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Tax the Greedy Billionaires · Real Patriotism

0:00
Every day in America, the superw wealthy
0:02
are getting wealthier and more powerful.
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Think about private equity, buying up
0:06
homes across America, driving up the
0:09
price of housing for ordinary Americans,
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doing the same thing with hospitals and
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all kinds of businesses, and they just
0:15
get wealthier and wealthier and more and
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more powerful. One recent poll found
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that 77% of Americans believe that it is
0:24
time to tax the billionaires. I mean,
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you can't get 77% of Americans to grant
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pretty much anything in this divided
0:30
time, but that issue seems to unite us.
0:33
And my guest, Igor Volski, one of the
0:36
founders of tax the greedy billionaires,
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not mistaking where he's coming from, he
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believes that this is a political
0:42
movement and a political moment arriving
0:45
and he's working to make it happen. A
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lot of complicated problems concerning
0:50
taxing the billionaires, taxing the
0:52
superw wealthy in this country. And I
0:53
asked Igor about that, but he's got an
0:55
answer for it. And he's got an
0:57
interesting take on why this moment so
1:00
divided in our country can be the moment
1:02
when we take a new turn in tax policy
1:06
and maybe in our democracy itself. It's
1:08
a great conversation. I hope you like
1:10
it. If you do, hit the like and
1:12
subscribe button. And without further
1:14
ado, here is my conversation with Eager
1:16
Volski.
1:23
Eigorolski of Tax the Greedy
1:25
Billionaires. Great to see you. Thanks
1:27
for thanks for doing this.
1:28
>> Good to be with you, Terry.
1:30
>> Let me first start with that with the
1:32
name of of your campaign of this
1:34
organization, how it got started. Tax
1:38
the greedy billionaires. Vivid, fair.
1:43
>> We're very subtle uh as you hear. Uh but
1:46
greed is really a central component here
1:49
because look, particularly in America,
1:52
people want to be successful, people
1:55
want to make money. Uh and that's
1:58
terrific. But what we've seen
2:01
increasingly over the last couple of
2:03
years is people make so much money and
2:07
we think the threshold is about $50
2:09
million that that money affords them so
2:13
much power over the economy over the
2:17
democracy
2:19
that uh they do more harm for everyone
2:23
else uh than they do good. So kind of
2:27
gone are the days where you know you had
2:30
wealthy people really you know building
2:33
things improving society and we're now
2:36
increasingly moving into this arena
2:39
where the goal of so many billionaires
2:42
is to extract as much value as possible.
2:46
This is the greed piece. extract as much
2:49
value as possible from basic necessities
2:51
like housing, like health care, like
2:55
child care in order to enrich
2:57
themselves, by the way, more money than
2:59
they could they could ever spend in
3:01
multiple lifetimes and leave the rest of
3:04
us worse off. So, it's it's the greed
3:07
factor, that greed motivation that, you
3:09
know, we really need to chip away at.
3:12
You know, Eager, that's a an answer with
3:14
a lot in it, and I'm glad. This is a
3:16
subject that fascinates me, as I'm sure
3:18
it does a lot of people, infuriates me,
3:21
and and depresses me because the thing
3:24
about the United States of America, and
3:26
one of the reasons I think people
3:28
weren't all that keen, as keen as they
3:31
are in other Western countries, to max
3:33
out taxes for wealthy people because
3:35
they thought, okay, someday I might be
3:36
one. And you know, you earn, if you
3:39
earned it, fair enough. So you talk
3:42
about the political power there and the
3:44
lack of civic ethics. Yeah. In a way,
3:48
right? It used to be Rockefeller and
3:51
Cargi and and well beyond that
3:54
>> they felt an obligation to give back.
3:56
Not because it was some tax trick or not
4:00
for show but because it was in them that
4:03
the country had given them a lot and
4:05
they they should give a lot back. And
4:06
you don't see that. And I want you to
4:09
talk a little bit about the problem we
4:10
all know. You touched on it, but
4:13
describe it for me. This obscene
4:16
inequality of wealth. You see it in
4:18
graphs. It's shocking.
4:21
Talk about what we're looking at when we
4:23
talk about
4:24
>> the inequality of wealth and and trying
4:26
to remedy some of that by taxing the
4:29
billion.
4:29
>> Well, Terry, let me put it to you this
4:31
way. Uh there's a group of folks about
4:35
300,000 households across the country.
4:38
These are people who have about $50
4:41
million
4:43
of wealth. 50 million plus of wealth.
4:47
They are sitting collectively that
4:50
300,000 households are sitting on $40
4:53
trillion.
