Extensive Polls Find Americans Support Taxing the Wealthy
GM headquarters, Detroit. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
The excessively wealthy and greedy corporations have rigged the rules. Our economic system allows a select few to accumulate enormous personal wealth while the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves.
This system has created an invisible structure through which a very small yet monumentally influential few shape every aspect of life for all Americans. The excessively wealthy redirect elected officials’ priorities with their campaign contributions, block housing solutions that would allow everyone to have a safe place to call home, decide what our children are taught in school, manipulate the press to cherry pick what information is available, fund massive misinformation campaigns, and so much more.
Despite all this, there is hope for a more equal future. Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans support taxing the rich. While these individual polls have been important indicators of public opinion, in a first of its kind report the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute has aggregated those polling results into a systematic analysis. The result is an even stronger case for critical reforms of the American tax code.
This report compiles undeniable evidence that the American people are ready to increase taxes on the wealthy. This is true across race, zip code, and even political affiliations. The six types of tax policy proposals discussed in this report are supported by a majority of Democrats and Independents, and quite a few Republicans as well.
We examined more than 55 national and state polls across six categories of tax reforms: the billionaire tax, wealth tax, raising the top marginal tax rate, millionaire surtax, capital gains taxes, and the estate tax and related dynasty trust reform.
A billionaire income tax garnered the most support across party identification. On average, two out of three (67 percent) Americans supported the tax including 84 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Independents, and 51 percent of Republicans.
In national polls, a wealth tax had similarly high levels of support. More than three out of fiveAmericans supported the tax including 78 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of Independents, and 51 percent of Republicans. State polls on the wealth tax sampled more moderate and conservative voters and show overall high levels of support with slightly less support from Independents and Republicans.
If the majority of Americans support a fairer tax code, why hasn’t policy changed to reflect what the public wants? There is ample evidence that the excessively wealthy wield their outsized influence to shape policy and public perception in order to protect their dynastic wealth and consolidate their power ever more.
We are at a turning point in our nation’s history. Everyday more people are connecting the dots between the road blocks we personally face in achieving the American Dream and the excessive power of the extremely rich. We experience the impact of excessive wealth at the grocery check-out counter, as our kids enroll in higher education, as we get our paychecks, seek housing, and do any number of life’s essential tasks.
The excessively wealthy wield their power to profit in ways that profoundly impact our day-to-day lives, while pinning the blame for hardship on new immigrants, Black and brown people, and American families struggling to make ends meet. The facts and public opinion are clear. Excessive wealth cannot continue to grow unchecked. Our democracy and our future depend on making fundamental change.
Tax reform is the most promising tool we can wield to fix the American economy so it works for everyone. Our report makes clear that raising taxes on the rich is not only necessary – it’s popular! Taxing the wealthy is not a fringe idea, and despite the mantra that major tax reform does not have sufficient support, it is actually well supported by the American public.
We must join together to demand our nation’s leaders make the wealthy pay what they truly owe in taxes, so that we can deliver quality schools, affordable healthcare, and good-paying jobs that ensure all of our families can thrive.
Hibba Meraay is the Research Lead at the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute, an organization dedicated to creating a more just economic system.
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