April, 30 2021, 12:00am EDT
Patriotic Millionaires Applaud President Biden's First 100 Days on Taxes
"It is time Congress acts to implement his vision—it's time to tax the rich."
WASHINGTON
Today, the Biden administration celebrates its 100th day in office. Since taking office, President Biden has introduced an exceptionally ambitious tax agenda, proposing plans to rewrite the tax code that will finally force millionaires, billionaires, and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.
In its first 100 days, the Biden Administration has proposed plans to:
- Increase taxes on high income earners from 37 percent to 39.6 percent
- Increase the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent
- Work with countries across the world to implement a global minimum tax rate
- Increase the capital gains tax on income earners making $1 million dollars from 20 percent to 39.6 percent
- Eliminate the stepped-up basis
- Beef up IRS enforcement on millionaires and corporations
"In the last 100 days I have been optimistic to see the Biden Administration go all in on making our tax system more fair--exactly what this country needs," said Morris Pearl, former managing director at Blackrock, Inc., Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, and co-author of Tax the Rich!, "Regardless of how the other side is spinning it, these tax increases would affect only the wealthiest Americans and profitable corporations. In the last 100 days the Biden administration has shown a willingness to usher in a new, better vision for what our tax code should look like, one that shrinks inequality instead of contributing to it.
Trickle-down economics has never worked. It's time to grow the economy from the bottom up instead. It is time for Congress to enact this new vision for our tax code-- It's time to tax the rich."
If President Biden accomplishes most of the items laid out in his proposed tax rewrite, he will go down as one of the strongest champions of economic and tax reform the Oval Office has ever seen. Taxing our richest citizens and corporations is not the only thing we need to do to solve the significant challenges facing our country, but it is not optional. The Biden administration gets it. The Patriotic Millionaires applaud the administrations for its efforts in the first 100 days and look forward to working with the administration and members of Congress to enact this bold new tax vision over the next 100 days.
The Patriotic Millionaires is a group of high-net worth Americans who share a profound concern about the destabilizing level of inequality in America. Our work centers on the two things that matter most in a capitalist democracy: power and money. Our goal is to ensure that the country's political economy is structured to meet the needs of regular Americans, rather than just millionaires. We focus on three "first" principles: a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens.
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Civil liberties defenders on Thursday decried the U.S. Senate's advancement of the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, which critics say lawmakers are trying to ram through without protection against warrantless surveillance and with a provision that would effectively make every American a spy whether they like it or not.
Senators voted 67-32 in favor of a cloture motion to begin voting on RISAA, a bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expires on Friday. FISA—a highly controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—allows warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. citizens but also often sweeps up Americans' communication data in the process.
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The Biden administration and U.S. intelligence agencies vehemently oppose the Durbin-Cramer amendment. The White House called the measure "a reckless policy choice contrary to the key lessons of 9/11 and not grounded in any constitutional requirement or statute."
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Columbia President Minouche Shafik informed the campus community on Thursday that she had authorized the police to clear the encampment.
As it has been in the past, the school has become a center of anti-war protests—and crackdowns by school officials and the police—since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in October.
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