4:55
$40 trillion just to contextualize it
4:58
for folks is about three times what the
5:00
federal government spent last year and
5:03
is equivalent to the national debt. So
5:08
that's a whole lot of a whole lot of
5:11
money and when and of course with that
5:14
money right comes a whole lot of power
5:16
which is how we find ourselves in this
5:19
problem this perpetuating inequality and
5:23
your point about
5:25
you know people earning money in the
5:28
past giving back to society what we're
5:31
increasingly seeing is not necessarily
5:35
earning but extract raction
5:38
extracting money from again basic
5:41
necessities or as we're seeing with uh
5:45
the conversation around AI of extracting
5:48
everyone's work and everyone's knowledge
5:51
putting it into these powerful models uh
5:54
and now bragging pretty openly as you
5:57
know that they're going to take away
5:59
your livelihood. They're going to take
6:00
away your job. They're going to take
6:02
away all of the meaning that you give to
6:05
your life.
6:07
Why? What are what exactly are they
6:09
motivated by? Building some other kind
6:11
of world where they are the ones that
6:14
have the power. That's the kind of
6:16
extraction, the kind of greed that we
6:18
got to put a stop to.
6:20
>> Yeah. The lords of the large language
6:23
models essentially is what we're looking
6:25
at as a possible future. And and it is
6:28
just a gargantuan inequality. That's a
6:30
lot of money. So, let's talk Turkey.
6:34
Let's talk what it would look like.
6:36
We'll get to the problems passing such a
6:39
thing. Well, first let me talk about
6:40
public opinion.
6:41
>> Yeah,
6:41
>> this seems to me like an idea. We're
6:43
divided country.
6:45
>> How How does this idea play? I've heard
6:48
Democratic strategists saying, "Don't
6:50
talk about taxing the billionaires
6:52
because it sounds like class war and
6:54
that's still for an America that
6:56
considers itself upwardly mobile and
6:58
want people want to be that." That that
7:00
that's not good politics. So, talk about
7:02
the politics first. What do you see?
7:04
>> Yeah, Terry, I wouldn't listen to those
7:06
Democratic strategists. Uh you look at
7:09
opinion poll after opinion poll. We just
7:12
conducted a an opinion poll uh that
7:14
showed that taxing billionaires
7:17
specifically is popular with 77% of
7:21
voters generally. 65%
7:25
of Republicans support taxing
7:28
billionaires. I believe the number for
7:30
independents is 71%.
7:33
So there's broad support and broad
7:37
understanding
7:39
not just about the way we usually talk
7:42
about this issue of tax the ultra
7:44
weealthy pull in some revenue invest
7:46
that revenue in key programs and
7:49
infrastructures and communities but also
7:52
this and I keep coming back to it Tara
7:54
because it's so important this idea of
7:56
power because I think in 2026 and
8:01
certainly as we get closer to 2028,
8:04
we're going to be and maybe it will be
8:07
really our last chance to shift power
8:10
away from these folks towards working
8:14
families and working people. And so what
8:18
opinion polls show and I think you know
8:20
in our increasing conversations with
8:22
lawmakers, what they're understanding is
8:26
that it's not enough to just pull in
8:29
some revenue and fund key initiatives
8:32
and leave that group of ultra rich
8:36
individuals
8:37
with uh usually with more money, right?
8:41
Because you know how it compounds like
8:42
like crazy. You have to ensure that
8:46
you're using the lever of tax policy in
8:50
order to make these folks less rich, in
8:54
order to make sure they have less. And
8:59
let me give you an example again. If you
9:01
go back to public opinion in our poll,
9:03
someone like Bernie Sanders who's
9:06
associated with this idea, as you know,
9:08
over decades and decades and decades, is
9:11
incredibly popular, certainly among
9:13
Democratic primary voters,
9:16
as compared to someone like Gavin
9:18
Newsome, the governor of California, who
9:21
has a very unclear position on taxing
9:24
the ultra wealthy, who's friends with a
9:27
lot of very rich people, who
9:29
>> he dines with them during
9:31
>> co
9:32
love a good dinner uh invites them to to
9:36
his wedding. Um and so now as a I mean
9:40
well I don't know if the two things are
9:41
connected. You'd have to bring him on
9:43
here and ask him. But he's opposing a
9:46
ball ballot initiative here in
9:47
California that would impose a one-time
9:50
tax of 5% on literally 200 individuals
9:55
in California in order to help fund
9:58
health care for millions of
10:02
Californians. Um, so in our poll, we
10:07
just asked folks, "How do you feel uh
10:10
when you learn that Gavin Newsome, the
10:13
governor, doesn't want to tax
10:15
billionaires?" And support for him among
10:18
the general electorate drops by over 20
10:22
percentage points and among Democratic
10:24
primary voters by over 40 percentage
10:27
points. We're in a in a moment now in
10:31
2026 where people get it. It's in their
10:35
lives every single day and they want to
10:38
see leaders who really reflect that
10:41
ethos.
10:42
>> That's fascinating. Yeah. 77% support
10:45
for taxing the billionaires. You can't
10:46
get 77% of Americans to agree it's
10:49
Tuesday, which it is right now as we
10:51
record this. I mean, seriously, it's it
10:54
we are such a divided nation. to see a
10:56
number like that. Well, in a democracy,
11:00
you'd think that position would happen,
11:03
that that the proposal would get passed.
