The House majority has just chosen to prioritize Wall Street and billionaires over everyday people by advancing legislation that would strip away funds for healthcare and nutrition to give big corporations and the super-rich tax breaks. Adding insult to injury, they also voted to make people’s lives harder and less secure by giving Wall Street, big banks, and abusive financial companies free rein to fleece the rest of us.
The Take on Wall Street campaign of Americans for Financial Reform hosted a virtual fireside chat with Dr. Dorothy A. Brown, Professor of Law at Emory University and author of The Whiteness of Wealth and Dr. Darrick Hamilton, director of the Institute for the Study of Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School, to discuss the white supremacy inherent in our tax code and how American tax policies impoverish Black Americans while enriching white Americans, and how we can restructure our system to focus on justice and equity.
Today, the House passed the Build Back Better Act, sending historic investments in white, Black and Brown working people to the Senate.
AFR joined a letter to Congress urging support for tax proposals to rein in CEO Pay while investing in our recovery.
Sen. Warren and Rep. Jayapal’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act of 2021 could not be a more timely reminder that the United States needs serious policy changes to address massive wealth and income inequality. Wall Street is the second-largest source of billionaire wealth, after the technology industry. While 8 million Americans slipped into poverty and half a million lives were lost to COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic — all with a disproportionately large impact on communities of color — the wealth of U.S. billionaires almost doubled, up $1.3 trillion.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced groundbreaking and essential legislation to repeal the deeply flawed Opportunity Zone tax break passed as part of the 2017 tax cut legislation. In addition to the basic problems with this tax break for the wealthy, multiple media exposés have already found that the rules have been bent to include parcels that benefitted high-rolling real estate investors, including those with ties to the Trump administration.
From tax cuts to deregulation to changes at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the first year of the Trump administration has been a boon to Wall Street at the expense of ordinary Americans.
At a time when millions of everyday Americans are struggling with stagnant wages, Republicans decided to use the tax code to reward its contributors. Polls have shown that the Republican tax bill is deeply unpopular. Voters recognize it for what it is: a giant holiday gift to Wall Street and the super rich that the rest of us will be paying off for decades.
The New York investment bank has had other periods in the sun, but never before have its priorities been so hardwired into an administration in Washington. The report details Goldman’s interests in areas of public policy including financial regulation, tax cuts and infrastructure.
The Take On Wall Street campaign, a group of over 50 community groups, unions, consumer advocates and others today called on Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch to adopt tax reform measures that would raise more than $1 trillion in additional revenue, and discourage dangerous Wall Street speculation by requiring the financial services industry to pay its fair share of taxes.