Posted by AzblueMeanie:
Democrats will bring a bill up for a vote this week on the "Buffett Rule," so-named after the "Oracle of Omaha" for his August 2011 opinion in the New York Times, Stop Coddling the Super-Rich - NYTimes.com in which Buffett wrote:
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.
* * *
But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.
My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.
Others have suggested calling it the "Romney Rule," The 'Romney Rule' makes it debut, after the multi-millionaire Vulture Capitalist investor who financially benefits from this "millionaire loophole" on his investment income, in order to highlight the unfairness of our tax system on the presumptive Tea-Publican nominee whose own tax proposals would shower a tax windfall on his super-wealthy investor class but raise the tax burden on middle-class Americans. Romney Tax Plan: Robin Hood in Reverse.
A third alternative was suggested by President Obama in a speech this past week, the "Reagan Rule," after President Reagan who also supported closing the "millionaire loophole" after being contacted by a wealthy investor much the same as Warren Buffett who told Reagan it was unfair.
Steve Benen writes in the The Buffett/Romney/Reagan Rule:
Obama said this morning:
"I'm not the first president to call for this idea that everybody has got to do their fair share. Some years ago, one of my predecessors traveled across the country pushing for the same concept. He gave a speech where he talked about a letter he had received from a wealthy executive who paid lower tax rates than his secretary, and wanted to come to Washington and tell Congress why that was wrong. So this president gave another speech where he said it was 'crazy' -- that's a quote -- that certain tax loopholes make it possible for multimillionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary. That wild-eyed, socialist, tax-hiking class warrior was Ronald Reagan.
"He thought that, in America, the wealthiest should pay their fair share, and he said so. I know that position might disqualify him from the Republican primaries these days but what Ronald Reagan was calling for then is the same thing that we're calling for now: a return to basic fairness and responsibility; everybody doing their part. And if it will help convince folks in Congress to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan Rule instead of the Buffett Rule."
In fact, here is "Saint Ronnie" giving that speech.
I previously posted about this in Ronald Reagan also called for taxing millionaires more. Here are the comments of Presidents Obama and Reagan, side by side:
Recent Comments