Maine Democrat Graham Platner Says Tax-the-Rich Plans Fail Because Politicians Avoid Donors

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said in a podcast interview that real attempts to tax the rich have never been tried because politicians protect their major donors.

Platner appeared on the "More Perfect Union" podcast on Thursday. He discussed his aim to curb billionaires, whom he accused of having "too much power" and "currently running the country" rather than President Donald Trump.

Asked how he would enact policies like higher taxes on billionaires without harming small businesses as in the past, Platner replied, "I think, and I'll just be upfront, I think that the reason that it's hit the middle class every time they try is that they're not actually trying. Because if they did, it would bother the people that donate the most money to them. And in this political system, that's all any of these folks seem to care about."

He drew on accounts from his former college roommate, now an IRS agent, about how government agencies target small businesses over billionaires. "And for years, he would always tell me, he’s like, 'You know, it's very funny. When our budget gets cut, our bosses come down and say, it is time to go after small- and medium-sized businesses, because we don't have the manpower or the resources to go tangle with a billionaire's legal team.' It's much easier just to go down and go after just a small [business]," Platner said.

He added, "And what's amazing to me is we're doing that, meanwhile, the total amount of uncollected taxes from corporations in this country is in the hundreds of billions of dollars."

Fox News Digital contacted Platner's campaign for comment.

Platner's push to target billionaires aligns with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a fellow progressive, who is promoting a new tax on luxury second homes.