11:05
And of course, it's not within a long
11:08
shot of getting past. It has some legal
11:09
issues, which I want to talk about, but
11:11
I also want to talk about about the
11:13
sense of leveling. Okay. You did say
11:15
make them less wealthy. How much would
11:19
you tax h households or or individuals I
11:22
should say over the o with wealth net
11:25
worth over $50 million? What would the
11:28
tax rate be above that?
11:30
>> Yeah. Well, we have a proposal where uh
11:33
you know you keep the the first $50
11:35
million isn't subject to taxation, but
11:38
the first dollar over that $50 million
11:42
it's a 5% tax. So that's to say that for
11:46
every dollar over $50 million, you pay a
11:49
nickel.
11:50
>> And then the second threshold is $250
11:54
million.
11:55
And for every dollar above that, you pay
11:58
a dime. It's called the nickel and dime
12:00
or the the five and dime tax. Yeah. Has
12:03
a nice ring to it, right? Uh and that
12:06
brings in uh about $6.8 trillion over
12:11
over the 10-year window. And by the way,
12:13
that accounts for a lot of uh tax
12:17
avoidance and tax dodging that as we
12:19
know the ultra wealthy are just so so
12:22
good um at doing. Um and significantly
12:27
it makes them less rich. Um but of
12:31
course look that's just one policy
12:33
proposal. You need uh a package. Uh you
12:38
need to tax uh their income. you need to
12:40
tax their inheritance. Uh you need to
12:43
make sure you're taxing capital gains in
12:45
a way that's equivalent with um with
12:48
with work. Um and so there's a whole lot
12:52
we want to do um in order to again just
12:56
rebalance
12:58
our society and to give more power to
13:01
the overwhelming majority of Americans
13:05
>> because it's about power. Money, money
13:07
is power and money at that level
13:10
>> is real power. We've just seen a
13:12
billionaire,
13:13
>> you know, rampage with a bunch of
13:16
teenagers more or less through the
13:17
federal government achieving nothing
13:19
except destruction. I mean, the savings
13:21
are minimal at, you know, when actually
13:23
when Elon Musk said, "I can whack
13:25
whatever it was, uh, 400 billion. I I
13:28
can't remember what it was, 4 billion,
13:30
400 billion out of the federal budget,"
13:31
I was like, "Well, okay. You know,
13:34
you're a business guy. Maybe it's in
13:36
maybe it's in there. Have a whack at it.
13:38
And
13:39
>> you know, Terry, we we've seen this time
13:40
and time again, right? People who become
13:43
very wealthy in a particular field
13:47
suddenly believe that they're actually
13:49
turns out experts in everything.
13:52
>> So true.
13:53
>> You see what in your industry what Jeff
13:55
Bezos did to the Washington Post. You
13:58
see in billionaire-run private equity
14:01
schemes that go into health care or go
14:04
into retail and go into housing and tank
14:08
those companies, extract profits and
14:12
leave. Uh there's just this I don't know
14:16
maybe something happens when uh you have
14:19
all that money and that gives and it
14:20
gives you all that power that in some
14:23
way it really just goes to your head and
14:26
you um believe that you know it all and
14:30
we've seen certainly with Mr. Musk and
14:33
and with others that is far far far from
14:36
true.
14:37
>> Yeah. Yeah. And they they have the power
14:39
in their own ideas as you say which come
14:42
really just kind of out of the back of
14:43
their mind. I can fix society. Peter
14:47
Teal talks about a different kind of
14:49
society all together. It's a little it's
14:52
a little crackpot. I do find it a little
14:54
bit charming almost that not not the
14:57
power not the exercise of it but and the
15:00
reason is I had a I had a friend who got
15:02
very very uh wealthy an acquaintance
15:04
more than a friend. And uh when I'd go
15:06
over to his house um a couple of times I
15:10
he he would lean back I'd be reading
15:12
what are you reading? You know I'd read
15:14
a book of poetry or some such thing and
15:17
but he opined and and I kind of thought
15:20
now when it comes that's kind of cute.
15:23
But when it comes to rearranging the
15:25
government, rearranging society,
15:26
purchasing politicians and power in
15:29
order to rearrange things the way they
15:32
want, obviously that is a danger. And it
15:35
sounds to me like you're saying
15:37
Americans get that. They get not just
15:40
the inequality piece, but the power
15:42
piece.
15:43
>> Yeah. No, and most importantly, Terry,
15:45
they get how billionaire wealth is
15:48
impacting their lives. I mean, our poll
15:51
found a real deep understanding of how
15:55
billionaire activity in the housing
15:58
sector, where they're buying up single
16:01
family homes at incredible rates and
16:04
jacking up those costs, making it harder
16:06
for families to buy their first home.
