Nancy Pelosi privately criticized the billionaires’ tax plan as a PR stunt, prompting pushback from the Senate’s chief tax-writing Democrat who argues it’s a ‘big mistake’ to scrap it

• Pelosi privately criticized Ron Wyden's billionaires' tax as a measure that stood little chance of becoming an enduring law, per two people familiar.
• She was concerned about whether it would get 50 Senate Democratic votes and withstand legal challenges.
• Wyden, the Democrats' chief tax writer in the Senate, told Insider it'd be a 'big mistake' to not pursue it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi assailed the idea of a billionaires' tax on late October call with senior Democratic lawmakers, saying it amounted to little more than a public relations stunt, per two people familiar with the matter.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, unveiled a plan last month to hit billionaires like Tesla CEO Elon Musk with a new tax on their growing pile of wealth. Only hours after it was rolled out, the measure crashed into resistance from Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a conservative Democrat who viewed it as punitive towards business and corporate leaders.

Many Democratic senators have treaded cautiously around the concept of a billionaires' tax, which Wyden has been working on since 2019. Yet the party turned to Wyden's idea after resistance from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to raising corporate and income tax rates forced them to shelve their other revenue-raising plans to pay for affordable childcare, expand Medicare so it covers hearing services, renew the child tax credit for an extra year, and more.

Pelosi was sour on the Wyden legislation's prospects behind closed doors, The Washington Post was first to report.

A senior Democratic aide familiar with the matter said Pelosi criticized the plan on the call because it lacked legislative text as the White House raced to finalize negotiations on their social spending bill. The California lawmaker was also concerned whether it could win the support of all 50 Senate Democrats – and withstand a Supreme Court challenge.

Democrats want to finance all of President Joe Biden's economic agenda with tax hikes on the richest Americans and large corporations. But their narrow majorities in the House and Senate have prompted Democratic infighting on the scale of the tax increases. Manchin and Sinema have compelled the party to scale back their planned hikes.

House Democrats recently advanced a $1.75 trillion social spending plan with a new 5% surtax on people with incomes above $10 million. That's dialed up to 8% for rich Americans with incomes higher than $25 million. Their package also includes a 15% domestic minimum tax. But it excluded the billionaire tax.

"The House had the courage and the determination to raise rates on the wealthy and build consensus that the Senate has been unable to achieve," the senior Democratic aide told Insider.

Wyden said last week he would continue working with Manchin on other tax proposals. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation recently projected the provision would raise $557 billion over a decade, making it the single-largest revenue raiser if it was included.

"In a package that's supposed to be about giving everybody a shot to get ahead, it would be a big mistake, from both a policy and political perspective, not to ensure billionaires pay any taxes at all," Wyden said in a statement to Insider. "This is about fairness and showing the American people taxes aren't mandatory for them and optional for the wealthiest people in the country."