Sure, but why does he need to wait for everyone else to support it? He should set a positive example by dumping his own money into the treasury first. After all, he really does believe in this and it's not just virtue-signaling.
What is your take on the reasoning he put in the article on why he doesn't "just" do that?
> Two decades ago I turned full-time to philanthropy and threw myself into supporting public education, scientific and medical research, and visual and performing arts, believing it was my responsibility to give back some of what had so generously been given to me. But I’ve come to realize that no amount of philanthropic commitment will compensate for the deep inequities preventing most Americans — the factory workers and farmers, entrepreneurs and electricians, teachers, nurses and small-business owners — from the basic prosperity we call the American dream.
That's not a reason why he can't do it, he's just saying that other people will need to do it too. I completely agree with him on that, he certainly can't do it alone. However, I think that he should set an example without waiting for others to join him.
It's a funny and forgotten relic. Many countries had similar schemes from around the same era.
There was a fashion to bequeath part of your estate to the government "to pay down the national debt". It was thought the patriotic thing to do. Obviously little impact was made on national debts. :)
I've thought a lot about that option, but the problem is that wealth provides a disproportionate amount of influence in politics.
If all the people who didn't want to give any of it up hoarded it and spent it lobbying to keep inequality at a maximum and the people who wanted equality gave the majority of their wealth away then we would very quickly find ourselves in a dystopian nightmare.
It has to be everyone, equally. It has to by a systemic change.
Money at that level is power, and giving it up means letting people with similar wealth have more power over you. People don't generally unilaterally disarm.