Mitt Romney Calls For Raising Taxes On Super Rich In NYT Op-Ed

Mitt Romney Calls For Raising Taxes On Super Rich In NYT Op-Ed

Igor Bobic

Fri, December 19, 2025 at 8:47 PM UTC

3 min read

Former Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney called for taxing the ultra-rich at a higher rate to help save Social Security for future generations, saying that “it’s time for rich people like me to pay more.”

Romney, a former Republican presidential candidate and governor of Massachusetts, wrote in an op-ed published by The New York Times on Friday that wealthy Americans ought to contribute more to help save the Social Security Trust Fund.

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The fund is projected to run out of money by 2034, a rapidly approaching cliff that would sharply reduce people’s retirement benefits absent action from Congress.

“I believe in free enterprise, and I believe all Americans should be able to strive for financial success. But we have reached a point where any mix of solutions to our nation’s economic problems is going to involve the wealthiest Americans contributing more,” Romney wrote in the op-ed.

Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, during a Senate Budget Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. US President Joe Biden's $7.3 trillion fiscal 2025 budget proposal, unveiled on Monday, lays out a second-term vision that would deliver more services, middle-class tax breaks and price controls to voters funded through higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Bloomberg via Getty Images

Romney also said he supports closing tax loopholes exploited by the wealthy, referring to them instead as “tax caverns.” This includes ideas many Democrats have proposed over the years, like increasing the tax rate on carried interest and taxing large inheritances over $100 million that avoid the capital gains tax after they are passed down following the asset owner’s death.

The former Utah senator used Tesla CEO Elon Musk as one prominent example of a wealthy American who takes advantage of these loopholes, noting that Musk’s now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency “failed spectacularly” at cutting government spending earlier this year.

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“Yes, taxes can slow growth,” Romney wrote. “But most of the measures I propose would have a relatively small impact on economic growth. If my party wants to be the one to give working- and middle-class Americans greater opportunity — to be the party that is trying to restore some sense of confidence in our capitalist system — this would be a start.”

Romney was one of the wealthiest members of Congress before leaving the Senate after one term in 2024. He’s long supported cutting taxes and reforming entitlements to deliver long-term solvency for Social Security.

But the rising national debt of more than $38 trillion, which has ballooned thanks in part to the tax cuts for the wealthy in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill — along with growing voter concerns with income inequality — seems to have changed Romney’s mind on the subject of raising taxes.

“It would help us avoid the cliff ahead, and may tend to quiet some of the anger that will surely grow as unemployed college graduates see tax advantaged multibillionaires sailing 300-foot yachts,” Romney concluded.

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Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist running for governor in California as a Democrat, agreed with Romney.

“Tax me more. I’ve been saying it for a long time,” Steyer wrote online. “Even rational Republicans agree, because they’re looking at the numbers.”

Read the entire op-ed from Romney here.

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