‘Tax me’ millionaires lack confidence in Obama’s vow to raise their levy. Why is he the only target?
By Daily Kos on 04/12/2011 –
Out of the 8.4 million millionaires in the United States, some 150 have joined Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, a group formed last year to push for letting the Bush tax cuts expire on Americans making more than $250,000 annually. Forty-five of them signed a public statement urging the President to take that action in December. They didn’t succeed obviously. Now they’re preparing a second public statement urging that taxes for the wealthy be raised. But, despite President Obama’s reiteration that he will raise taxes on the most affluent Americans, the group doesn’t have much confidence he will actually do so, and they are irked about it:
So says Erica Payne, founder of the Agenda project and coordinator of the Patriotic Millionaires campaign.
The president, when a candidate in 2008, had recommended ending the Bush tax cuts for households earning over $250,000 a year. But he conceded that point when he signed into law in 2010 an agreement with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts two more years.
It’s that concession that has disappointed and rankled Patriotic Millionaires, curdling their feelings. “The administration cut the deal they felt they needed to cut,” shrugs Payne. “But we disagreed wholeheartedly. The president’s quick and easy capitulation on an issue with such solid moral elements was disheartening.” …
“At the end of last year they had an easy fight, and they couldn’t make the case. Now they have a much more difficult fight and a more difficult end point, which is raising the debt ceiling. He didn’t make it when it was easy. I see no reason to think he’ll do it now. This White house has been surprisingly inept at articulating what’s sensible public policy. It’s not ideologically driven one way or another.”
While the Patriotic Millionaires are drafting their new public statement to the President, let me suggest with all due respect for their accumulated fortunes that they try redirecting some of their energy and ire toward another branch of government.
As of 2009, there were 261 millionaires in the House and Senate, and there is no reason to believe that figure has changed appreciably. If the Patriotic Millionaires are serious in their quest, perhaps they should pay some attention to recruiting a hundred or two of these congressional millionaires into their organization. Get THEM to co-sign the next public statement that is sent to the President.
Or just get them to agree to co-sponsor Rep Jan Schakowsky’s proposal to add some higher brackets to the current income tax schedule and tax dividend and capital gains at standard rates instead of 15 percent.
If the Patriotic Millionaires would publicly, vocally exert some of their financial clout toward that task, coupled with employing their special access to initiate personal visits to their own Representatives and Senators, they would have far more impact than the brief media attention obtained from delivering another letter to the White House.
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