On April 9, the American tax code’s core failure was laid bare in real time. Following Donald Trump’s announcement of a temporary tariff “pause”, the beaten-down stock market surged. In a matter of hours, the 500 richest Americans added $304 billion to their collective net worth.

It was the single largest one-day gain in billionaire wealth ever recorded. Elon Musk alone gained $36 billion. Not through labor. Not through innovation. Through market speculation and political influence. And that money, every penny of it, will go untaxed under our current laws.

That’s the scandal. Working people pay taxes on every dollar they earn. Billionaires gain billions in wealth through rising stock values and unless they sell those winning investments, pay nothing. That’s not an accident. That’s the system as it was designed to function.

It’s time to demand legislation that taxes the annual wealth gains of billionaires. These are not abstract paper profits. They are the source of real economic and political power, and they should be taxed as such.

Congress has had years to act. There have been prior proposals, plans that would tax this kind of billionaire wealth growth at rates comparable to those paid by working families. These reforms could raise more than half a trillion dollars over the next decade, funding public education, affordable housing, universal childcare, clean energy, and more.

We can’t build a fair economy or a functional democracy if the richest Americans are shielded from taxation simply because their income comes from wealth rather than work.

If Congress continues to delay, the richest Americans will continue to walk away with billions, untaxed, untouched, and unaccountable.