16:10
When billionaires buy up apartment
16:12
buildings, entire apartment communities,
16:15
and gut them of services and amenities
16:17
and increase the cost dramatically. when
16:19
billionaires buy up hospitals um and
16:23
then shave off all of the nonprofitable
16:26
uh parts of that hospital particularly
16:27
in rural communities that's so
16:29
devastating you know people I think are
16:32
increasingly increasingly understand
16:35
that the problem of extreme wealth isn't
16:38
just a question of fairness or democracy
16:43
that it actually sits at their kitchen
16:46
table that it's impacting their lives
16:49
directly that it's taking money out of
16:53
their wallets and that's why I think you
16:57
see that 77%
16:59
and you see particularly once you lay
17:01
that out for voters support for taxing
17:05
billionaires go even north of 77% if you
17:09
make it uh relatable to people's daily
17:13
lives to how they interact with with the
17:16
economy with with basic goods That's
17:19
where you really can build an incredibly
17:22
powerful movement in order to
17:25
restructure the system, shift power away
17:28
from the billionaires and towards real
17:29
people. And I tell you that as we begin
17:32
to have this conversation about who
17:34
should be president in 2028 and you have
17:38
all of these folks who are winking with
17:40
their left eye and their right eye,
17:42
maybe I'm exploring, maybe are running.
17:45
They have a really uh welldefined lane
17:50
in which to position themselves as the
17:54
candidate who believes billionaires
17:56
should have less power and working
17:59
families should have more. And by the
18:00
way, I believe that's the limpus test
18:02
for 2028. Whose side are you on?
18:06
And that that no without question has
18:09
has grabbed people's attention as the
18:11
polls show. And the way you're framing
18:13
it too to talk about it's a threat to
18:15
our democracy is a little little
18:18
abstract, right? To say that buying up
18:20
houses and driving driving the price
18:22
driving up the price of housing is
18:25
another thing. I do think however
18:27
there's also for me that sense of of
18:32
social conscience right of of connection
18:34
to the national community in a
18:36
responsible way. And I think my dad did
18:39
very very well uh in in his life. He he
18:42
worked for more than three decades at
18:44
Sears Robuck back when it was a
18:46
Fortune50 company. he got to a very high
18:48
level in that company and yet you know
18:52
and he was handsomely uh recompensed but
18:54
what he didn't have and because they
18:56
hadn't quite shifted the game of
18:59
corporate leadership
19:01
>> he had income they didn't they didn't
19:03
dump a giant amount of wealth on him and
19:06
I often wondered
19:08
why the men and most of them were men of
19:10
his generation didn't grab all the money
19:12
they could out of those companies like
19:14
like corporate chieftains do today. And
19:17
it occurred to me he was a World War II
19:19
veteran. He'd been through the
19:21
depression with with uh the guys who
19:24
walked the shop floor and he would have
19:26
been ashamed to make 300 400 times what
19:29
the average worker made. And we're
19:31
looking at and so that's a piece that I
19:33
I don't know if it resonates
19:34
politically, but it it does with me the
19:37
sense not in any socialistic way, but in
19:40
a solidarity. We're all in this together
19:43
and it seems wrong that guy I once went
19:46
to ask Michael Eisner who was the head
19:47
of Disney when I was at ABC. Why are you
19:49
paying yourself $100 million a year and
19:52
laying people off? He didn't like it.
19:56
What did he say? You know what he said?
19:59
He said, "I'm worth it." He said, "When
20:01
I when I took over this company, they
20:02
were going to break it up. They were
20:03
going to sell the hotels to Marriott and
20:05
the studio to whatever United Artists
20:07
and I've I've fixed it." Whatever. Well,
20:10
how does that adage go, right? Absolute
20:12
power corrupts absolutely. Uh, yeah, I
20:16
think that's part of the problem. And
20:17
you point to this idea of of of shared
20:19
prosperity, of shared values. I mean
20:22
these are themes right that past leaders
20:25
have um have have really helped rally us
20:30
around one community um some degree of
20:35
of of unity some degree of togetherness
20:38
uh all of that has really um eroded and
20:42
I can't help but wonder to what degree
20:46
has social media played a role in
20:49
dividing us in separating ating us
20:52
obviously in showing us different kinds
20:54
of truth and different kinds of content
20:57
based on the algorithm. how much
21:00
certainly in the past what is it now 16
21:02
years that Trump came onto the political
21:04
scene um that his view of the world
21:07
which is obviously you know it's eat or
21:10
be eaten um has really pervaded our
21:13
culture and our politics but you know if
21:17
you I think in my experience if you talk
21:20
to the American people and you point out
21:23
that pay disparity
21:25
uh people are shocked
21:27
um and people want want to do something
21:30
about it. And so even if a lot of the
21:34
leaders in our society uh have this
21:38
mentality of greedy, greedy, greedy,
21:40
I'll take I'll take in as much as I
21:42
possibly can. Um I don't know that
21:45
that's true broadly. And I I think the
21:50
great challenge is how do you take all
21:53
of this um anxiety around extreme wealth
21:57
around what billionaires are doing to
21:59
people's lives around what's happening
22:01
to AI and how do you channel it around a
22:05
new shared vision and a new kind of
22:08
economy where I as a working person can
22:13
have agency over what my life would look
22:15
like over what kind of job I can have. I
22:19
mean, you know, these are just such
22:21
basic staples of what it actually means
22:24
to be human. And on some level, that's
22:27
what the billionaires are trying to
22:29
strip away from us.
