Happy 4th of July! We hope that you and those close to you can spend time today celebrating America’s 249th birthday and everything that makes our beloved country so special.
We recognize that, in times like this, it can be challenging to feel patriotic when faux patriotism is being used to tout tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the most vulnerable in our communities. That is why we here at Patriotic Millionaires would like to use both this Independence Day and this week’s Closer Look to reflect on what patriotism actually means, and to remind ourselves why we call ourselves the “Patriotic Millionaires.”
We’re in a unique situation this year. After years of anticipating how Congress would handle the expiration of many of the provisions of the 2017 GOP Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), yesterday House Republicans passed a bill that extends and expands the worst of them. Dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” President Trump will officially sign it into law today.
It’s particularly insulting to us that Donald Trump chose to sign this legislation today because it masquerades itself as patriotism, when in reality it will make our country and economy less rich, less safe, and less free. We’d like to highlight some of the worst, most unpatriotic provisions in Republicans’ new bill, and offer a course for America to chart ahead of its 250th birthday that will put us on a more equitable, sustainable path.
What patriotism means to us
Patriotism goes beyond waving flags, throwing candy in parades, shooting off fireworks, and dressing in red, white, and blue—although we certainly love those things! To us, patriotism means loving your country enough to sacrifice something for the greater good. Patriotism means loving the ideals of your country enough to critique it when it falls short of them, and advocating to make your country a better, safer, and more equitable place for all people, no matter their economic status.
There are many ways to be patriotic and honor your country, ranging from serving in the military to holding elected office to peacefully protesting and voting in elections. But we believe one of the most patriotic things that Americans can do—and particularly wealthy Americans like us—is to pay their rightful share in taxes.
People question the name “Patriotic Millionaires” all the time, as if those two words cannot go together in a democratic capitalist system. The reason we call ourselves this is because we are putting our time, energy, and resources into an economic justice campaign to fix the country that we love and that has allowed us to financially succeed. Our country is struggling right now—what with our sluggish economy, democratic ethics and norms being siphoned away, and communities suffering under the effects of climate change—and we believe that we should be on the hook for our fair share on Tax Day to be part of the solution.
We encounter a lot of fellow millionaires who say that they would also be happy to pay more in taxes, just so long as they knew their tax dollars were financing programs and agencies that they supported. It’s an understandable view, but unfortunately, that’s now how government works. If we don’t like the way that politicians are spending, we millionaires have the same option as everyone else to vote them out of office on Election Day. But that’s not a valid excuse to skirt your patriotic duty to pay taxes. And it’s those who can most afford it that should be paying more to finance whatever governments need—not working people who are living two missed paychecks away from poverty.
President Trump seems to think that anyone who criticizes any part of America hates our country and is unpatriotic. Like with most things, he is completely off the mark. It’s a lazy argument used to silence dissenters and those who oppose the direction our country is moving in. We point out the major flaws we’ve witnessed firsthand in America’s political economy because we love our country. If we truly hated America, we would not use our platform and resources to fix the issues we care about. We could up and leave if we wanted to. But, we do not because we know that this country, despite its flaws, is the only place we want to call home. So why not use our earnings to make that home better for everyone, not just those who can afford it?
As a final note on patriotism, we want to share one of our favorite Greek proverbs: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” We don’t know how long it will take to see the tax code become more progressive, or the federal minimum wage raised to a living wage, or the campaign finance system reformed to dilute the influence of moneyed interests. But we continue our work nonetheless, as it’s enough to know that we’re doing something constructive to create a brighter, fairer America for future generations.
Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill
The best way we can sum up Republicans’ budget bill is this: it was a colossal win for the wealthy and corporations, but not so much for anyone else.
If you are unsure how we got to this point, let us catch you up to speed: House Republicans passed their version of the One Big Beautiful Bill back in May. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans passed a new, uglier version of the bill and returned it to the House. On Thursday, House Republicans passed that new version. And today, President Trump will officially sign it into law— just as he wanted on the 4th of July.
Here are a few of the worst tax provisions that ended up in the final bill that benefit the wealthy and corporations:
- Income tax rates and brackets—It permanently extends the TCJA’s lower rates and bracket thresholds for the federal income tax, which were titled to help high-income earners.
