As Republican lawmakers launch a shameless attack on both middle- and working-class Americans, 400-plus millionaires are urging Republican lawmakers in a letter not to cut their taxes. Washington Post writes:
The wealthy Americans — including doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and chief executives — say the GOP is making a mistake by reducing taxes on the richest families at a time when the nation's debt is high and inequality is back at the worst level since the 1920s.
The letter calls on Congress not to pass any tax bill that “further exacerbates inequality” and adds to the debt. Instead of petitioning tax cuts for the wealthy, the letter tells Congress to raises taxes on rich people like them. [...]
The letter was put together by Responsible Wealth, a group that advocates progressive causes. Signers include Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, fashion designer Eileen Fisher, billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros, and philanthropist Steven Rockefeller, as well as many individuals and couples who aren't household names but are part of the top 5 percent ($1.5 million in assets or earning $250,000 or more a year).
Many of the sign ons hail from states like California, New York, and New Jersey, whose lawmakers will have a critical hand in deciding whether the GOP tax bill garners the necessary margin to pass their respective chambers. Some signers of the letter have also gone to Capitol Hill to lobby against the bill’s passage.
“This has to be one of the few times members of Congress have been visited by people saying, 'Don’t give me a tax cut,'" said Mike Lapham, who inherited sizable wealth from his family's paper mill in Upstate New York and now directs the Responsible Wealth project at United for a Fair Economy. "Wealthy people are saying it themselves: We don't need a tax cut.”
Millionaires denouncing the bill could provide a double squeeze for Republican lawmakers representing wealthy blue-state constituencies where elimination of certain state and local deductions is already poised to disproportionately impact middle-class households.
That's going to be a hard vote for many of them to square if they're facing down both wealthy and middle-class voters.