Biden's Bid to Tax the Rich Could Be the 2024 Lift the President Needs

During his State of the Union address, U.S. President Joe Biden declared that he wants to raise taxes on the rich, and polling results published Tuesday show that both Democratic and Republican voters in important swing states support doing so.

The polling firm Morning Consult reports that 69% of registered voters in seven swing states say they support raising taxes on billionaires. That includes states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

The poll found 58% of Republicans, 83% of Democrats, and 66% of independents support raising taxes on billionaires. The poll also found similar numbers of voters support raising taxes on people who make more than $400,000 per year.

Biden's 2025 budget plan includes a hike in taxes on the rich that would generate significant revenue for the federal government.

"Biden proposes to raise $503 billion over the next decade by imposing a 25% tax on people who claim more than $100 million in assets—a source of wealth that has long been beyond the reach of the [Internal Revenue Service]," The Washington Postreports.

In a New York Times opinion piece that was published on Wednesday, Felicia Wong, president and chief executive of the progressive advocacy organization Roosevelt Forward, outlined how opinions have changed about how much wealth is too much and if it should be more heavily taxed.

"Should we have trillionaires? Should we even have billionaires? According to at least one recent analysis, the economy is on track to mint its first trillionaire—that is 1,000 billion—within a decade. Such staggering accumulations of wealth are made possible in large part by the fact that America's federal tax burden is so comparatively light," Wong wrote. "After a long period of seeming to venerate the 1 %, or the 1% of 1% of 1%, American sentiment is swinging hard against this imbalance."