Multimillionaire Herschel Walker says it is 'not right' to tax the wealthy

Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker said last week that he opposes raising taxes on the richest Americans because doing so is “not right.” Walker claims to have a net worth of at least $29 million.

In an interview last Wednesday on WDUN, Walker was asked about the “Fair Tax,” a controversial proposal to switch from income taxes to consumption taxes and make Americans earning between $15,000 and $200,000 pay a larger share of the overall tax burden.

It was unclear from his response if Walker knew what that idea even was, but he said he supported making taxation “fair.”

“All I ever hear from the left is, ‘Let’s tax the wealthy, let’s tax the wealthy.’ Well, you can’t just say, ‘Let’s tax the wealthy.’ That’s not — that’s not right. You gotta have a tax system that’s gonna be fair for everyone,” Walker said, arguing that America needs “leaders that’s gonna make a decision, rather than just trying to push it off on something else.”

A Walker campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.

Walker himself has offered few specifics in the past about what sort of tax policies he backs. His campaign website says only that he “will fight for lower taxes.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s chair, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), released a plan in February for what his party would do if it regains a majority in the Senate in the 2022 midterms. One of the items he proposed was a tax increase on more than 100 million Americans, mostly those who are low-income or retired.

On Wednesday, Walker tweeted a video of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer explaining that the only way to get rid of inflation is to undo much of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — which slashed tax rates for large corporations and the very rich.

Walker responded, “No, @SenSchumer, raising taxes is the last thing we should be doing. You and your colleagues need to stop spending our money on programs that don’t work!”

President Joe Biden ran and won in 2020 on a promise to raise tax rates for the richest Americans who earn more than $400,000 a year.

Such a change would likely mean a much larger tax bill for Walker himself. He claimed in his December 2021 financial disclosure statement to have somewhere between $29 million and $65 million in assets.

Walker, a former professional football player turned Texas-based business owner, reported earning about $4 million in the previous 12 months.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income for a Georgia family was just below $62,000 in 2019 — about 1/64th of Walker’s one-year haul.

If Walker wins the GOP Senate nomination, he will face Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) in November. Though he and other Senate Republicans have opposed Democratic plans to tax the richest Americans more, polls show broad public support.

Last September, a survey by the progressive Data for Progress and the pro-infrastructure organization Invest in America found that likely voters supported raising income taxes on Americans earning more than $400,000 per year by a wide 64%-28% margin. Even among Republicans surveyed, 51% backed the idea, while 42% opposed it.

A January 2020 Reuters/Ipsos poll found a similar 64% support level for the notion that “the very rich should contribute an extra share of their total wealth each year to support public programs.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.