Centerpiece Of Obama Re-election Campaign Is Far Left
IBDEditorials.com
Tax Policy: It looks like the "Buffett Rule" will be at the heart of Barack Obama's re-election campaign. Is that a winning game plan? Three years of the politics of envy haven't exactly put the economy back on track.
From Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, the president mounted his tax fairness hobby horse on Tuesday and yet again pushed for a Buffett Rule that would add a punitive tax on the wealthiest Americans.
"Do we want to keep giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans like me, or Warren Buffett, or Bill Gates — people who don't need them and never asked for them?" Obama asked. "Or do we want to keep investing in things that will grow our economy and keep us secure? That's the choice."
Hours earlier and several hundred miles away, White House adviser David Axelrod told an MSNBC audience that the federal tax system is set up to benefit the rich.
"We should not have a tax system where billionaires pay less than their secretaries. We have a tax system that's rigged against the average person, rigged in favor of the very wealthy, and we need to fix that. And this Buffett Rule will address that," he said.
Get used to it. The "fairness" rhetoric is only beginning. The Obama campaign is going to wage class warfare right through Election Day.
And the media will eagerly help the president spread the poison. So please let us set the record straight.
First, the well-worn tale that legendary investor Buffett has a higher tax rate than his secretary is nonsense.
If Buffett is the top 1%, he is in a group that pays roughly 30% of all federal taxes, including income, capital gains and dividend taxes. If his secretary is anywhere between the top 20% and the bottom 20% — the middle three quintiles — she's among a group that pays only about 15% of all federal taxes.
Under the current tax regime, the most progressive tax system in the world, it would be virtually impossible for Buffett's secretary to have an effective tax rate higher than her boss' rate. No, Mr. Axelrod, the system is not rigged in favor of the rich.
Second, the Buffett Rule will do nothing to address the runaway federal shortfalls.
The Joint Committee on Taxation has issued a report that found Buffett Rule legislation would bring in less than $50 billion over a decade. That's nothing compared with the $7 trillion to $8 trillion in deficits that Washington is projected to run over the same period, based on Obama's budget. And it's an even smaller portion of the $15.57 trillion in debt we have now.
Frankly, even that $47 billion figure might be too optimistic. When the British enacted a version of the Buffett Rule, they projected it would bring a "surge" in revenue.
Yet there was a drop in collections. Why? As one government official noted, "well-off Britons" simply changed their behavior to "avoid the new higher rate."
The Democratic Senate, which hasn't passed a budget in more than 1,000 days, has scheduled a procedural vote on a Buffett Rule bill next week.
Expect the howling about "fairness" to drown out the facts, especially those that show the politics of envy we've endured the last three years have been a failure.