For decades, ultra-rich billionaires, corporations, and Wall Street banks have engaged in a systematic effort to rig the economy to avoid paying what they owe in taxes. When these entities don’t pay what they owe, Black and Brown communities bear the burden of underfunded schools and insufficient essential public services. To win the thriving communities we deserve, we fight for moral budgets—budgets that invest in Black and Brown communities to repair harm with fully-funded, equitably distributed, publicly-owned, and locally-controlled services, paid for by mega-corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy. 

We work with grassroots partners on the municipal and state levels and through Bargaining for the Common Good on campaigns to resist austerity budgets and fight for moral budgets that ensure every community has the public service resources to recover, thrive, and survive the next crisis. Moral budgets make deep investments in Black and Brown communities by making: (1) Revenue more progressive by taxing the rich and corporations to pay what they owe, and (2) Expenses less regressive by ending practices that drain and harm communities. This includes ending payments to Wall Street banks on predatory public financing costs to reclaim more than $160 billion annually for communities, and divesting from the carceral state.

Most recently, we have been leading the Tax the Rich PHL campaign to pass a municipal wealth tax in Philadelphia, contributed to work in Chicago to stop vital stimulus money from being diverted towards Big Banks and the police, and coordinated actions across the country on Tax Day to call attention to corporations not paying what they owe.

Related reports & projects: