Sen. Susan Collins: Tax The Rich To Fund Payroll Tax Cut For Workers
by Michael McAuliff
11/30/11
WASHINGTON -- Moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins broke party ranks Wednesday, supporting a tax hike on millionaires and billionaires in order to fund a tax break for working Americans.
The senator from Maine also skewered a key GOP talking point by differentiating the wealthy, described in nearly all Republican rhetoric as "job creators," from the people who actually create jobs -- otherwise known as employers.
Democrats have proposed cutting payroll taxes by 3.1 percent, which could put about $1,500 back in the pockets of the average household. Republicans are supportive of the tax cut, but adamantly oppose the Democratic plan to pay for it by levying a surtax on income above $1 million.
"We're not arguing against extending this payroll tax cut," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday on the Senate floor. "We just think we shouldn't be punishing job creators to pay for it."
"If, in fact, we can find common ground on these extensions, I think you can take to the bank the fact that they will be paid for," House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said later.
But Collins, often a maverick in her party, made a telling departure from the prevailing orthodoxy, arguing that job creators and the rich are not one and the same, and that actual job creators are businesses, such as small corporations and partnerships, that hire people.
"What I've been looking at is can you carve out those businesses from the surtax, and you can," Collins told reporters just outside the Senate chamber, explaining that there's a difference between working enterprises and idle rich.
"There is already a body of well-developed law in the tax code having to do with active business participation versus passive business participation," she said.
"I think that's the answer to this dilemma. I do not want to impose additional taxes on the employers at a time when our economy is very fragile and we want to encourage them to hire," Collins said. "On the other hand, I do believe that multimillionaires and billionaires who are not running businesses could pay more of their income to help us deal with the deficit."...
For the rest of the article, go to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/30/susan-collins-tax-the-rich-payroll-tax-cut_n_1121263.html?ref=politics
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