Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, from Arizona to Alaska, from Iowa to Georgia, speaking to everyday Americans about rising costs, the health care system, and what government should do in return for their hard-earned tax dollars. At more than 55 town hall meetings, not a single person stood up to ask for a tax cut. Instead, people want rich people and big corporations to pay their fair share – so that the cost of living finally falls.
This message has not yet reached Washington.
Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Cory Booker (DN.J.) recently introduced new tax plans that would lower the tax burden on low-income and middle-class people. The suggestions are well-intentioned – but they are fighting the last war with a dusty script. The assumption that middle-class families primarily need a lower tax burden ignores reality. The affordability crisis isn’t about what families pay in April – it’s about what they have to pay every day or simply can’t afford.
Childcare is either not available or costs more than rent. Health care is unaffordable or simply inaccessible. Colleges and universities are overwhelming working families financially or leaving young people behind with mountains of debt. These obstacles are the result of a rigged system that has created a shortage of supply – and a supply problem cannot be solved with individual tax cuts.
What people really say
What I’ve heard over and over again – on doorsteps, in diners, at town halls: People are angry because their taxes no longer seem to buy anything for them, while those who benefit most from the system seem to pay the least or nothing at all. This is an argument for changing who pays taxes and how the money is spent – not for slapping a tax cut on people’s bullet wounds.
Polls bear this out. A February national survey conducted on behalf of Families Over Billionaires found that more than four in five likely voters support higher taxes on corporations and more than seven in 10 want the richest to pay more.
The crucial thing is that this is not a left-wing position, but a consensus. Two thirds of independents are in favor of higher taxes on large assets. The same number of US President Donald Trump voters: 51 percent want to raise taxes for wealthy individuals, 67 percent for corporations. Even after having the strongest arguments against had heard of higher taxes on the rich, more than two out of three respondents supported the measure.
A political advantage
This is also politically smart. Sixty percent of voters say they would support a candidate who supports higher taxes on billionaires. rather would support. Among Republican voters, this is true by a ratio of almost two to one.
The reason is simple. Americans are fed up with a system that treats “those up there” and “those down there” fundamentally differently. Inequality has become so glaring that many hard-working families feel they can no longer keep up – let alone move forward. Unsurprisingly, the same survey shows that “billionaires” are viewed negatively by 59 percent of respondents, while “the billionaire class” fares even worse: 66 percent have an unfavorable image of them.
I have experienced this myself. As our Canvassers knocked on more than 146,000 doors in eight congressional districts—deliberately targeting independents and moderate conservatives, not just core Democratic voters—the message that rich people should pay their fair share resonated widely.
“The system is rigged”
Conservative-oriented voters even reacted particularly strongly. Those who do not feel they belong to any party made up around 15 percent of our target group – but almost 20 percent of those who declared themselves ready to take concrete measures.
“The system is rigged” was not a partisan slogan. It reflected their everyday life.
Kenneth, a 72-year-old from Bakersfield, California, who has voted Republican for decades, answered the door when our Canvasser knocked. He has beaten cancer twice, lives with his third pacemaker – and is convinced that Medicaid saved his life. He had little use for the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. “Millionaires have to pay their fair share,” he said. For him this was not a political question. It was about ensuring that his health care – and that of his neighbors – remained funded.
What tax cuts cannot do
The bill, which gave massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans while cutting Medicaid and food aid for ordinary people, had a 64 percent bipartisan vote of disapproval when Republican lawmakers passed it last summer. Still, some Democrats seem to accept the right’s premise that the tax burden itself is the problem. She isn’t.
Van Hollen and Booker’s proposals miss the real problem: the things that taxes are supposed to help finance – reliable health care, child care, education and a secure pension – are out of reach for more and more people. Private markets do not deliver these services at prices that people can afford – or sometimes not at all.
The answer to “I can’t afford health care” is to provide health care. The answer to “childcare costs more than my mortgage” is: create affordable childcare. Tax cuts won’t build a single pediatrician’s practice or open a single new daycare space. And if basic services are lost, a modest tax break cannot replace them.
Tax the rich more heavily
Taxing wealthy individuals and corporations more consistently should be the starting point – not just to balance budgets, but to build systems that work for everyone. If you want a solid package of benefits for the middle class, you have to be honest about income. Undoing the cuts to the Big Beautiful Bill will require making the rich pay again. New taxes should be clearly tied to the programs they fund – so people can see exactly what they’re getting in return.
At the moment, citizens are one step ahead of politicians. They already believe that rich people should pay more. The question is whether the Democratic leadership will address them — or continue to propose half-measures that leave the argument to those who broke the system from the start.
Democrats need to update their playbook and expand their horizons. It is possible to tax the rich and corporations in a way that allows the government to provide tangible services that improve people’s lives and strengthen the country. You don’t have to sacrifice the revenue that makes real politics possible.
Kristen Crowell is Executive Director of Families Over Billionaires.
