It’s no secret that we are living at a time of gross inequality.
The numbers are staggering: in 2025, the 10 richest billionaires in the US got about $698 billion richer, according to an estimate by Oxfam America. The daily reminders are depressing: walking through Richmond last night after a day of reporting at the Capitol, I passed by a person wrapped up in blankets, sleeping in an alcove.
It’s no wonder that so many people have lost faith in our political process after decades of wealth accumulation at the top, while so many Americans work themselves to the bone as they struggle and starve.
But as anyone who’s been to a protest recently against ICE or President Donald Trump’s monarch-like behaviors can tell you: there is a widespread sense that enough is enough and change is desperately needed. And at least some state lawmakers are heeding the call to address the staggering inequality in this country.
State Del. Kelly Convirs-Fowler (D-Virginia Beach) has a bill that would establish a new tax bracket for millionaires. Currently, anyone making more than $17,000 a year is taxed at the same rate of 5.75%.
And Del. Joshua Cole (D-Fredericksburg) is carrying a bill to impose a corporate welfare tax on large employers whose workers get federal benefits like food stamps.
The tax would be imposed on companies with more than 500 employees and would equate to the amount of benefits being received by employees at these companies.
I caught up with both of them separately yesterday in Richmond, and they each pitched their bills as ways of making the wealthy pay their fair share at a time when the struggles of so many Virginians are expected to get worse because of Trump cuts to the social safety net.
“By having the millionaires pay their fair share of taxes, it will actually help Virginians be able to come out of this affordability crisis and kind of buffer us a little bit from what’s going on at the federal level,” Convirs-Fowler told me.
