Revenue and Economic Justice
Legislative imperatives:
Pass the Fair Share Amendment and reform our upside-down tax code so that the wealthy pay a higher share of their income than working class families
Stop the accumulation of economic and political power by corporations and the wealthy by raising taxes on wealth, C-corps and the financial elite
Build a vision for a just economy founded on collective bargaining, a truly livable minimum wage and cooperative ownership
My platform:
A prosperous economy guarantees that every employee has a voice, that all workers are free from the volatility of financial markets, and that the aim of work is not to generate profit for the few, but instead to prosper collectively. Corporate executives, financial analysts, and establishment economists have serially tried to convince us that our economy is thriving, pointing to historically low unemployment and record high stock market valuations. Narratives of superficial prosperity are smokescreens for the inequality and unjust distribution of power that undergirds our economy. Any economy that does not guarantee a living wage, does not provide union membership for all workers, does not treat all workers with dignity, and does not assure a life free from financial precarity is not a thriving economy. Critically, a prosperous economy must not be fueled by a climate crisis, dependent upon the appropriation of the labor of women, and bolstered by a history of racial oppression.
In recent decades, the promise of an economy for everyone has been under siege by a corporate-funded movement led by the few. As a result, the range of voices at the table has been dramatically suppressed. In place of a just economy, power has shifted to the financial system at the expense of the labor unions, markets with oversimplified incentives have been prioritized over the security provided by government protections, and the building of public institutions has been delegated to forms of private ownership that are more focused on extracting from public goods than on creating them. Severe and escalating wealth inequality, financial fragility for the vast majority, the flagrant paying off of elected officials, and environmental crisis are the consequences of market fundamentalism. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has made painfully clear the dereliction of duty in building a fair society.
Early in my career I was an antitrust economist. I studied how corporations take an unfair share by consolidating into global monopolies, stealing wages by undermining collective bargaining, and syphoning fees off of the economy through an overgrown financial system. These hidden structures struck a personal chord when I enrolled at Harvard Business School. We studied how corporate raiders control companies by holding only a tiny fraction of ownership. Carl Icahn, a corporate raider, employed such tactics on the company that my mom worked for, Trans World Airlines (TWA), in the 1980s. Growing up, I witnessed firsthand how investors like Icahn make companies more “efficient” by carving out the American worker. I witnessed my mom’s colleagues receive worse contracts over time and felt the strain my mom carried when she was asked to retire early so that they could hire 2-3 flight attendants in her place. Simply put, workers are not numbers on a spreadsheet and no single person should hold such sway over the livelihoods of thousands of employees.
I believe that the only way to fight these injustices is through collective action and the government. Very simply, to break the grip of power that corporations have on our economy the tax system in Massachusetts that grants preferential treatment to high earners and corporations must be rewritten immediately. It is an outrage that the Massachusetts tax system asks more of its lower wage earners than of its highest wage earners.
Three objectives are crystal clear. First, the Fair Share Amendment, a constitutional amendment that would impose an additional tax on annual income in excess of $1 million, must be passed in the 2021-2022 legislative session. I testified vociferously in favor of the amendment during public hearings. Second, the power of corporations must be redistributed through higher corporate taxes, funding our basic human rights like healthcare, education, and housing. Third, the influence of entrenched wealth must be unwound through a series of wealth taxes. Complementary to fighting power through taxation and the funding of basic human rights, systems that humanize and democratize businesses, such as through the transition of founder-owned businesses to co-operatives, provide tangible pathways to economic inclusivity.
We will fight for:
Fair Share Amendment
Corporate tax increase on C-corps, undoing the corporate tax cuts of the prior decade
Taxes on wealth, including (i) the elimination of the step-up in basis for capital gains for individuals who inherit wealth and (ii) raising the estate tax
Raise the minimum wage to a truly livable wage by building off of the “Grand Bargain” reached in 2018 that raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2023
Establish a truly livable minimum wage for all workers and eliminate the tipped minimum wage
Act to Prevent Wage Theft to prevent employers from making labor markets more “flexible” when their underlying objective is to bust unions and disadvantage workers
Join California, Illinois, and New York in imposing a state level tax on carried interest so that hedge fund and private equity managers pay more in personal income taxes than firefighters and teachers
The creation non-extractive loan funds to finance the transition of small and medium sized businesses to cooperative ownership