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This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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Oligarchy Has Arrived. Congress Must Take Notice — and Act! [1]
['Bob Lord']
Date: 2025-05
The United States is experiencing a level of wealth inequality not seen since the original Gilded Age. This yawning gap between rich and poor has unfolded right out in the open, in full public view and with the support of both political parties.
A malignant class of modern robber barons has amassed unthinkably large fortunes. These wealthy have catastrophically impacted our politics. They have weaponized their wealth to co-opt, corrupt, and choke off representative democracy. They have purchased members of Congress and justices of the Supreme Court. They have manipulated their newfound political power to amass ever-larger fortunes.
The result? We can sum that up with a word usually associated with nations like Russia: oligarchy. Unless Congress takes action, inequality — and the instability inequality invariably produces — will only intensify.
The Patriotic Millionaires have been sounding out the alarm, over recent years, on inequality and oligarchy. More than most, our members — all men and women of substantial means — understand just how much wealth can buy. Wealth can even turn tax systems toxic.
In well-functioning democracies, tax systems serve as a firewall against undue wealth accumulation. By that yardstick, our contemporary U.S. tax system has failed spectacularly. Those of us in Patriotic Millionaires have witnessed that failure first-hand. Our nation’s current tax practices allow and even encourage obscene fortunes to metastasize while saddling working people with all the costs of that metastasizing. Years of this approach to taxation have hollowed out our middle class and our democracy.
Congress can change all that. Enter the OLIGARCH — Oppose Limitless Inequality Growth and Reverse Community Harms — Act. The architects of this legislation, led by Representatives Barbara Lee (CA-12) and Summer Lee (PA-12), have crafted a visionary approach to combat the existential threat to democracy we all now face. The OLIGARCH Act offers a powerful mechanism that can break the vicious cycle of unchecked wealth accumulation we now find ourselves trapped inside. That mechanism: a wealth tax tied directly to our level of inequality.
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[1] Url:
https://inequality.org/article/tax-the-rich-legislation/
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