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TAMMY BALDWIN INTRODUCES BILL BASED ON 'BUFFETT RULE'
WPR News - Tammy Baldwin introduces bill based on 'Buffett Rule'
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Tuesday February 07, 2012
by Gilman Halsted
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(UNDATED) Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin of Madison has introduced a bill in Congress that would hike the effective tax rate for the top one tenth of a percent of tax payers.
It's called the "Buffett Rule", because billionaire investor Warren Buffett last year criticized the current tax code as unfair because his secretary pays a higher effective tax rate than he does. Baldwin says her new "Paying a Fair Share Act" is designed to change that.
"Not only would this bill insure that the highest earning Americans pay at least a 30 percent effective tax rate but it would also reduce the deficit by tens of billions of dollars per year over the next decade," she says.
The deficit reductions would likely come from increased taxes paid for by the estimated 8 thousand people in the country who earn ten million dollars a year or more. The bill would not change the current tax exemption on most capital gains and dividends. But skeptics like Todd Berry of the Wisconsin taxpayer's alliance says that's exactly where most of the very rich get more than half their income.
"If you're increasing their taxes because they have a high income and half their income is from dividends and capital gains then I don't now how you can say you're not changing the rate in reality on capital gains and income," he says.
But Baldwin says this is a tax reform that will appeal to a broad majority of people who believe the rich get to play the tax game by their own set of rules. Rules they created by with the help of high paid lobbyists.
"This restores fundamental fairness and frankly it's just common sense," she says.
Baldwin did not name any Republicans who have expressed support for the bill but says she believes it has a good chance of making it to the floor for a vote.
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