22:31
>> Yeah. And if you think about it
22:32
politically, 10 years ago when when uh
22:35
when Bernie Sanders ran, you know, he
22:37
came within a whisker of getting that
22:39
that nomination. It was only the
22:41
superdelegates, the the Democratic
22:43
establishment that that stopped him
22:46
under the rules. I don't you know, I'm
22:47
not saying there was any kind of, you
22:49
know, Trump loves to say was stolen
22:51
from, he should know about stolen
22:52
elections, but but that what would that
22:55
race have looked like, right?
22:58
Bernie Sanders, who I think made one of
23:00
the most beautiful campaign commercials
23:02
I ever saw, just the Simon Garfuncle
23:04
song, all come home to America, whatever
23:07
that was. Yeah. uh showing that that
23:10
sense of togetherness that you're
23:12
talking about versus Trump, you know,
23:14
who's a very different appeal. But let's
23:16
talk let's talk brass tax a little bit
23:18
about about the nickel and dime tax. I
23:20
love it, but we should tell people there
23:24
is a constitutional problem with it,
23:26
right? There is the constitution
23:29
prohibits
23:30
direct taxes and the income tax is only
23:34
law because of a constitutional
23:36
amendment that accepted income and
23:39
wealth. How much stock, how much stock
23:43
you own, the investments that you have,
23:45
whatever it might be, that's not income.
23:48
And so the the feeling goes, especially
23:50
with the Supreme Court, that if you
23:52
passed a tax like the one you're talking
23:54
about, it would be struck down as
23:56
unconstitutional. How do you answer
23:58
that?
23:58
>> Well, look, I'm not going to debate the
24:00
constitutional technicalities around it.
24:03
But what I will tell you is that there
24:05
is a body of research and a growing
24:07
number of scholars who argue that the
24:10
wealth tax can be in fact
24:13
constitutional. So that's a question
24:14
that is very much I believe open up to
24:17
debate. But you bring up the other
24:20
stumbling block which is the current
24:22
composition of the Supreme Court. Some
24:25
of those justices as we know from some
24:28
of the terrific reporting of the last
24:29
couple of years are literally beholden
24:31
to billionaires. Okay. Um, and I think
24:35
that points to really the crisis we're
24:39
discussing of billionaires having too
24:42
much power over our economy, over our
24:45
politics, and in this case over
24:47
institutions,
24:49
landmark benchmark institutions of
24:52
government. And so I understand uh that
24:55
this will be a real effort. Um but I
24:59
also look back at um for instance uh the
25:04
LGBTQ community who when the effort for
25:07
marriage equality started in the 1970s
25:12
nobody would have thought that we would
25:14
be in a place uh you know where where
25:17
where marriage was the law of the land
25:19
or if you look at how conservatives have
25:22
approached the court of slowly over
25:25
decades chipping away at people's rights
25:28
right making their case when it comes to
25:30
for instance abortion and are now in a
25:32
place uh where they succeeded in
25:35
overturning Roe vie Wade. So I don't
25:39
want to design polities policies for
25:43
what I think a future court will say. I
25:47
want to design policies based on what is
25:51
needed in our country right now and then
25:55
over time have that battle uh with
25:58
whatever the future composition of the
26:00
court would be uh if the court for
26:03
instance is reformed in in various ways.
26:06
So this isn't a moment to put ourselves
26:09
in a box. If we learn anything Terry
26:12
from some of these billionaires is that
26:14
you got to think big. And I think what
26:18
the trap that a lot of you mentioned
26:20
these Democratic operatives fall into is
26:23
that they lead with their cynicism
26:26
>> and they assume because of their years
26:29
of working in politics that a it's like
26:31
really hip to be cynical. I uh it
26:35
underscores some kind of experience. Um
26:38
but it's also incredibly corrosive
26:41
because it really blinds you and it
26:44
really limits you. Um, I'm someone who
26:47
spent a lot of time working in the gun
26:49
violence prevention movement. Uh, and
26:51
I've been told uh over my years in that
26:54
movement about how progress was
26:56
absolutely impossible. And I always said
26:59
to people, if you believe that we can't
27:02
make progress in saving people's lives,
27:06
you need to go do something else. You're
27:08
simply too cynical. And I think the same
27:12
is true here that if you believe that
27:15
the only thing we can do is tinker
27:17
around the edges because you've already
27:19
decided what the court's going to look
27:22
like in the next couple of years and
27:24
what's going to be possible. I
27:26
appreciate that that's your opinion, but
27:28
I don't think it actually reflects how
27:31
big change gets done when you think big
27:35
and you really make an effort.
