new moment. We are several sessions into that effort and are making great progress. Once that process is complete, we will have a fresh pitch tailored to this moment and designed to generate major growth. A lot of elite Americans woke up on Election Day shocked. We can offer them focus for their angst, productive use for their energy, and a powerful community.

Once the new pitch materials are complete, we will do two things. First, we will work with our members to identify like-minded people to join our cause. Please start scrolling through your rolodex. We need more people on our team. We will also engage 5-10 professional fund raisers with deep connections in the Democratic donor world for a 2-3 month Millionaire Blitz. Our goal is to target 500-1,000 of the top donors in the country to either join our organization as a member, provide concrete support for our policy agenda through a new Partners in Progress program, or fund TAXPAC.

LAUNCH PATRIOTIC BILLIONAIRES

Yes, we bought the website 5 years ago. It’s time to launch the campaign. Marketing guru PM Andy Berndt suggested “Looking for a few good billionaires” as a theme. We will flesh out this concept and hope to launch something in early April in advance of Tax Day. Over the next several weeks, we will explore what existing relationships PM members have with the billionaire class and will begin to reach out to them privately in addition to executing a public campaign.

LEVERAGE THE TAX BILL “FIGHT”

Because Republicans control both Houses of Congress and the White House, because changes to the tax code will be passed in a reconciliation bill that only requires a 51 vote threshold, and because Republicans control 53 Senate seats, we have exactly zero chance of the legislation including any of our priorities. Zero. With that said, the Tax Fight is an excellent opportunity for Patriotic Millionaires to assert itself in the public debate and an excellent opportunity to aggressively pitch Democrats on our agenda.

What we WONT do for the Tax Fight:

  • Engage in the daily weeds which are a waste of time and energy
  • Anything on the Child Tax Credit or any non-tax code related issue (CTC is a welfare benefit administered through the tax code. It is not actually tax policy and therefore falls outside of our organization’s focus).

We WILL do the following for the Tax Fight:

  • Brand an alternate vision for the American Tax Code of 2026. Patriotic Millionaires laid out our vision three years ago in Crack the Code: A Proposed Internal Revenue Code of 2026. We are refreshing and rebranding that document as Agenda250.
  • Tirelessly pitch Agenda250 to federal lawmakers with a goal of meeting with every Democratic member of the House and Senate and personally pitch them on Patriotic Millionaire priorities.
  • Execute full coverage of PM members to Members of Congress through our Adopt a Member Program.
  • We will introduce legislation that could, if widely embraced by democrats, serve as a powerful counter message to Republican ideas.
  • Attack the current federal tax code and blame it on Trump. He passed the current code in 2017 on a party line vote. Democrats did not change it in any meaningful way when they had full control.
  • Attack any extension of any part of the Trump Tax Code.
  • Facilitate strategic street theatre: ex. Dismantle the Job Creator Myth by trailing the Job Creators Bus Tour Redux with food trucks.
  • Distribute copies of Tax the Rich and Pay the People to every federal lawmaker;
  • Host briefings with Hill Comms Directors to share our expertise in talking about taxes and wages with people across the political spectrum and from a variety of economic circumstances.

EXPOSE THREAT OF EXTREME WEALTH and the BILLIONAIRE CLASS

We will use our brand’s media power and the opening provided by the media’s overnight embrace of the term ‘oligarch’ to amplify the existential threat posed by the billionaire class.

LAUNCH A PUBLIC CHALLENGE to FAILING DEMOCRATS

Senator Maggie Hassan, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Congressman Richie Neal all live in the same media market and they all have agendas in conflict with ours. Elon Musk announced he will attack Rep. Neal so he will be getting an outsized amount of attention that we can leverage to amplify our own issues. We will continue to call for Congressman Neal to be removed as a ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee and demand an ethics investigation into his corruption. And we will create ads attacking the three as a unit.

LEVERAGE THE TAX DAY CONFERENCE FOR RECRUITMENT AND PRESS.

PM’s held its first Tax Day conference several years ago and has become known both for this national conference, which frequently attracts significant media attention, and for our popular Taxation and Libations cocktail party. This year we will also work to create a high impact press event, and provide an opportunity for potential members to meet our current members and learn about our work.

FUND CRITICAL RESEARCH

Experts at the Economic Policy Institute and Oxfam have offered insight into a specific research project focused on the cost of living. We know that 40% of working people make less than the cost of living for a single adult with no children. We also know that more than 70% of Americans make less than the cost of living for a single adult with one child. What we don’t know is how big the family sizes of these people actually are. We believe a huge number of people who work full make a fraction of the cost of living for their specific family size. Quantifying that reality could help demonstrate the need to tie employment to economic security.

MORE ON THE LEGISLATIVE STRATEGY

Our goal is to recruit one centrist and one progressive Democrat each from the House and Senate on each of our three signature bills. We aim to introduce two of the three prior to Tax Day and our April Conference. Our two priorities are: The Cost of Living Tax Cut and the Equal Tax Act.

