Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Hoarded wealth that could transform millions of lives corrupts. The unprecedented wealth of today's multi-billionaires corrupts absolutely.
The incredible imbalance of wealth in today's United States corrupts not just the tiny number of people hoarding most of it, but also the political and social system in its entirety.
Forbes magazine recently introduced its list of billionaires like this:
"The world’s billionaires have always been rich and powerful—but never more than now. That’s particularly true in the United States, where Donald Trump was sworn in (again) as America’s billionaire-in-chief in January. This time around, he’s giving the billionaire class more control over the government than ever before. His right-hand man is the planet’s richest person. His administration includes at least ten billionaires and billionaire spouses."
As in military spending or incarceration, the United States is number one in billionaires with 902, and U.S. billionaires possess vastly more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of people in the United States. The richest 1 percent in the U.S. -- which is mostly non-billionaires -- have well over 10 times what the poorest 50 percent have.
This inequality is incompatible with self-governance. We can have billionaires or democracy, not both.
Massachusetts has had great success taxing the ultra-rich.
Click here to ask your state legislators to do what Massachusetts has done.
Since 2018 in the United States, billionaires have paid a lower effective tax rate than working-class people. Plutocracy has been so normalized that it's hard to summon up outrage.
But something strange has happened in Massachusetts, that the state of OH could do too. The state government has put in place an additional tax of 4% on taxable income in excess of a million dollars.
The economy hasn't collapsed. Unemployment hasn't soared. The devil hasn't risen to impose a communist dictatorship. In fact, none of the usual expectations have been fulfilled. Instead, the state has simply raised $2.2 billion a year to put to use for the public good -- dramatically more than had been predicted. That compares with a half a billion raised NATIONALLY by President Biden's efforts (now being undone by Trump and his Congressional followers) to make the wealthy pay up.
