(CNN) Already massively wealthy, America's billionaires saw their collective fortunes soar more than 70% to more than $5 trillion during the pandemic.
That's one reason why congressional Democrats were zeroing in earlier this week on this elite group of roughly 700 people to help pay for their massive social spending package . They abandoned the proposal after facing resistance from several moderate party members.
The skyrocketing stock market has helped push billionaires' net worth up by more than $2 trillion since the start of the pandemic through mid-October, according to a recent report by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality, which analyzed Forbes data.
Their windfall came at the same time as Covid-19 wreaked financial havoc on tens of millions of Americans, particularly those in the lower-income tiers.
Billionaires' wealth gains over the past 19 months alone would be enough to pay for President Joe Biden's proposal to bolster the nation's social safety net, said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness.
beccadot on October 29th, 2021 at 01:21 UTC »
Why is no one talking about rolling back the infamous ‘2017 Republican Tax Cut’? The tax cut was ostensibly begun as an incentive for corporations to locate here in the States, starting more manufacturing facilities here and creating jobs. What really happened? They relocated their headquarters here, got the tax cuts, and did NOT move more manufacturing back to the States. And that piece of legislation cost our bottom line $2.2TRILLION. That’s $2.2 trillion LESS in tax revenue. Guess what that does? Increases the deficit!!
DocGlabella on October 28th, 2021 at 22:39 UTC »
For the most part, if you ask regular people, everyone thinks that the very wealthy should pay more, including a majority of Republicans. Now what actual Republicans legislators will vote for is another story...
Monsur_Ausuhnom on October 28th, 2021 at 22:16 UTC »
And nothing occurred