If you’ve ever questioned whether our country has an inequality problem, this election should provide all the evidence you need. As billionaires used their financial firepower to throw support their preferred candidates’ way, Americans who’ve been left behind took out their frustrations at the ballot box.
How do we get started on this next chapter in the fight to reverse extreme inequality? With Senate Republicans still short of a filibuster-proof supermajority, next year’s debate over the expiration of the Trump tax cuts could still present one opportunity.
But it’s also likely that any near-term policy progress will have to start at the city and state levels and work its way up to the federal level. Three progressive tax victories from last night are an encouraging sign.
Washington state’s Initiative 2109 was the most important tax-related ballot measure of the year. Hedge fund executive Brian Heywood bankrolled this campaign, hoping to repeal the state’s innovative capital gains tax on high earners.
With 62 percent of votes counted, the rollback proposal went down in a 63-37 landslide.
“This victory shows that advocacy in support of creating a more equitable tax code works,” Melinda Young-Flynn, Communications Director at the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, told Inequality.org.
“So many groups and individuals – including business owners, labor unions, teachers, racial justice advocates, parents, lawmakers, and many more – have worked together for more than a decade to help the public at large in our state make the connection between commonsense progressive taxes and the very real needs of our communities.”
Introduced in 2022, Washington state’s path-breaking policy imposes a 7 percent excise tax on capital gains from the sale of stocks, bonds, and other assets that exceed $250,000 per year (excluding real estate sales). Who makes that much from their financial investments? Fewer than 1 percent of the state’s richest residents.