27:38
>> Good for you. I love that attitude. And
27:40
it reminds me so I'm not a a man of the
27:43
contemporary left that much despite what
27:45
my reputation might now be just as a you
27:47
know as a personal American voter. I'm
27:49
you know voted for Republicans in my
27:52
life as well as Democrats probably a
27:54
little little more to the liberal side a
27:55
little more to the Democratic side maybe
27:57
a lot but not but I loved Zoron
28:00
Mandani's campaign for the mayoral state
28:02
of New York for exactly that reason that
28:04
all American can do. Let's fix it. We
28:08
can think big. We can dream big. We can
28:10
do big things if we do them together.
28:12
These are problems that have festered
28:14
for a while because people say, "Well,
28:15
you can't really get at them. You can't
28:17
fix them." Uh, and I I think that
28:19
attitude is infectious as he showed.
28:22
Now, the job of governing is harder. But
28:24
I think that spirit of of
28:27
experimentation and let's, you know, my
28:30
uncle has a barn. Let's put on a show as
28:32
they as they used to say, right? You
28:33
know,
28:34
>> exactly.
28:35
>> Let's do it. I think the country's
28:38
spirits need to be lifted in that way.
28:40
Uh the feeling of possibility in
28:43
American society has narrowed and
28:46
shrunken and boy a jolt of that would I
28:49
think help get us past these divisions.
28:51
I love I kind of love this subject but
28:53
I'm going to play Scrooge a little bit
28:56
or the opposite. Whatever the problems,
28:58
right? What is wealth when it comes to
29:02
taxation? It differs. Look, you see the
29:04
stock market go up, stock market de go
29:06
down. People say Elon Musk lost X
29:09
billion dollar, whatever. How do you tax
29:12
something whose value is fluid in the
29:16
stock market, in other markets? Property
29:18
sometimes goes up in value for certain
29:20
reasons or down. How do you work that
29:23
out in law?
29:24
>> I I'm going to leave those details to
29:26
the to the policy wonks. Uh there look,
29:30
if there's a will, there there's a way.
29:33
And I think if we look at countries
29:34
around the world, some of whom have
29:37
figured out how to create an effective
29:39
wealth tax, there are lessons to be
29:41
learned there. Um, but I also think, you
29:45
know, a wealth tax isn't particularly
29:47
exotic. Uh, if you think about it, so
29:50
many of us pay what is the equivalent of
29:53
a wealth tax on our houses, our biggest
29:56
asset. Um, so this idea that we're
30:00
asking for something special or or or
30:03
new um simply isn't the case. And as you
30:08
know, Terry, we've had moments in our
30:11
history just to normalize this a little
30:13
bit more where the wealthy paid
30:16
significantly more taxes in in taxes,
30:20
right? I think it was north of 91% I
30:23
believe was was the very top during the
30:25
FDR FDR years a moment where we had some
30:30
of the greatest prosperity for the
30:33
middle class uh that our country can
30:36
remember because FDR understood that
30:40
autocracy and democracy can't coexist
30:44
that it's really either one or or the
30:47
other and you know the recently number
30:49
new numbers came out showing that $300
30:52
billionaires spent $3 billion in the
30:56
2024 election. That's 19% of all federal
31:02
spending. I mean, that is insane. And so
31:06
they're the ones, right, who are buying
31:09
the politicians and funding the
31:11
academics who uh like like like we saw
31:15
with tobacco, like we saw um in in in
31:19
the gun violence prevention movement who
31:21
are funding these efforts around you can
31:23
never figure it out. It's just too
31:25
complicated to figure out. Um it's
31:29
definitely unconstitutional. I guarantee
31:31
you 100%. Um so uh so I would uh you
31:36
know I I I would I look at these things
31:39
with a degree of skepticism
31:42
um and frankly an understanding that
31:46
also when there are you know a
31:48
billionaire can figure out uh net worth
31:51
uh for instance when they want to I
31:53
don't know get a loan or buy that yacht
31:55
or buy that private jet where you need
31:58
you know to show a certain degree of
32:00
income. I am sure that if we try really
32:03
really hard, we can figure out how we uh
32:06
how we effectively um uh and correctly
32:11
uh decide uh you know how much wealth
32:13
you have and then impose the tax on
32:15
that.
32:17
>> That's a great point. So, and I I never
32:19
thought about mortgage as being
32:20
essentially right. I pay federal tax on
32:23
on my house, which is an asset should be
32:26
no different than Elon Musk's assets or
32:28
Jeff Bezos's assets or whatever. And
32:31
that political that political power you
32:34
just described. It's shocking to me in a
32:37
way, it shouldn't be, but it is that all
32:40
those guys, not Musk so much, but to a
32:42
little degree, but all Bezos and
32:44
Zuckerberg and Tim Cook and all of them,
32:47
they were the wokest cos CEOs in
32:50
history, right? They all were uh and
32:52
they they basically were super
32:54
progressive
32:56
when it was okay, when it was good
32:58
advertising or whatever. And they turned
33:00
on a dime and they were all at that
33:02
inauguration and Bezos took the
33:04
democracy dies in darkness thing off the
33:06
post and is gutting it and and what you
33:09
see is they didn't mean a damn word of
33:11
it. They didn't mean anything. At the
33:13
end of the day, it was all about either
33:14
prestige or bottomline business stuff.
