Disney heiress Abigail Disney is demanding that lawmakers raise her taxes. She made the plea during a millionaire’s conference in Washington, arguing, “We don’t need any more money.”
Disney, 65, is the granddaughter of Roy Disney, Walt’s brother. She spoke at the Patriotic Millionaires conference on Capitol Hill, outlining how wealthy Americans should contribute more.
“We can afford to pay more in taxes,” Disney told Time. “We don’t need any more money. We can see that pretty clearly.”
“This is absurd. Can we not all agree that there is a point at which there’s too much money?” she added.
Disney has been outspoken about America’s wealth gap for years. She believes privilege is overly concentrated and often harms those who can least afford it.
In a Time essay before the G20 Summit, Disney wrote, “We have the largest billionaire class in the world at the same time that 40 percent of our population – including no less than 49 percent of our children – are poor or low-income.”
Her proposals are clear. She called for a surtax on incomes over $1 million. She also wants no taxes on the first $45,000 of income for working-class Americans.
Disney also called for higher taxes on companies that pay low wages, per the Daily Mail.
“Businesses shouldn’t profit more from underpaying workers than they pay in taxes,” she said.
She wants investment income taxed the same as income from labor.
“When I get capital gains, it’s because I’m sitting on my tuchus. I mean, it’s literally the opposite of taxing work,” she explained.
Disney admitted her proposals make other wealthy people uncomfortable.
“It turns out that it is that hard to believe that someone would actually do something for the greater good and not in their own self-interest,” she told Time.
She shared a recent lunch with her sister in Sedona, Arizona. They spent $73 on burgers and a single bottle of sparkling water. She called it “ridiculous.”
Disney highlighted the struggles of Disney employees in California. Workers organized a food bank for coworkers to cope with low pay. Meanwhile, the company gives relatively little to the county food bank.
“For the first time in my life, I have begun to worry about my own safety and wonder if my family will be safe,” Disney wrote. “When violence becomes the only recourse poor and desperate people have to achieve political power and/or the means to support their families, we will only have ourselves to blame.”
She links wealth inequality to climate change.
“Wealthy consumption is driving environmental breakdown and putting us all at risk,” Disney wrote. She noted that the average billionaire produces in 90 minutes the same greenhouse gases as the average person produces in a year.
Disney has publicly wrestled with her family’s wealth.
“I woke up one day and realized that, just by virtue of being born lucky, I had so much more than everyone else. I don’t think I’ve slept well since I figured that out,” she told Rolling Stone in 2022.
At the IMF/World Bank meeting last month, Disney warned about wealth inequality’s global consequences.
“There is such a thing as too much money. It’s bad for the world, and it’s bad for the people who own it. It is painful, soul-crushing, alienating, and morally corrosive,” she said.
