“Tax the rich.” It’s one of the easiest political slogans in America.
Need more money for government programs? Tax the rich.
Want free college or groceries? Tax the rich.
Want universal healthcare, government-funded childcare, housing programs and expanded Social Security? Just make billionaires pay their “fair share.”
There’s only one problem. The math.
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The Cato Institute recently decided to run the numbers on nine major proposals associated with the Democratic Socialists of America’s 2026 platform. Cato estimates those proposals could cost somewhere between $71 trillion and $212 trillion over the next decade.
Now, that’s a gigantic range and an important caveat to know. This isn’t a Congressional Budget Office score of one piece of legislation. Cato assembled estimates from multiple studies to illustrate the potential magnitude of these policies.
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But let’s take the low number. $71 trillion. Surely America’s billionaires can cover that, right?
Let’s find out.
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Cato estimates America’s 400 richest people collectively held approximately $6.6 trillion in wealth in 2025. So, let’s do something even the most aggressive tax proposal doesn’t suggest.
Take it all. Not 40%. Not 70%.
100%.
Sell the yachts. Sell the stocks. Sell the businesses. Empty the bank accounts.
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Congratulations. You raised $6.6 trillion. Unfortunately, you’ve covered only about 9% of Cato’s low-end estimate.
And there’s another little problem. You can only confiscate someone’s fortune once. Next year, you need another taxpayer.
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Fine. Let’s go after corporations. Cato estimates domestic corporations could generate approximately $35 trillion of after-federal-tax profits over the next decade. Let’s take every additional dollar of that, too.
Forget shareholders. Forget reinvestment. Forget dividends. Take everything. Including your jobs. Even then, according to Cato’s calculations, you’d cover only about half of its $71 trillion low-end estimate.
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And remember this. America already has bills.
The federal government is projected to run roughly $24 trillion in deficits over the coming decade under the baseline cited by Cato. We’re already spending money we don’t have before adding trillions in new promises.
Here’s where the math gets even more interesting. Cato cites Joint Committee on Taxation economists who studied how much additional revenue could be generated by pushing top federal income-tax rates toward their revenue-maximizing level.
Their conclusion? Surprisingly little.
Cato calculates the additional revenue at roughly $400 billion over 10 years. Why? Because taxpayers aren’t mannequins.
Change tax rates dramatically and people change behavior. They work differently, invest differently, realize income differently and find different legal ways to structure their finances.
That’s why you can’t simply take today’s income and multiply it by whatever tax rate sounds good on television.
This is the part politicians don’t like discussing. You can argue America should have higher taxes. You can argue government should provide more services. Those are legitimate political debates.
But let’s stop pretending there’s a magical vault somewhere containing enough billionaire money to pay for every promise Washington wants to make.
There isn’t.
Eventually, the math works its way down the income ladder. First the billionaires. Then the millionaires. Then successful business owners. Then upper-middle-income families.
And eventually?
You. That’s right. Uncle DSA Sam wants you.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
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Forty years later, we can debate the politics.
But it’s getting awfully difficult to debate the math.
