Patriotic Millionaires Applaud House Democrats' Passage of the Build Back Better Act

This morning, after months of negotiations, House Democrats voted to pass H.R. 5376, President Biden's Build Back Better Act. In response, Morris Pearl, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director at BlackRock, Inc., released the following statement:

"We welcome and applaud House Democrats' passage of President Biden's Build Back Better agenda. This is a bill that will make a real difference in the lives of millions of Americans. We especially welcome the tax changes in the bill that will take a step toward ensuring that wealthy individuals and corporations finally start paying their fair share in taxes. The introduction of the millionaires surtax and corporate minimum tax are particularly significant and long overdue steps forward in the fight for tax fairness.

While these tax changes are welcome, there is still more work to be done. We need to go much further to slow the growth of inequality by fundamentally changing the tax code in this country to tax rich Americans the same way we tax people who work for a living. House Democrats are taking a step in this regard in the Build Back Better Act, but only a very small one.

It is also important to note that there are a few aspects of the bill that are incontrovertible steps backward in the fight for tax fairness. The House plan to lift the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap would disproportionately benefit millionaires like us, the exact people who don't need any more help. If Democrats are committed to providing relief to middle and lower income taxpayers by altering the SALT cap, then we believe that Senators Sanders and Menendez's proposal to exempt taxpayers making under $400,000 from the cap would be a better solution.

We encourage the Senate to move quickly to improve the House bill and pass their version in order to provide desperate relief to struggling Americans and improve our tax code. In the meantime, we celebrate the House's vote today and welcome it as a small step towards changing the parts of our tax code that make the already rich even richer."