Wall Street Billionaires Are Willing to Sacrifice the Nation to Get More Tax Cuts

Even though Donald Trump is not known for keeping his word, billionaires can be sure the one promise he’ll work to keep is the promise to cut their taxes. After all, he’s done it before.

By William Rice

Some Wall Street billionaires are willing to trade our democracy just to increase their own substantial fortunes. That’s the disturbing revelation in a recent Politico story about financial tycoons who are helping fund Donald Trump’s effort to return to the White House. Undeterred by his threat to rule as a dictator on his first day back in office, his plan to initiate baseless prosecutions of his political rivals, or his embrace of January 6 insurrectionists—what matters to these billionaires is that Trump has promised to further rig society in their favor, including by cutting their taxes.  

Many of the Trump backers cited in the article have harshly criticized him in the recent past.  And you’d think they would realize they already have enough money, don’t need more tax cuts and can spare a thought for the well-being of their own country. Hedge-fund executive Nelson Peltz is worth $1.6 billion, while oil and real estate investor John Catsimatidis has more than $4 billion and another hedge funder, Bill Ackman, has a net worth of over $9 billion. Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of money manager Blackstone Group; and Ken Griffin, CEO of yet another hedge fund, are each worth over $37 billion. 

Apparently that’s not enough. And even though Donald Trump is not known for keeping his word, billionaires can be sure the one promise he’ll work to keep is the promise to cut their taxes. After all, he’s one of them (recently worth some $6.4 billion) and he’s done it before. 

The solitary legislative accomplishment of Trump’s term as president was a massive tax cut skewed to the rich. Billionaires have greatly prospered since the Trump-GOP tax law came into effect six-and-a-half years ago. Catsimatidis has gained a billion dollars of wealth, Schwarzman’s net worth has nearly tripled, Griffin is four times as rich and Ackman is about seven times as wealthy. (Only Peltz’s fortune has remained essentially level, but we should never forget that level for him is over a billion dollars.)

Among the elements of the 2017 law that made billionaires richer were a three-fifths cut in the corporate tax rate (rich people, including billionaires, own almost all corporate stock); a new loophole that allows non-corporate business owners to disregard 20% of their income when figuring their taxes (hedge funds and collections of businesses like the Trump Organization are the big winners); and a cut in the tax rate paid on the highest incomes (in 2024, roughly the amount over $730,000 per couple). 

All these tax giveaways to the wealthy will wind up adding about $2 trillion to the national debt. The same Republicans who pushed for these and other deficit-boosting tax cuts—the main cause of higher federal debt this century—have no shame in using the resulting red ink as an excuse to call for cuts to public services they don’t like, including ones vital to working families like Social Security and Medicare. 

There’s a certain urgency to the Wall Street billionaires’ desire to see Trump back in office. Big parts of his tax law are due to expire at the end of next year, and President Biden has pledged not to extend any cuts that benefit households with income over $400,000 a year. Refusing to continue tax handouts for the wealthy will shave trillions of dollars off the expected cost of extending all the expiring cuts. 

And that’s not the only threat Biden and his fellow Democrats in Congress pose to the continued economic, social and political dominance of the billionaire class. Our current president wants to end the nearly half-off tax-rate discount on certain investment income above $1 million, and close a massive loophole that erases for tax purposes inherited capital gains over $10 million. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would strengthen the depleted estate tax and raise the tax rate on the transfer of bigger family fortunes like those of billionaires, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wants to place a 2% yearly tax on household wealth over $50 million. 

Perhaps most alarming to the Wall Street billionaires—who can live off the rising value of their investments while generating relatively little taxable income—President Biden and the chairman of the Senate tax-writing committee, Ron Wyden (D-OR), have plans to annually tax the “unrealized gains” of the nation’s handful of wealthiest people. 

Our financial titans have looked at the stakes in this election and the choice is apparently clear. Other billionaires made the same calculation in 2020, when they spent nearly a quarter billion dollars supporting Trump’s failed reelection. If they want the good times to keep rolling for them—regardless of what happens to the rest of us—Wall Street billionaires need someone like Trump as president who puts their interests first.