As the rich and powerful have gathered this week in Davos for the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meeting, there has been a lot of talk about how to make the world a better place. Davos attendees, from world leaders to billionaires, have made a massive show of how they will build “Cooperation in a Fragmented World,” as the title of this year’s gathering is … Continue reading Demanding Change at Davos
After what seems like a summer-long heatwave, more and more Americans are looking to Congress and the White House for answers. While the Republican party has used misinformation and obstruction to hide the causes of climate change, Americans are suffering. Approximately 5 million people die every year due to the effects of climate change, with a projected 250,000 additional deaths per year from 2030 to … Continue reading There Is No Planet B
It’s no secret that the rich and powerful are able to avoid paying their fair share in taxes, but it’s still occasionally stunning to see just how much tax avoidance they get away with. This week, we saw two bombshell reports released by tax justice organizations laying out how both major corporations and ultra-wealthy families are able to pay basically nothing in taxes. On Tuesday, … Continue reading Netflix paid 1.1% in taxes last year
Earlier this week the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, released their rewrite of the federal tax code as part of the Democrats’ budget reconciliation proposal. The committee’s proposed changes are, to say the least, completely inadequate. Their proposal preserves the preferential treatment the rich currently receive in the tax code, ensuring that billionaires in America will continue to pay a … Continue reading Neal’s Tax Plan Has Billionaires Popping Champagne
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of Americans have faced financial hardship and economic instability. Some have lost their jobs or been furloughed, many have been uprooted from their homes or have even become homeless (not to mention the millions that have gotten severely ill and hundreds of thousands that have died). Even well beyond the peak of the pandemic, 24 million adults … Continue reading Wealth Gap on the Rise
President Ronald Reagan was a popular United States President. Upon leaving office, 63 percent of Americans overwhelmingly approved of the job he had done during his 8 years in office. His post-presidency popularity was solidified with efforts led by lobbyist and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist to convince local governments and private associations to name public spaces after Regan to preserve his legacy— particularly his tax … Continue reading It Is Time We Reexamine the Cost of Reaganomics
On Monday, March 1, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, and Rep. Brendan Boyle took a stand against out-of-control wealth inequality by introducing The ‘Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act’ to Congress. So what will this tax do? It’s a virtual copy of the wealth tax that Warren ran on in her 2020 presidential campaign. A wealth tax is a yearly tax on the net worth, essentially assets … Continue reading Explaining The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act
After the sky-high consumer spending of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday is a day for folks to direct some of their money toward charitable causes instead. While we believe the work we do at the Patriotic Millionaires is certainly a great cause, don’t worry – we won’t be asking for your money today, or ever. As rich people in this country, we’ve certainly … Continue reading We Should All Be Skeptical of Rich People’s Philanthropy
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, you’ve certainly heard the news that President Trump, along with several high-profile White House staffers and Republican Senators, has been infected with COVID-19. What you probably haven’t heard about are the ordinary working folks in Trump’s orbit that have also been infected with the virus. At least two members of the White House housekeeping … Continue reading Two Pandemics in the White House
Yesterday morning, the New York Times released a damning report on President Trump’s tax returns, detailing how the President has avoided millions of dollars on his tax bill for the past decade, despite continuing to wrack up millions every year. Much of the attention garnered by the report has focused on the fact that the meager $750 Trump paid in taxes in each 2016 and … Continue reading President Trump’s Tax Returns Are Bad. You Can Thank the Tax Code.
Capitalism in the United States, as it is right now, is dangerously flawed. Our politicians and policies prioritize corporations, special interests and top income earners over regular American workers and those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This crisis, in particular, has laid bare the vast chasm between socioeconomic classes that have developed over the past decade. It’s exposed the failure of our nation to … Continue reading Re-thinking the ‘purpose’ of capitalism
We know that the racial wealth gap is real, and large. We also know that it didn’t just happen, it’s the result of a long history of government policies that favored white families over Black ones. Just because many of these programs and policies have ended doesn’t mean we can ignore their legacy.
As 2019 comes to a close, let’s take a moment to look back at the major events that impacted the state of the economy – and the national conversation around our three core issues – as we enter the new year, and the many policy developments this year that are giving us hope for better, brighter decade to come.
Simply put, wealth is wasted on the wealthy.
From time to time, a news story about a very wealthy individual doing something very kind with their money goes viral. Billionaire Robert F. Smith recently paid off the student debt of the entire Morehouse College class of 2019. Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of Chobani, paid off student lunch debts for an entire Rhode Island school district. Last year, Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario pledged to donate … Continue reading Rich People’s Charity Won’t Save The World
The legacy of slavery and years of segregation have left a colossal wealth gap between white and black families that disadvantages Black Americans to this day. Slavery might be over, but millions of Black Americans are still feeling its effects.
Last week, former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal bemoaning popular support for progressive policies that seek to expand the social safety net to support millions of Americans, arguing that these people don’t understand the “true cost” of such policies and that Republicans need to “make the case for freedom.” Let’s make that case for freedom. It starts by … Continue reading Who Has Freedom in the American Economy? Increasingly, Just the Rich
Most Americans pay taxes every other week. Part of every paycheck is withheld, then they file taxes in April to account for the difference. Rich people file a tax return in April too, but in any given year they are probably not paying any taxes on a huge part of the increase in their personal wealth. That’s because the majority of a rich person’s “income” … Continue reading Rich People Should Pay Their Taxes Every Year Too
It’s Tax Day, so by now Americans have had a chance to see how their filings stack up against Trump’s promises. Working folks are largely unimpressed, but millionaires like us made out like bandits. When Republicans pitched the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), they sold it as a tax break for the middle class, but despite lower income tax rates and a … Continue reading Thanks, But No Thanks: Stop Bleeding the Middle Class to Cut Our Taxes
Whether it’s democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) campaigning for it on Twitter or angry pundit Tucker Carlson foaming at the mouth about it on his nightly Fox News show, everyone is talking about taxing the rich. This is an issue that is set to dominate American political debate heading into the 2020 elections. In that spirit, the Patriotic Millionaires are launching a multi-year, multi-platform … Continue reading The Patriotic Millionaires Present: TAX THE RICH! Livestream