Forty-Seven Millionaires Want To Save America

by Dick Mac

Coast to coast, patriotic millionaires are stating the obvious: the government needs more money and they should tax the millionaires.

Our government is not too big. Our government simply does not collect enough taxes to maintain civilization. Why? Because for the past thirty years the wealthiest Americans have been absolved of their responsibility to our nation. They have abandoned the United States, specifically, and civilization in general. They pay less and less taxes while the cost of maintaining civilization gets higher and higher.

We can all be reasonable about this. No, we shouldn't tax them at ridiculous percentages, but we have to start by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for people earning over a million dollars. Then we need to get the wealthiest to help save civilization.

I know the argument that allowing the rich to keep more of their money creates jobs.

That simply is not true. We have been letting them keep more and more of their money every year for the past thirty years and they have created no jobs. In fact many of them have off-shored more jobs in the last thirty years than the previous thirty years, and our nation is crumbling.

I am happy to pay my share, and I do so. There's a point at which I should pay more than others, and when I start earning a million bucks a year, I expect that I will have to pay even more in taxes.

It's called math. This is not rocket science!

Here is the first group of millionaires to announce that they are ready to pay more in taxes to save America. I have added links to the people for whom I could find some biographical, philanthropic, or civic information.

Dirk Aguilar, San Francisco, CA
Cynda Collins Arsenault, Superior, CO
Daniel Berger, Philadelphia, PA
Robert S. Bowditch Jr., Brookline, MA
Doug Carlston, San Rafael, CA
Ben Cohen, San Francisco, CA
David Desjardins, Burlingame, CA
Doug Edwards, Los Altos, CA
Bob Epstein, Berkeley, CA
Ronald Feldman, New York, NY
Christopher Findlater, Cheyenne, WY
Eric Fredricksen, Los Gatos, CA
Gail Furman, New York, NY
Ron Garret, Emerald Hills, CA
Garrett Gruener, Oakland, CA
Paul Haggis, Los Angeles, CA
Nick and Leslie Hanauer, Seattle, WA
John S. Johnson, New York, NY
William Jurika, Piedmont, CA
Joel Kanter, Vienna, VA
Joshua Kanter, Sandy, UT
Rochelle Kaplan, Salt Lake City, UT
John Katzman, New York, NY
Rob and Diane Lipp, Los Angeles, CA
Art Lipson, Salt Lake City, UT
Mario Morino, Rocky River, OH
Win McCormack, Portland, OR
Dennis Mehiel, New York, NY
Herbert Miller, Washington, DC
Vibhu Mittal, Palo Alto, CA
Moby, New York, NY
Peter Norvig, Palo Alto, CA
Morris Pearl, New York, NY
Gregory Rae, New York, NY
Bernard Rapoport, Waco, TX
Jonathan Rose, New York, NY
Guy and Jeanine Saperstein, Piedmont, CA
Heike Schmitz, Palo Alto, CA
Sybil Shainwald, New York, NY
Craig Silverstein, Mountain View, CA
Michael Steinhardt, New York, NY
Philippe and Katherine S. Villers, Concord, MA
Scott Wallace, Washington, DC
David and Vinitha Watson, Oakland, CA
George Zimmer, Piedmont, CA

Only 375,000 Americans have incomes of over $1,000,000

Between 1979 and 2007, incomes for the wealthiest 1% of Americans rose by 281%

During the Great Depression, millionaires had a top marginal [tax] rate of 68%

In 1963, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 91%

In 1976, millionaires had a top marginal tax rate of 70%

Today, millionaires have a top marginal tax rate of 35%

Reducing the income tax on top earners is one of the most inefficient ways to grow the economy according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office

44% of Congress people are millionaires

The tax cuts were never meant to be permanent

Letting tax cuts for the top 2% expire as scheduled would pay down the debt by $700 billion over the next 10 years

Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength