Dear John,

Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden don’t agree on much, but they have agreed on one thing: closing the carried interest loophole. So far, not one of them has pulled it off.

The carried interest loophole allows wealthy Wall Street money managers and private equity executives to misclassify income as capital gains and pay about half as much in taxes as regular folks. In many cases, these millionaires and billionaires end up paying significantly lower rates than most teachers, nurses, and even truck drivers and retail workers.

Since President Biden took office, we’ve seen Senator Joe Manchin block critical parts of the Democrats’ agenda over and over again. But this time, it’s not Joe Manchin that forced Democrats to remove the provision to shrink the carried interest loophole from the Inflation Reduction Act.

It was Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

The survival of this ridiculous tax break -- seemingly against the political odds -- is due to the deadly combination of a low public profile and the power of private equity money in Washington.^[1] In other words, Wall Street gets what it wants because elected leaders like Senator Sinema think the public isn’t paying attention and/or doesn’t care. The good news, however, is that this means public exposure and pressure could finally get it done.

Tell Senator Sinema: Fight for People not Wall Street. Support Closing the Carried Interest Loophole Now!

It’s long past time for Congress to simply abolish this monstrosity, close the loophole completely, and simultaneously increase tax revenue by $18 billion a year or more.^[2]

A year ago, because of pressure and campaign contributions by Big Pharma, multiple Democrats in both the House and Senate blocked every attempt to lower prescription drug prices. They thought no one would ever know. They were wrong. Public pressure from our communities and advocates pushed them to change their position. That’s how Democrats got the votes to include it -- and pass it -- in the Inflation Reduction Act. Now we need the same kind of public pressure on Sinema to get the carried interest loophole closed. And that means we need to expose the truth about her addiction and dedication to Wall Street money.

Federal Election Commission filings show Senator Sinema has received more than half a million dollars in campaign donations from private equity group executives in this election cycle alone, representing about 10% of her total fundraising from individual donors, including:

• $54,900 from executives at KKR, a private equity company

• $35,000 from Carlyle, a financial services corporation

• $27,300 from Apollo, one of the largest asset managers

• $24,500 from Crow Holdings Capital, a real estate and development firm

• $23,300 from Riverside Partners, a capitol market company

Democrats had 49 votes to reform the carried interest loophole – only Senator Sinema stopped it from happening. Make sure she hears from you that we expect her to fight for people not Wall Street and demand she support swift action to close the carried interest loophole now.

Thank you for sending your message to Senator Sinema today.

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action

^{[1] Kyrsten Sinema is significant beneficiary of private equity lobbying machine, Financial Times
[2] How a Carried Interest Tax Could Raise $180 Billion, New York Times}