Pay Your Fair Share

If we want to give our children and grandchildren a brighter future, the wealthiest Americans and large corporations must pay their fair share in taxes. https://t.co/zqlZr6UpLe

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 23, 2021

‘the reagan rule’

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‘class warfare’ turns out to be pretty popular

Steve Benen: The latest CBS News poll asked national respondents whether they’d support higher taxes on millionaires to lower the deficit. The results weren’t exactly close:

….it appears “class warfare” is pretty popular with the American mainstream … Why are Democrats, from President Obama on down, so unafraid of this issue? Because they’ve seen polls like this one, and know most Americans agree with them.

Full post here

Warren Buffett (2006): “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

‘republican job creation’

Republicanjobcreation.com

This is a terrific website, spotted by nintendowii10 – thank you! I’ll add it to the blogroll here so the link will be there when you want it.

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taxing issues

ThinkProgress

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Michael Scherer (Time): When Barack Obama talks about taxes these days, he likes to talk about Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett’s secretary …. but if Mitt Romney is able to clinch the Republican nomination for President next spring, Obama will have a better example to talk about.

That’s because Romney, a wealthy man whose income mostly comes from long-term investments, is exactly the sort of “millionaire and billionaire” that Obama likes to hold up for scrutiny, since the source of Romney’s income allows him to pay a lower percentage of his money to the federal government each year than many middle-class wage earners.

…. People who earn as much money as Romney typically make most of it in capital gains and often deduct more than they earn in royalties, salary and interest. In other words, they never pay the 35% rate that their income would be subject to if they just got a paycheck like most Americans.

…. Should Romney win the Republican nomination, he will face substantial pressure to release his own tax returns. Usually such disclosures are little more than formality, but in Romney’s case, it would land him in the middle of one of the biggest policy debates of this election season.

…. any tax reform plan put forward by Obama would likely have a significant impact on Romney’s returns. And perhaps more importantly, if Romney wins the nomination, Obama will have a great line to use in debates and on the stump. He wouldn’t just be running against Romney, he’d be running against the large tax advantage that a millionaire investor’s income provides.

Full article here

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Greg Sargent (Wasington Post): Fact check of the day: CNN takes apart the ubiquitous GOP claim that tax hikes on the rich would be damaging to small businesses and the nation’s “job creators”:

In sharp contrast to the rhetoric, current data suggests small businesses don’t create an outsized number of jobs, very few small business owners fall into the top two tax brackets, and tax cuts for small businesses are ineffective stimulus measures.

    Relatively few small businesses would be affected: Extending the tax cuts for top earners for another decade would come at a significant cost – nearly $1 trillion in added debt over a decade. But small businesses wouldn’t see much of that cash. Only 2.5% to 3.5% of small businesses would be affected by an increase in those two rates.

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it’s class warfare!

People Press: As the nation prepares for another round of deficit reduction debates, the public’s confidence in congressional leaders, particularly Republican leaders in Congress, has plummeted. Just 35% say they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in Republican leaders in Congress to do the right thing when it comes to dealing with the federal budget deficit, down from 47% in May. Fully 62% say they have little or no confidence in the Republican leaders on this issue.

Public confidence in Barack Obama on the budget deficit, by comparison, has remained largely unchanged. The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that 52% express at least a fair amount of confidence in Obama to do the right thing when it comes to dealing with the deficit, virtually unchanged from 55% earlier in the year.

The drop in confidence in GOP congressional leaders is broad based, even occurring among Republicans themselves …… Democrats offer a more positive assessment of their leaders’ handling of the deficit than Republicans do of theirs. Fully 84% of Democrats have at least a fair amount of confidence in Obama to do the right thing regarding the deficit, and 75% are confident in Democratic leaders in Congress….

…. The survey also finds continued public support for raising the tax rate on high incomes as a way to reduce the federal budget deficit and the size of the national debt. Two-thirds (67%) approve of raising the tax rate on incomes over $250,000 as a means of reducing the national debt … Just 30% disapprove…

Full article here

‘absolutely, totally true’

Paul Krugman: Well, it seems as if a number of people in the media have decided that (President) Obama was fibbing when he said that some millionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries – because, as the usual suspects triumphantly declare, on average millionaires pay higher average taxes than middle-income Americans.

This is, of course, stupid: the operative word is SOME.

And we’re not talking about one or two exceptional guys, either … If you look at the numbers since 2004, you’ll see that in a typical year between 30 and 40 percent of those super-high-income players paid an average tax rate of less than 15 percent; most of them paid less than 20 percent.

…. what becomes clear is that the Obama/Buffet claim is absolutely, totally true.

So why the attack? Probably because it’s such an effective line. And we can’t have populism that actually strikes a chord with the public, can we?

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Buffett Rule Facts and Fictions

read it and weep, gop

Link

Thanks Loriah 😉

“this is not class warfare, this is math”

Full video:

President Obama talks about cutting the deficit from the Rose Garden of the White House, September 19

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“I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare.”

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“It’s also about fairness. It’s about whether we are, in fact, in this together. And we’re looking out for one another. You know what’s right. It’s time to do what’s right.”

the ‘buffett rule’ ….. genius

NYT: President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.

…. the proposal adds a new and populist feature to Mr. Obama’s effort to raise the political pressure on Republicans to agree to higher revenues from the wealthy in return for Democrats’ support of future cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.

Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule”, in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.

… The Obama proposal has little chance of becoming law unless Republican lawmakers bend. But by focusing on the wealthiest Americans, the president is sharpening the contrast between Republicans and Democrats with a theme he can carry into his bid for re-election in 2012.

It could also reassure Democrats who have feared that Mr. Obama would agree to changes in programs like Medicare without forcing Republicans to compromise on taxes.

Full article here