These “Patriotic Millionaires” are surely the most insufferable people on the planet. They regularly take out adverts, sign letters, and sponsor campaigns urging their governments to tax them more, thus indulging in a uniquely hideous blend of conspicuous consumption and virtue-signaling. “Look at me! I am both very rich and a public-spirited soul!”Like so many movements, good and bad, this one started in the United States and spread to the rest of the Anglosphere. Founded in 2010 to campaign, in effect, against the Bush tax cuts, it soon picked up support from publicity-hungry celebs, guilt-ridden nepo babies, and CEOs who wanted to improve their images. Now it has inspired a chapter of equivalent half-wits in Britain, led by the former soccer player Gary Lineker, who made a lot of money as a commentator.“We can afford it,” they smugly declared in a letter published on Thursday. OK, chaps, good for you. So why not pay now? Britain has a mechanism that allows taxpayers to chip in extra if they wish. Yet these self-righteous nincompoops would rather tell us than they want to pay more than actually, you know, pay more.
The same is true in the U.S. Under federal law (31 U.S.C. § 3113), the Treasury may accept unconditional gifts to reduce the public debt. They are known as Gifts to the United States, and people can make them publicly or anonymously. Perhaps some of the Patriotic Millionaires do quietly make these payments. Perhaps Morris Pearl, Erica Payne, Abigail Disney, and John Driscoll are cheerfully topping up the Treasury without letting anyone know. But the sanctimonious tone of their public utterances makes me doubt it.
