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John,
Today in America, it will not surprise you to hear, the people at the top have never had it so good. The top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92% and the 50 wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society—165 million people.
And yet, almost every congressional Republican—from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on down—wants to provide billionaires a tax break worth up to $1.75 trillion by completely repealing the estate tax.
The estate tax only applies to the wealthiest of the wealthy, the top one-tenth of one percent of American families who inherit over $25 million. In other words, 99.9% of Americans would not benefit at all from the repeal of the estate tax.
How would Republicans pay for this $1.75 trillion tax break to billionaires? They would pay for it by making massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other critical programs.
No. You don’t reduce inflation by giving tax breaks to billionaires and cutting benefits for the elderly, the sick, and the poor.
That’s why I’ve introduced the For the 99.5% Act, an estate tax bill that would demand that the families of the billionaire class start paying their fair share of taxes. This is a progressive estate tax on the fortunes of the top 0.5% of Americans who inherit over $3.5 million in wealth. It would result in up to $2.7 trillion in estate taxes owed by the families of 657 billionaires in America.
In terms of education and how we treat our young people, I see a nation where, disgracefully, we now have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any wealthy nation on earth and millions of kids, disproportionately Black and brown, face food insecurity. I see a nation where we can somehow afford to provide over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top one percent and large corporations, but our teachers and children get broken chairs, flooded classrooms, and inadequate staff support—and where many thousands of our teachers and teaching staff are inadequately paid.
For more than a decade, Americans for Tax Fairness has been a critical ally in fighting back against more tax breaks for the rich and corporations. ATF understands that when millionaires, billionaires, and corporations pay their fair share, we can invest in children, working families, and the elderly.
Will you make an end-of-year donation to Americans for Tax Fairness today to create an economy where the very rich and large corporations pay their fair share in taxes?
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In solidarity,
US Senator Bernie Sanders
Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, And Pensions
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