Overview
- The Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act would levy a 5% annual tax on the net worth of roughly 938 U.S. billionaires, leaving those below $1 billion untouched.
- Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman estimate the tax could raise about $4.4 trillion over 10 years, including a first‑year $3,000 payment per person in households earning $150,000 or less.
- Sponsors outline uses for the revenue such as reversing $1.1 trillion in Medicaid and ACA cuts, expanding Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing, and building over seven million affordable homes.
- The plan would also cap childcare costs at 7% of income, set a $60,000 minimum salary for public school teachers, and expand Medicaid home health care benefits.
- Critics question the revenue forecast and warn of constitutional, valuation and enforcement hurdles, and multiple outlets note the GOP-controlled Congress makes passage unlikely right now.