Chuck Collins discusses how billionaire wealth harms our everyday lives and why we must rein in extreme wealth by taxing the rich fairly.
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In a powerful segment with Connections with Evan Dawson/WXXI, Chuck Collins shares his personal story of growing up with inherited wealth to make a compelling case for reining in extreme wealth by taxing the rich fairly.
Chuck discusses some key takeaways from his book Burned by Billionaires, in which he highlights how billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and others have exploited tax loopholes to pay extremely low tax rates while their wealth skyrockets. In fact, some billionaires get away with paying zero dollars in taxes.
Meanwhile, millions of ordinary American families struggle to get by, and the billionaire class has an extraordinary impact on every aspect of our lives, from housing to healthcare to pet care and even our access to the ballot box.
“The concentration of wealth is kind of disrupting everything we care about,” Chuck explains.
It’s urgent that those in power act to rein in extreme wealth by taxing the rich fairly, Chuck warns, and right now, we simply aren’t doing enough. Meanwhile, billionaire wealth is continuing to soar, and billionaires’ extreme influence over our society is continuing to climb, unchecked.
An in-depth article in The New York Times on the impact of the Giving Pledge cites IPS’s research on how many billionaire signers of the Pledge have yet to live up to their promise to give away most of their wealth.
As the article points out, IPS’s report found that “most Pledgers’ philanthropic donations went to intermediary organizations…such as their own foundations, or happened en masse after they died, which technically satisfies the Pledge.”
In an article highlighting Senator Elizabeth Warren’s criticism of Iran war costs, Common Dreams cites IPS’s analysis that an estimated cost of $1 billion per day for the Iran war is “higher than the appropriated budget of any federal agency except the Pentagon itself.”
Sanho Tree warns Salon that militarized operations in response to drug trafficking in Ecuador and elsewhere not only fail to curb the flow of drugs to the U.S. but actually exacerbate the problem. “We spent probably about $2 trillion in my lifetime by now on this drug war, and the drugs are winning,” he says. “It’s only the policies of prohibition… that make this beast churn, decade after decade, and it only gets bigger and more powerful.”
In a widely syndicated article on state initiatives to increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy, Chuck Collins talks to The Associated Press about wealthy people who support higher taxes on the rich.
“It’s good for everybody, in a time of grotesque inequality, for wealthy people to chip in a little bit more, especially at a time when others are just struggling to keep up,” Chuck says.
In a powerful article in American Prospect, Sarah Lazare cites the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies’ finding that the estimated $1 billion/day for the Iran war could instead provide SNAP and Medicaid benefits for millions at risk of losing them due to funding cuts. That war “is not protecting Americans, but it is preventing Americans from having enough resources,” Lindsay explains.
“When corporations can get away with shifting their employees’ basic living costs onto taxpayers, this is a form of corporate welfare,” the report said. “It means taxpayers are subsidizing business models based on poverty wages.”
From the article: “‘Affordability’ is on the lips of every politician in America and on the minds of most Americans. Surveys consistently find it to be a top concern for voters (though the war in Iran could soon displace it).
But one group is conspicuously silent: the companies that rely on the low-wage workers hit hardest by inflation.”
“Here’s one likely reason US companies stay mum: They’re reluctant to admit just how heavily programs like Medicaid and SNAP subsidize the cost of their employees (and how much money they save as a result).”
“In a new report out this week, the Institute for Policy Studies names the 20 largest employers of low-wage workers in America, which collectively employ 6.7 million people. Only five of these companies—Costco, FedEx, MGM Resorts, Tysons Foods, and Amazon—pay median wages above the federal Medicaid/SNAP thresholds. (Amazon is barely over the line.) The lowest-paid workers are at Ross (median wage: $9,602) and Starbucks ($14,674), likely because most of their workers are part-timers.
According to the Institute, many of these workers can’t afford to buy insurance from their employers, which is why they end up opting for Medicaid. Among companies with the largest share of low-wage workers, the Institute reports, just 43 percent get employer-provided health benefits—though 67 percent are eligible. (Some of these workers may get coverage through a spouse or through a parent if they’re under age 25.)”
“This is highly unpredictable and so we won’t know the cost of it until it’s over,” said Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute of Policy Studies, who said the conflict is “not necessary” and is taking away from other policies that could “make life more affordable for Americans.”
