Henry George's Ahead-Of-Its-Time 1879 Suggestion That We Tax Wealth, Not Work— Part II

OK, back to Henry George’s once-revolutionary idea of taxing wealth— in the form of land when he wrote the best-selling Progress and Poverty, An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depression, and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth… The Remedy in 1879. I suggest you at least read the first few paragraphs of Part I. Instead of requiting any of George’s writing included in that, I decided to bring his ideas right up to 2025 and use the Bernie Sanders graphic instead. I’m sure you get the point.

Travis Terrell is the progressive running in the southeast Iowa congressional district held— tenuously— by Trump lackey Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Miller-Meeks, who has horrified her constituents with her lockstep backing of the Republican Party’s worst agenda items, including defunding Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP) and Planned Parenthood. Protect Our Jobs, a pro-clean energy group, has been running this ad in Davenport, Iowa City, Muscatine, Fort Madison, Keokuk, Clinton, Burlington, Indianola and Knoxville.

This morning, Terrell, who is protesting Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ MAGA fundraiser with Gym Jordan n Davenport, told us that she “clearly believes that protecting her billionaire donors’ hidden wealth is more important than making sure Iowa families have basic human needs. The so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ was nothing but a direct attack on lower-income and middle-class Americans. It gutted support for working people just to keep billionaires smiling. Iowa has one billionaire. Our representative should be fighting for the rest of us, not him. But Miller-Meeks keeps choosing her donors over her district. Marginal tax rates have become a playground for the rich. They have mastered how to dodge and manipulate them. That’s why I am fighting for something better— a real wealth tax. Not on fake income, but on the empire they sit on while the rest of us bust our asses to keep it standing. And if that pisses off a few billionaires? Good. As FDR said, ‘They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred.’ I do not care how many billionaires throw money at my opponent. I am not here to serve them. I am here to fight like hell for the people they have been stepping on.”

Like Terrell, Randy Bryce is a working class candidate for Congress. He’s running in southeast Wisconsin and his tax fairness ideas are very different from Trump’s and Trump shills like Randy’s opponent, Bryan Steil. “As this horrific ‘bill’ moves to the Senate, people really need to be aware of how much we’ll lose at the expense of what the billionaire donor-owner will receive. If you were hungry before you’ll be soon starving. (I couldn’t even get a local food pantry to accept donations because they’re afraid they’ll lose funding.) I guess that’s to be expected when a millionaire wins a gerrymandered district with the help of billionaires and Wall Street. Bryan Steil doesn’t know what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck and it shows. Being too cowardly to explain his actions is what really takes the cake. I can’t wait to replace him with someone who genuinely cares.”

Emily Berge, the progressive Democrat taking on crackpot MAGAt Derrick Van Orden in western Wisconsin told us this morning that “The top 0.1% of earners— those making over $5 million a year— are paying a lower effective tax rate than many working families in western Wisconsin. That’s upside-down economics. If we increased the top marginal tax rate on incomes over $10 million, we could afford to invest in rural infrastructure, increase access to healthcare— including mental healthcare, and strengthen public schools as well as childcare options. Rep. Van Orden chose to shield the ultra-rich instead. I believe in a tax system that builds up the middle class and invests in our community, not one that asks teachers and farmers to pay more than investment bankers making millions.”

Please consider helping flip Congress by contributing what you can to Emily's Randy’s and Travis' grassroots campaigns here.

Perhaps you saw Jeff Stein’s report yesterday about how congressional Republicans refused to make the super-rich pay their fair share of taxes. Instead, wrote Stein, “the legislation includes several measures that critics say disproportionately benefit Americans at the top of the income distribution. It extends the tax cut Republicans first approved in 2017 for the highest income bracket, those earning more than $626,000 per year… It also increases a tax deduction for certain businesses formed as ‘pass-through’ entities, for which owners pay taxes on their individual income tax returns.”

