Obama Wants to Tax the Wealthy with $3 Trillion Debt Reduction Plan
On Monday, President Obama outlined his $3 trillion debt reduction plan which includes $1.5 trillion in new revenue generated largely by a higher tax on the wealthiest Americans. The plan was criticized by some Republicans as class warfare against the rich.
“This is not class warfare,” President Obama said. ”It’s math. If we are not willing to ask those who’ve done extraordinarily well to help America close the deficit … then the logic, the math says everybody else has to do a whole lot more.”
Obama said that spending cuts alone would not solve our fiscal problems and promised to veto any other debt reduction legislation that cuts benefits without including higher taxes on the wealthy. Speaker of the House John Boehner has said for a while now there will be no tax increases. Obama’s plan would allow some of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, along with closing various tax loopholes.
A new tax surcharge would also be set on millionaires, which the president has labeled the “Buffett Rule.” It was named after investor Warren Buffett, who has argued that the richest Americans are not taxed enough and should be taxed more during these hard economic times. The idea behind the Buffett Rule is that those earning more than $1 million per year should not be allowed to pay a smaller percentage of their income in federal taxes than Americans lower down on the income scale. Buffett, the second wealthiest American, famously demonstrated that he pays a smaller percentage in federal taxes than his secretary.
As far as spending cuts go, Obama’s plan has $580 billion in mandatory cuts, including $248 billion from Medicare.
According to CNN:
“Roughly 90 percent of those savings will come from reducing overpayments in the system, according to an administration official. Any changes to Medicare benefits won’t kick in before 2017, the official also said.”
President Obama’s plan does not include any Social Security reform proposals.
So what do you think of the plan?
Personally, I think it is a really good start. Our country needs to address its spending, obviously, but it also needs to tax the wealthy at the same time. The rich are doing just fine, corporations are having record profits, yet the economy is still in bad shape. These companies and these people are not hiring even with record profits, so it’s obviously not working. We must increase taxes on the wealthy. The tax is supported by Warren Buffett, who is one of the greatest economic minds and has a reported net worth of around $50 billion. Some Republicans have deemed the tax as class warfare on the rich. What about the class warfare that has been going on against the middle class for so many years?
[...] Monday, President Obama outlined his $3 trillion debt reduction plan, which includes taxing the wealthy. The plan was immediately criticized by top Republicans. [...]