'Traitors to their class': meet the super rich who want to be taxed more

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/13/patriotic-millionaires-super-rich-want-to-be-taxed-more

Adam Gabbatt in New York
@adamgabbatt
Fri 13 Dec 2019 06.00 EST

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A group known as The Patriotic Millionaires, including figures such as Abigail Disney, say the wealthy have too much influence and contribute too little

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Pearl resents how wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, pointing out that the Forbes list of the top 20 richest Americans includes three members of the Walton family, as well as both Koch brothers, Charles and David. There are six members of the Mars family – of the chocolate bar fortune – in the top 100.

“They’re not bad people; they had the good fortune to be born of parents who were multibillionaires,” Pearl says. “But I don’t see any reason why those people should pay less tax on the money they got than people that were born to working-class people, and are still working-class people.”

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Some members are questioning more than just the country’s tax structure. For Abigail Disney, the great-niece of Walt Disney, it’s about calling out America’s myths about wealth and success.

Disney believes the idea of truly self-made success is a fantasy; even her family’s own company would not have been successful without government subsidies.

“People who amass enormous amounts of wealth do so by relying very heavily on public services,” she says. “You know Disneyland would never have happened if Eisenhower hadn’t invested in the highways. They wouldn’t be a multinational corporation if there hadn’t been the Marshall Plan.”

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https://patrioticmillionaires.org

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