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Obama to Announce New Tax Plan for Millionaires

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Posted on Sep 18, 2011
White House / Pete Souza

On Monday, President Obama is expected to call for a new minimum tax rate for Americans making more than $1 million a year. The proposal will be called the “Buffett Rule,” after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has complained that rich Americans are not paying their fair share in taxes.

The new rate would affect fewer than 450,000 taxpayers—0.3 percent of the taxpaying population, and is designed to make future reductions to Medicare and Medicaid more palatable to those who oppose them.

It looks like Obama won’t offer much in the way of details regarding the plan and subsequent revenue increases. Apparently, that work will be left to the special congressional debt reduction committee charged with hacking out a bipartisan budget plan by late November. —ARK

The New York Times:

With a special joint Congressional committee starting work to reach a bipartisan budget deal by late November, 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 will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday.

... The millionaires’ rate would affect only 0.3 percent of taxpayers, they said. That would be fewer than 450,000; 144 million returns were filed for 2010.

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By John Poole, May 18 at 4:51 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

doublestandards/glasshouses. Don’t you mean Obama for Commander in Chief. I
have a placard in my Jett wagon’s back window:  REAL MEN DON’T ASPIRE TO BE
COMMANDER IN CHIEF.

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By SteveL, September 18, 2011 at 7:27 pm Link to this comment

Tax inheritance, capital gains, and dividends at the same rate as income

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Robespierre115's avatar

By Robespierre115, September 18, 2011 at 2:18 pm Link to this comment

So what if he raises taxes slightly for the oligarchs (who are his best friends)? His “jobs plan” basically outsources everything to them, allowing them to continue to set the rules and rake in the cash. Of course Buffet is going to ask for a slight hike in taxes, the rich always prefer that than real, popular action to smash their control.

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blogdog's avatar

By blogdog, September 18, 2011 at 12:21 pm Link to this comment

again the current puppet POTUS diverts attention from the real solution

TOBIN TAX: 1% on all financial transactions: stocks,  bonds, commodities futures
DEATH TO DERIVATIVES: forced settlement of all finance-based derivatives at fair
market value and make their creation illegal
END THE FED as we know it - kick out the global banksters - use it as a US Gov. source to finance massive infrastructure re-development

encourage a primary challenge to Obomber

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By berniem, September 18, 2011 at 11:56 am Link to this comment

New tax plan? Why? Be a true conservative and return to those wonderful days of the 50s when a really progressive tax rate was in place! Mr. POTUS, too little, too late. Going from liar to fraud will not get you my, nor most other progressives, vote. And actually, I don’t care if some repub. gets elected because the outcome of this nation’s future has already been determined by those who think in terms of global rapaciousness and see the US as a useful military instrument for the ensuring of their prerogatives!

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By prisnersdilema, September 18, 2011 at 10:14 am Link to this comment

I wonder if he thinks that the Republicans, are going to allow this? Still I’m sure it will make good night time T.V…..

Then on the other hand president Obama’s job Czar Mr. Jeffrey Imelt, just said on CNN that he was proud of sending thousands of Jobs over seas to China. He also wants to make work visa’s easier to get for those who want to come here. Also part of his plan for Job creation, is to reduce regulations here at home.

Mr. Imelt, is proud because America now is a part of a global economy, which is code for the third world.

America used to have a very high standard of living, compared to the rest of the world. The rest of the world, the Global economy, was based on economic slavery, child labor and poverty. So now the U.S.A gets to become a part of the world, and the Global economy.

Unfortunately, those who caused the mess to economy are still in charge, still deluded, and still doing the same things that created the mess.

Still haven’t figured out that American’s can’t buy the products the corporations make in China, if their out of work, or can’t support themselves.

Still haven’t figured out that job creation in China doesn’t infact creat jobs here in the USA.

Which means that Obama’s tax the Rich scheme, no matter how popular it might be with the poor, is just another political ploy. And Obama is still a fake.

Go ahead, tax the rich, make them homeless, take away their McMansions, it won’t make much of a difference in the long run. Because, it doesn’t change the political and economic infrastructure that is destroying this country.

Maybe, the rich should be taxed to their eyeballs, it’s the only way to support the military. No taxes no F-22 Raptor fighter jets. 

The people are tapped out.

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By doublestandards/glasshouses, September 18, 2011 at 9:39 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Obama for president 2012.

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A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
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