Stein’s anecdote about GOP anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist killing Trump and Bannons “millionaire tax” with a single phone call tells you everything you need to know about how power really works in America. While ordinary Americans struggle with inflation and stagnant wages, the GOP is engineering another massive upward transfer of wealth— and, hilariously, calling it populism. The average American gets a measly $1,700 tax cut under the GOP plan. Meanwhile, the top 1% pockets around $70,000, and those making over $3.4 million get a staggering $275,000 boost. But here's the real kicker— the bottom 40% of Americans, those earning less than $13,000 annually, actually get worse off because of cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. GOP tax policy is class warfare, pure and simple.

I know I said I wouldn’t re-quote Henry George but… I can’t help myself. Bear with me for a moment. George wrote that  wealth concentration doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's “as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down.” Sound familiar— even you didn’t read Part I?

George's remedy was straightforward and popular: shift taxes onto unearned wealth and use the revenues for public benefit. Today's version would mean taxing capital gains like wages, implementing wealth taxes on fortunes over $50 million, and closing the carried interest loophole that lets private equity vultures pay lower rates than teachers and firefighters. Señor Trumpanzyy’s “Big Beautiful Bill” does exactly the opposite. It extends, reported Stein, the estate tax exemption to $30 million for couples— meaning dynastic wealth passes untouched to the next generation while working families pay sales taxes on groceries. And it keeps the carried interest loophole intact.

Did you catch how Norquist framed higher taxes on millionaires as an “attack on the small-business community?” Obviously, this is pure propaganda. The analysis shows the biggest beneficiaries are those earning between $460,800 and $1.1 million annually— hardly mom-and-pop shops struggling to make payroll. Real small businesses— the local restaurants, repair shops, and service providers that actually employ working-class Americans— would benefit far more from progressive policies like universal healthcare (which would eliminate their insurance costs), infrastructure investment (which would improve their logistics), and a living minimum wage (which would boost consumer spending). But the GOP isn't interested in helping actual small businesses. They're interested in protecting the wealth extraction system that funnels resources upward to private equity firms, real estate speculators, and financial manipulators.

Here's what the establishment economists won't tell you: progressive taxation isn't just about fairness— it's about functionality. Concentrated wealth creates concentrated power, which corrupts democratic institutions and distorts markets. When the top 10% own 90% of stocks and 70% of all wealth while receiving only 30% of income, you have a recipe for economic instability and political capture. That wealth doesn't just sit in bank accounts— it buys politicians, funds think tanks, and shapes policy to protect itself. A truly progressive tax system would:

• Target unearned wealth: Capital gains, inheritance, and speculative profits should be taxed at higher rates than wages earned through actual work.

• Close loopholes systematically: No more carried interest breaks for private equity. No more offshore tax havens. No more corporate inversions to avoid U.S. taxes.

• Fund public investment: Use the revenue to rebuild infrastructure, provide universal healthcare, make college affordable, and create good-paying jobs in clean energy.

• Prevent wealth concentration: Estate taxes that actually kick in at reasonable levels, annual wealth taxes on fortunes over $50 million, and financial transaction taxes to curb speculation.

  
  

Bannon and Vought— and even Señor T— talk about being populists, but real populism means policies that benefit the many at the expense of the privileged few. It means:

• Making billionaires pay higher tax rates than their housekeepers, instead of lower rates

• Funding public schools instead of multiple mansions around the globe

• Building affordable housing instead of luxury towers

• Investing in clean energy jobs instead of fossil fuel subsidies

• Supporting small farmers instead of agribusiness monopolies

Our country has seen this movie before. The 1920s featured similar tax cuts for the wealthy, similar claims about “trickle-down” benefits, and similar attacks on anyone who questioned the system. We know how that ended— not just the Great Depression, but World War II as well. The solution isn't complicated— it's just difficult because entrenched wealth fights back with all it’s got. We need politicians who understand that taxing the super-rich isn't class warfare; it's class peace. It's the alternative to the social breakdown that we see happening now with unsustainable inequality. Every dollar that goes to a billionaire's third yacht, space joy ride or private jet is a dollar that doesn't go to a teacher's salary, a nurse's equipment, or a child's school lunch. Every tax break for private equity is money that could rebuild our bridges, expand our broadband or fund our research universities.

The choice is simple: as brilliant Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis once said “we can have a democracy, or we can have extreme wealth concentration. We can't have both.”

-by Deana Lawson