33:18
And so they can't be trusted with the
33:20
power since they don't seem to have any
33:22
principles behind it.
33:23
>> Well, and of course, as we saw from the
33:26
recent uh court decisions around the
33:28
ways in which uh Mark Zuckerberg and
33:31
Meta knowingly
33:33
uh put out products that harm children
33:37
uh and had no problem with it because it
33:40
um it made them more money. uh or the
33:43
ways in which some of the new reporting
33:45
that came out in the New Yorker just
33:47
yesterday uh of how Sam Olman uh and and
33:51
his team were considering all kinds of
33:54
just insane things um in order to to
33:58
make more money. Starting rivalries
34:00
between superpowers in order to make
34:03
more money with absolutely no
34:05
consideration what it means for society
34:08
or culture, right? because apparently
34:11
they're also building underground
34:13
bunkers in order to protect themselves
34:15
when when when things go poorly. Um but
34:18
you know I I'll also say since we're
34:21
we're in this place of uh the history of
34:25
wealth um that if you go out a little
34:27
further and maybe expand your view uh
34:31
there have been many moments in world
34:33
history where uh oligarchs, autocrats,
34:38
the very wealthy were toppled because
34:42
the overwhelming majority of people um
34:46
said they had enough. And so there's a
34:49
view of all of this that says that
34:52
taxation
34:53
that uh equals the scales a little more
34:58
that shifts the power towards working
35:02
families is actually
35:05
um the most I don't know moderate
35:09
easiest
35:10
uh least
35:13
consequential way uh to deal with this
35:16
crisis. is because at the end of the day
35:18
you're the numbers are stacked against
35:22
them right there's what 800 900
35:24
billionaires in this country roughly
35:26
something like that compared to what is
35:29
it 300 million Americans at this point
35:33
right so um again this is why I think
35:37
right now is a real inflection point and
35:40
why by the way you see organizations
35:43
like patriotic millionaires who are
35:46
millionaires calling to be taxed. Um uh
35:50
and and other um ultra-wealthy
35:53
individuals slowly starting to recognize
35:56
that maybe the pendulum is swinging to a
36:00
place where uh folks will have no option
36:04
than to um to get a little more
36:06
aggressive. So taxation in that context
36:11
feels like, you know, as they always
36:13
say, where's the off-ramp? as the
36:15
offramp.
36:16
>> Yeah, that is the that's the sane
36:20
approach to the problem should be in the
36:22
American democracy. FDR used to say to
36:25
the capitalists who hated him, you know,
36:28
they're the richest men in America,
36:31
despised Franklin Roosevelt, and he had
36:33
them in the Oval Office at one point
36:34
said, "I'm not." They said, "You're
36:36
trying to end capitalism." He says, "I'm
36:38
saving capitalism." And and right now
36:41
that that sense of frustration that
36:42
people's lives, no matter how hard they
36:44
work, Bill Clinton used to say, if you
36:47
if you play by the rules and you pay
36:49
your taxes and you do the right thing,
36:50
you should get ahead of this country.
36:52
>> And there are millions upon millions of
36:54
people doing just that.
36:55
>> Really good people. Some of them voted
36:57
for Trump, some of them didn't vote for
36:58
Trump. They're all feeling the strain
37:00
and stress. And that could
37:02
>> well and there's also millions of small
37:05
business owners of entrepreneurs
37:08
who are being pushed out of markets by
37:12
these huge corporations by monopolies.
37:15
Uh you know we I mean this is such a
37:17
common thing of these big companies
37:20
buying up competitors before that you
37:23
could have real competition in the
37:24
marketplace. So this idea of saving
37:28
capitalism, I think you you you really
37:31
underscore something that has actually
37:34
resonated, at least in our work, with
37:37
more moderate lawmakers, a real
37:39
understanding that maybe what we want is
37:43
a lot more millionaires and a lot fewer
37:47
aka zero billionaires. Um because
37:52
when you when you have so many resources
37:55
all concentrated at the very very top um
37:58
by definition it's very difficult for
38:01
anyone else who has a good idea uh who
38:04
is a real visionary to get their
38:06
business off the ground if you know if
38:09
the market is essentially closed by
38:12
monopoly players and by the ultra
38:14
wealthy.
38:15
>> Yeah. And a lot of those a lot of those
38:17
corporations and the people who have
38:19
gotten wealthy off of them to the
38:21
world's end, it was basically because of
38:24
network effects, right? First one in,
38:26
you make all the money. Did Microsoft
38:27
have the best product in the world? Not
38:29
necessarily. They were just first there.