  1. The Cost of Living Tax Cut (With or Without Millionaire Surtax): The Cost of Living Tax Cut Act will provide working class Americans immediate, meaningful and permanent tax relief to address the rising cost of living brought about by the inflationary pressures of corporate price-gouging and supply chain disruptions, as well as establish the principle that the government should not tax its citizens into poverty while billionaires continue to pay virtually no taxes. It can serve as a powerful counterweight to President Trump’s ‘no tax on tips’ proposal. It’s better policy, it’s easy to understand and it will positively affect every voter the Democrats need to win back. The current bill includes a provision which shifts the lost revenues onto tax payers with a surtax at $1 million and $5 million of income. We understand democrats like Maggie Hassan refuse to entertain any revenue raisers so we should discuss the value of introducing the legislation without the surtax.
  2. The Equal Tax Act: Working Americans are losing in the game of Their Money v. Your Sweat, and they know it. The Equal Tax Act ensures wealthy investors pay the same tax rate on their income that working people pay on their income, by taxing investment income at the same rate as earned income for those earning over $1 million annually. It eliminates one of the ways the wealthy avoid taxes by ending the stepped up basis loophole with strong protections for family farms and businesses.
  3. The Cost of Living Wage Act: The Cost of Living Wage Act will permanently connect the prosperity of American families to the prosperity of American businesses by tying the federal minimum wage directly to the median cost of living for a single adult with no children. This will provide a wage floor solid enough to stabilize the economic lives of working people, and also strong enough to hold up a large and prosperous middle class. The permanency of using a ‘cost of living’ metric to set the wage, rather than arguing for a specific number, will ensure the concept of a fair days pay for a fair day’s work is met even as the economy continues to evolve through automation, globalization, AI and other pressures.

Lead Sponsor Considerations:

Our preference will be for two lead co-sponsors in each the House and Senate with ideological diversity within the Democratic party. We will consider unique qualities of each potential Member of Congress and Senate sponsor including state dynamics, district make-up, public persona and media reach. Our ideal lead sponsors will prioritize this legislation in their portfolio, speak publicly about these issues, demonstrate an ability to whip colleagues and exhibit a desire for close partnership between their office and PM organization. Some priorities for outreach include:

  • Sen. Tammy Baldwin just won reelection in Wisconsin. Her partner works on Wall Street. She is the long time lead sponsor on the Carried Interest Fairness Act, a litmus test for politicians commitment to tax justice. We need to get her talking a lot more about tax issues, and we can accomplish that. Our members can go meet with her, and we can work with her and her communications people to turn Baldwin into a powerful, public champion for tax justice. What the Republican tax code does is value every dollar a working person makes less than every dollar an investor makes–”your money vs. our sweat.” Baldwin is the person who can make that case.
  • Working Class Dems: We have begun identifying working class heroes in the party who understand these issues–these include Members of Congress such as Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-3), Representative Jared Golden (MA-2) and Representative Kristin McDonald Rivet (MI-8). We will pitch these members and many others within the Democratic caucus–with a specific focus on The Blue Dog and New Dem Caucuses– on our new vision for an economic agenda.

EXPAND GREAT ECONOMY PROJECT EFFORTS IN WISCONSIN, NORTH CAROLINA and MICHIGAN

We launched the Great Economy Project 3 years ago after 8 democrats refused to include a $15 wage in the covid relief package. After ‘field trips’ to West Virginia and Kentucky, we launched long term efforts in North Carolina and Wisconsin. Those efforts have evolved very differently, and we believe both deserve further investment. Additionally, Cat Hadley, who built the Great Economy Project from the ground up, will be concentrating some of her attention on her home state of Michigan, home to leading 28 POTUS contender Gretchen Whitmer.

State Snapshots

  • In Michigan, Democrats are considering “compromising” with Republicans on the hard-fought wage floor, Director of Partnerships Cat Hadley is directly engaging with lawmakers and our allies at OneFairWage. We will continue to actively lobby Whitmer and state lawmakers to stand up to Republicans on the minimum wage, to uphold the current law, which is one of the strongest wage floors in the country. We will push retiring Senator Gary Peters to use his last two years in office to drive a debate on economics.
  • Wisconsin saw the smallest swing from blue to red in the country in the 2024 Presidential election, and the three counties where PM ran messaging campaigns had the smallest shifts from blue to red in the state. We will continue our radio media strategy and ad program on the ground, while pushing Senator Baldwin to become our champion on taxes.
  • North Carolina was one of the few bright spots for PM in the 2024 election: Democrats swept statewide offices. We are opening a brick-and-mortar headquarters for our Deciders activists in Whiteville, North Carolina, to engage directly on the ground with Trump voters. We will continue to build with a focus on the working class, and reflect our conversations to the larger political establishment. We will continue to put pressure on Governor Josh Stein to embrace raising the minimum wage and support our agenda over the next two years. North Carolina has Senate races in 2026 and 2028, and we will be actively involved in both races to inject our economic policy vision into the messaging of the candidates and their campaigns. In an

BUILD MORE INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCES:

Our team is in active discussions with our allies, both here and abroad, through our UK/International Director Becks Gowland and our (NEW!) Canada PM Executive Director Dylan Dusseault, the PM’s longtime US political director. The International Team spearheaded the Davos action which this year attracted more than 420 millionaires from more countries than ever before. Launching our international program four years ago was a leap into the unknown. But as history unfolds before us, I am grateful to be actively engaged with people from around the world. Things are so deeply connected and only likely to get more so.