- Pass-through businesses—It permanently extends the TCJA’s 20% deduction for pass-through businesses. Despite being mistakenly conflated with small businesses, pass-throughs are overwhelmingly controlled by high earners.
- Estate tax—It permanently extends and expands the TCJA’s increased estate tax thresholds. In 2026, it will increase the threshold to $15 million for single filers and $30 million for married couples and index them to inflation thereafter.
- Business tax breaks—The bill permanently and retroactively reinstates a host of large tax breaks businesses received through the TCJA, including deductions for certain investments and research projects.
- Special industry breaks—The bill gives a special carve-out to the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT) for large oil and gas companies; tax benefits to spaceports (which will benefit companies like SpaceX); and special tax credits to the coal and semiconductor industries.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economy Policy, in 2026, the top 20% of earners will receive 72% of the benefits from Trump’s megabill, with the top 1% alone receiving 22%. Meanwhile, the bottom 20% of earners will receive less than 1% of the tax cuts from the legislation. And if you factor in Trump’s tariffs or the inexplicable cuts that the bill makes to programs like Medicaid and SNAP, they’ll actually see their incomes fall.
Trump made a big to-do about passing his bill on the 4th of July. No matter how many times he and Republicans try to spin it, we will never understand how giving tax breaks to millionaires while shoving millions toward the edge of poverty is in any way “patriotic.” And frankly, we’re glad we don’t understand because it means we’re on the right side of history.
Believe us and hear us when we say that this bill is the furthest thing from patriotic that we can think of. Polls conducted after the passage of the 2017 TCJA showed that people overwhelmingly opposed the bill’s massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Polls this time around showed that people again oppose the GOP’s new bill that extends and expands the TCJA. And what did Republicans do? Instead of listening to the will of the people, they deliberately disregarded them to satisfy the demands of their billionaire donors. It doesn’t get more unpatriotic than that.
The MONEY Agenda: America 250
America will turn 250 years old next year. While Trump’s idea of celebrating the occasion involves $45 million military parades, ours involves putting our nation on a better, more stable path by implementing our legislative platform.
Say hello to The MONEY Agenda: America 250.
Our agenda consists of four powerful, mutually-reinforcing pieces of legislation that together will permanently stabilize the economic lives of working people, stimulate widespread economic growth, and ensure prosperity and stability for America’s next 250 years. The four pieces of legislation are the following:
- The “COST OF LIVING” TAX CUT Act, which provides a Cost of Living Exemption (COLE) on federal taxes up to a reasonable threshold for the cost of living for a single adult with no children, and shifts responsibility for those revenues from the working class to the millionaire class.
- The “COST OF LIVING” WAGE Act, which raises the federal minimum wage to the cost of living for a single adult with no children and indexes it, and protects American workers against the impending disruption of automation and AI.
- The EQUAL TAX Act, which equalizes tax rates for capital gains and ordinary income over $1 million and closes the stepped-up basis loophole, disrupting the “buy, borrow, die” strategy used to minimize/eliminate the tax obligations of the uber-wealthy.
- The ANTI-OLIGARCH Act, which would be divided into two phases. The first phase prevents further wealth concentration by implementing significant taxes on the intergenerational transfer of wealth, on large sums of trust-held wealth, and on the true economic income of America’s ultra-rich. The second phase dismantles the existing American oligarchy by taxing the wealth held by the ultra-rich sufficiently, including amending the Constitution if necessary.
There’s no sugarcoating it—America is in trouble. Inequality has reached a fever pitch and threatens the stability of our economy, democracy, and environment. 57% of the country lives paycheck to paycheck and 59% don’t have enough money to cover a $1,000 emergency expense—all while billionaires rent out Italian cities to host their $50 million weddings, publicly commit to bankrolling mayoral candidates that can defeat primary winners they don’t like, and spew a lifetime’s worth of toxins into the atmosphere during 11-minute space rides. America shed its ties to monarchy and aristocracy 249 years ago, but with the way things are going today, it’s looking like we might come full circle. It certainly doesn’t help to have a president that declares himself a king on social media…
We’re not going to pretend our legislative platform will solve everything, but we also believe that the answer to most of our economic woes are not as difficult to solve as we are led to believe. Getting our nation on a clearer, safer, and more stable path starts with economic reform that taxes the rich, pays the people, and spreads the power. That’s the least we could do to show our patriotism and give back to the country that has given us so much.