38:30
And that the same with some of these
38:32
other things and that's the game of AI
38:34
right now. But let's look at the road
38:36
map ahead. So what what does it look
38:40
like to make this happen? You mentioned
38:42
maybe a candidate picks it up in the in
38:45
the in the coming presidential campaign,
38:48
but you still have the structural
38:49
problem with Congress being kind of
38:50
bought and paid for uh in so many ways.
38:54
What's the roadmap to making this
38:55
happen?
38:56
>> Well, look, we're already in a place
38:58
here in 2026 where you have a growing
39:01
number of midterm candidates really
39:05
embracing this issue and seeing
39:07
significant success, right? like someone
39:09
like Graham someone like Graeme Platner
39:11
up in Maine who's running for that
39:13
Senate seat against Susan Collins. I
39:16
mean, he's outperforming
39:18
according to an Emerson poll recently.
39:21
He's outperforming
39:22
the sitting governor of Maine by about
39:26
30 percentage points. And he has
39:29
centralized in his campaign this idea
39:33
about taxing the ultra wealthy, taxing
39:36
wealth in a way that the the main
39:39
governor a hasn't and just recently did
39:44
a backseat and said oh well actually I
39:47
would support initiatives to tax
39:49
millionaires. There's there's this
39:50
growing sense this kind of growing
39:53
understanding
39:55
uh of the importance of being on the
39:58
right side of this issue. You even look
40:00
at the Michigan Senate race, right? You
40:02
have at least two candidates in that
40:05
race who uh support uh taxing wealth. I
40:09
mean, you even look at red to blue seats
40:13
in this cycle. Um, I'm thinking of
40:16
particularly of a congressional race in
40:18
Montana for the House seat there. You
40:21
don't think of of of Democrats in
40:24
Montana as being, you know, kind of died
40:26
in the wool liberals or progressives. Uh
40:29
but even there um I was just talking to
40:32
to one of those candidates who said that
40:36
he centers this uh issue in his stump
40:41
speeches because voters ask him about
40:44
it. What is he going to do about uh the
40:48
way that billionaires are controlling so
40:51
much of our public life? So I would
40:52
argue in terms of this road map, we're
40:55
already moving in the right direction.
40:58
Um, and so in in 2027, hopefully that's
41:04
a real opportunity to have a uh a much
41:08
more robust conversation about what are
41:12
the levers, what are the tools that we
41:15
need in order to chip away at the power
41:18
and money of extreme wealth. And then I
41:21
think, as I've been saying, that it
41:23
should really be at the center of the
41:26
2028 dialogue. I mean, I I I would love
41:30
to see all of the candidates lined up
41:33
for those primary debates and arguing
41:37
who would do more to rebalance power in
41:41
our society, from billionaires to
41:44
working families. I think that's a
41:45
conversation that's really in the
41:47
zeitgeist. And then starting in 2029, as
41:51
you know, that's hopefully right where
41:55
the real work begins of really figuring
41:59
out how do you uh overcome so many of
42:05
the structural barriers in order to uh
42:08
to to to to pass those kinds of
42:11
policies. is, you know, I started my
42:12
career uh working on the Affordable Care
42:15
Act uh before it was uh before President
42:18
Obama's election when it was just a
42:20
general idea. Um and you'll remember,
42:23
Terry, how hard uh that 9-month journey
42:27
from which I still have battle scars on
42:30
my body was. But we ultimately got to a
42:33
place um where we still have uh the
42:36
Affordable Care Act as the law of the
42:37
land. So, you know, these are
42:40
challenges. There are going to be
42:42
obstacles. It's going to be a real
42:44
grind, but our nation has done hard
42:47
things in the past, things people never
42:51
thought were going to be possible. We've
42:54
made progress just in in my lifetime.
42:57
Um, and so, uh, I'm confident that if
43:02
you have folks who are go who are
43:05
running for office really lean into this
43:08
issue in a smart way, if they can bring
43:11
people together around a shared vision
43:15
of prosperity for all, not just of
43:18
prosperity for the very few. uh that we
43:22
can begin to move towards that goal
43:25
where we have more millionaires and no
43:28
billionaires.
43:31
Well, that is a truly optimistic way of
43:34
closing down this conversation because
43:36
it does lift one's spirit. As I say,
43:38
it's there's an all-Americanness
43:41
to problem solving in general. And our
43:44
government has kind of frozen up in its
43:46
ability to do that. And this is in the
43:49
eyes of a lot of people the key to
43:51
unfreezing it to unlocking the potential
43:54
of of us being able to solve our
43:56
problems without uh you know without the
43:59
force of super wealth getting in the way
44:02
every every every place. Well, Igor, it
44:04
was great to talk to you. I I thank you.
44:07
It's been a great conversation. Good
44:08
luck. Maybe we'll have you back as as
44:10
the campaign goes on.
44:11
>> Pleasure, Terry. Thank you.