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Never before in American history have so few had so much wealth and power. Today, the top one percent owns more wealth than the bottom 93%. One man, Elon Musk, worth $805bn, owns more wealth than the bottom 53% of American households. And that inequality is getting worse. Last year alone, after receiving the largest tax break in history from Donald Trump, 938 billionaires in America became $1.5tn richer. Since he was elected, President Trump and his family have become $4bn richer. Never before in American history have we had such concentration of ownership. While profits soar, a handful of giant corporations dominate virtually every sector of our economy, charging higher and higher prices for the products they sell. Four Wall Street firms combined -BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, and State Street – are the major stockholders of more than 95% of American corporations. Never before in American history have so few billionaires controlled what we see, hear, and read in the media – both legacy media and social media. Never before in American history have we seen a ruling class, within a corrupt campaign finance system, wield the kind of political power it has today. In the 2026 midterm elections, just 50 billionaires have already spent over $433m to influence political campaigns and buy candidates who represent their interests. Bottom line: The richest people in America have never ever had it so good. That is one reality. Here’s the other reality. The American working class has been under savage attack for years. Over the last many decades there has been an explosion in technology and a huge increase in worker productivity. Despite that, the average American worker is making almost $20 a week less today than he or she did 53 years ago, after adjusting for inflation. According to the Rand Corporation, over the last 50 years, $79tn in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1%. Almost all of the gains in worker productivity have gone to the top 1%. Meanwhile, 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck and are struggling to pay the outrageously high cost of rent, health care, prescription drugs, groceries, childcare, and the basic necessities of life. Nearly half of older workers have nothing saved for retirement, and over 20% of our seniors are trying to make it on less than $15,000 a year. Tragically, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and over half a million go bankrupt each year because of medically-related debt. Why, in a nation of such extraordinary wealth, exploding technology, and greatly increased worker productivity, are so many people struggling just to stay alive? One of the major reasons is that we have a tax code that is totally rigged – written by representatives of the wealthy to benefit the wealthy. Instead of raising enough revenue to meet the needs of working families, corporate lobbyists have riddled the tax code with loopholes, allowing the wealthiest people and largest corporations in our country to avoid paying their fair share. In 2006, Warren Buffett famously said: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Mr. Buffett went on to say that he, a multibillionaire, pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. What Buffett said was true 20 years ago. It is even more accurate today. In America today, billionaires now pay a lower effective tax rate than the average worker. Elon Musk paid an effective tax rate of less than 3.3%, while the average truck driver paid 8.4%. Jeff Bezos, now worth $223bn, paid an effective tax rate of less than 1%, while the average firefighter paid 8.7%. Michael Bloomberg, worth $109bn, paid an effective tax rate of just 1.3%, while the average registered nurse paid 13.3%. And Warren Buffett? His tax rate was just 0.1%, while the average schoolteacher paid 9.8%. But it’s not just billionaires who are not paying their fair share. Last year, after Trump gave corporate America a tax break of more than $900bn, Tesla, SpaceX, Palantir, Ticketmaster, and the company that owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken paid zero in federal income taxes. These companies combined are worth $3.5tn. Their owners are worth over $853bn. They made over $17 billion in profits last year. And they paid nothing in federal income taxes. The American people are catching on. In California, by a 2-to-1 margin, voters support a tax on billionaires to prevent over 3 million people from losing health care. In New York City, over 62% of residents support Mayor Mamdani’s proposal for a 2% surtax on millionaires and billionaires. Nationally, more than six out of every ten Americans believe the amount of taxes paid by the wealthy and large corporations is too low. That is why I recently introduced a bill that would establish a 5% wealth tax on the 938 billionaires in America who collectively are worth more than $8.2tn. These 938 billionaires constitute 0.000003% of the population. Over a ten-year period, this bill would raise $4.4tn. What would this legislation accomplish? In the first year, we would provide every man, woman, and child in a household making $150,000 or less with a $3,000 direct payment. That is $12,000 for most families of four. We would end homelessness and the housing crisis in America by building 7 million units of low-income and affordable homes and apartments. We would expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing. We would provide universal childcare throughout America. We would strengthen public education by ensuring that no teacher in America makes less than $60,000 a year. In the midst of a major crisis in home health care, we would guarantee that seniors and people with disabilities receive the home health care they need through Medicaid. And let’s not forget: Donald Trump and his Republican friends in Congress threw 15 million Americans off their health care in order to provide a trillion-dollar tax break for the top 1%. Through this bill, we would repeal those health care cuts and ensure that none of those 15 million people lose their health care. In other words, we would provide all of this help and support to working families, the elderly, the children and the sick through a 5% tax on the wealth of 938 billionaires. Nobody with a net worth of less than a billion dollars would pay a penny more in taxes. And let me tell you how insane the level of wealth inequality is in America today. If this legislation had been enacted last year, Elon Musk would have owed $42bn more in taxes, leaving him with just $792 billion to survive. Mark Zuckerberg would have owed $11bn more, leaving him with a meager $209bn to feed his family. Jeff Bezos would also have owed about $11bn more, leaving him with just $207bn to put a roof over his head. In other words, despite raising an enormous amount of money that could improve life for hundreds of millions of Americans, the wealthiest people in this country have so much wealth that they would barely notice the difference. As Justice Louis Brandeis profoundly said back in 1933: “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” Let’s choose democracy over oligarchy. The wealthiest people in America must start paying their fair share of taxes. Let’s create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%. Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and ranking member of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont