Ronald Reagan Backs The Buffett Rule?
Benjy Sarlin October 3, 2011, 1:42 PM 2608
Progressives are hoping that if Republicans won’t listen to President
Obama on the Buffett Rule, then maybe they’ll listen to President Reagan.
The Center for American Progress
unearthed video of Reagan making the case in 1985 for closing tax
loopholes on the rich in strikingly similar terms to Obama, even leading
an audience to cheers over the idea to tax millionaires at the same rate
as bus drivers. Obama is currently promoting a plan to reform the tax
code in order to prevent a billionaire like Warren Buffett from paying
less than their secretary.
“In theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice
they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a
bus driver was paying ten percent of his salary, and that’s crazy,”
Reagan says in the video. “Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more
in taxes than the bus driver or less?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cgbJ-Fs1ikA
“We continue to see support for the Buffett Rule growing in
unexpected quarters,” Jennifer Palmieri, president of the Center for
American Progress Action Fund told reporters in a conference call on the
footage. “Now we have President Reagan speaking to us from 30 years ago
to argue for the same type of equity.”
Democrats aren’t the only ones who’ve tried to use former presidents’
decades-old words in today’s tax fights. The CAP video bears a
resemblance to a memorable ad by Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) in which he used
footage of President
Kennedy calling for lower taxes to sell himself to Democratic voters.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/ronald-reagan-backs-the-buffett-rule.php?ref=fpb
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