Politics
Obama vs The Republicans in the “Tax War”
In yesterday’s Rose Garden address, President Obama unveiled his new initiative to attack America’s long-term deficit, which has increased exponentially since the implementation of the Bush era tax-cuts, and been further exacerbated by the mortgage crisis, record job-loss, defense and war spending and ill-funded entitlement programs. Obama made a defiant call for US$3.2 trillion in budget saving over the next decade, with US$1.5 trillion comprised of increased taxes on the wealthiest 0.3 percent of Americans.
The new approach is being lauded “The Buffet Rule”, since Warren Buffet first introduced the idea during the extensive debate over the debt ceiling, which was characterized by fierce Republican opposition to any tax increases for the rich and major corporations. The idea at the center of the rule is that it is intuitively wrong for Warren Buffet’s secretary to pay a higher effective tax rate than her employer, whose net worth is upwards of $50 billion.
