In 2026, America will turn 250 years old. In a chaotic time, defined by wide-spread economic insecurity and an ascendant oligarchy, members of Patriotic Millionaires propose AMERICA 250: The Money Agenda — a bold, surprisingly simple economic framework that will unite working people, ignite the public imagination, and challenge the dark forces that seek to dismantle our democracy by permanently mitigating destabilizing levels of inequality and concentrated wealth that threaten democratic capitalism here and around the world.
Comprised of four powerful, mutually-reinforcing ideas, AMERICA 250: The Money Agenda will permanently stabilize the economic lives of working people, stimulate wide-spread economic growth, and ensure prosperity and stability for America’s next 250 years.
The “COST OF LIVING” TAX CUT Act
- Provides a Cost of Living Exemption (COLE) on federal taxes equal to the median cost of living for a single adult with no children (approximately $41,600 per year);
- Shifts responsibility for those revenues from the working class to the millionaire class, through a millionaires surtax of 3% on income over $1 million and 8% on income over $10 million.
The “COST OF LIVING” WAGE Act
- Raises the federal minimum wage to the median cost of living for a single adult with no children (currently $41,600 per year/approx. $21 per hour) and indexes it;
- Protects American workers against the impending disruption of automation and AI by ensuring that every full-time job pays at least enough to support a single individual.
The EQUAL TAX Act
- Equalizes tax rates for capital gains and ordinary income over $1 million, ending the preferential treatment of capital over labor while maintaining a benefit for small investors;
- 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
- Phase 1 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;
- Phase 2 dismantles the existing American oligarchy by taxing the wealth held by the ultra-rich sufficiently, including amending the Constitution if necessary.
We’ll have more to say about AMERICA: 250: The Money Agenda in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, click HERE to learn more.