NPI to Legislature: Washington State should levy a wealth tax on billionaire fortunes

Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing are the pre­pared remarks of NPI’s founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor in sup­port of levy­ing a wealth tax on bil­lion­aire for­tunes. Bills to do this have been intro­duced this ses­sion in both the House and the Sen­ate. The Sen­ate Ways & Means Com­mit­tee held a hear­ing on its ver­sion this evening. 

Good evening, Senators.

For the record, I’m Andrew Vil­leneuve from the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, here in strong sup­port of Sen­ate Bill 5426.

We’ve heard a lot of tes­ti­mo­ny so far tonight on why Wash­ing­ton should levy a wealth tax. Our team has been study­ing this idea as part of our statewide research, and it’s one of the most pop­u­lar tax reform ideas we have ever test­ed. Our polling and oth­er polling we’ve seen is extreme­ly robust. Sup­port for a wealth tax starts at about 60% and goes up from there in the body of polling we’ve seen.

Here is the text of the ques­tion we asked in our May 2021 statewide sur­vey and the respons­es that we received from near­ly 1,000 like­ly voters:

QUESTION: Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose, or strong­ly oppose levy­ing a one per­cent wealth tax on Wash­ing­ton res­i­dents whose world­wide wealth exceeds one bil­lion dol­lars, to ben­e­fit pub­lic ser­vices here in our state?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 60% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 50%
  • Some­what sup­port: 10%
• Oppose: 36%
  • Some­what oppose: 11%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 25%
• Not sure: 5%

Our sur­vey of 992 like­ly 2022 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field from Tues­day, May 25th through Wednes­day, May 26th, 2021.

The poll uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (50%) and text mes­sage answers from cell phone only respon­dents (50%).

It was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.1% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

Why are Wash­ing­to­ni­ans so enthu­si­as­tic about levy­ing a wealth tax?

Our team thinks it’s because the vot­ers of our state under­stand that it’s always been part of the genius of Amer­i­ca to pool our resources to get things done.

And bil­lion­aires have more resources to put into that pool — our com­mon wealth — than any­one else does.

Although the words “mil­lion­aire” and “bil­lion­aire” dif­fer only in their first char­ac­ter, there is an enor­mous dif­fer­ence between hav­ing a mil­lion dol­lar for­tune and a bil­lion dol­lar one, as author Chip Health explains in his book .

Sen­a­tors, sup­pose for a moment that you all entered a spe­cial lot­tery with many large prizes. But there’s a catch: if you win, you have to spend $50,000 of your prize mon­ey every day until it runs out.

One of you wins a mil­lion dol­lars and one of you wins a billion.

How long does it take each of you to spend your winnings?

The one who wins a mil­lion will have fin­ished spend­ing their $50,000 per day after just twen­ty days.

But the one who wins a billion?

It’ll take them fifty-five years to spend $50,000 a day.

That’s how much a bil­lion is. One bil­lion dol­lars is an absolute­ly enor­mous amount of mon­ey, and many bil­lion­aires have well north of one billion.

Any­one with a bil­lion­aire for­tune is finan­cial­ly secure for life, because as you heard, a bil­lion dol­lars is so much that it’s hard to spend.

Con­se­quent­ly, bil­lion­aires are in a bet­ter posi­tion than any­one else to invest in Wash­ing­ton’s future. And the invest­ments they make through their tax dol­lars will go towards pri­or­i­ties like ensur­ing that we have out­stand­ing pub­lic schools, uni­ver­si­ties that lead in the world in fields like med­ical research, tran­sit for all, sea­ports that pro­vide freight mobil­i­ty and liv­ing wage jobs, beha­vo­r­ial health ser­vices, and so much more.

It is to their ben­e­fit to live in a state that offers great schools, great jobs, great recre­ation­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, great health­care, and great pub­lic services.

We invite you to join us in sup­port­ing a wealth tax on bil­lion­aire for­tunes. It will make our tax code more equi­table and strength­en our communities.

Thank you.