President Obama’s most recent budget, released today, featured the “Buffett Rule,” named after and supported by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, which would require millionaires to pay a minimum 30 percent tax rate . Republicans have repeatedly denounced attempts to raise taxes on the wealthy as “class warfare,” neglecting to mention that their policies would actually raise taxes on the middle class.
In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, the billionaire investor George Soros said that he thought he should be paying more in taxes and took aim at Republicans who are trying to stop the “Buffett Rule” from becoming law:
ZAKARIA: What about taxes? Do you support President Obama’s proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy?
SOROS: Yes, I very much do so, because it’s the big boom, the super-bubble that resulted in a great increase in inequality. Not only do we have the after effect where we have slow growth one way or the other, but if you have better distribution of income, the average American will be better off.
Soros would be “one of the biggest losers” from Obama’s plan, he said, but he’s “willing to pay that” for the good of the country. Over the last twelve years, tax rates for the wealthiest 400 Americans were cut nearly in half, even as that group’s income quadrupled. In 2007, 150 of the 400 wealthiest Americans paid an effective tax rate between zero and 15 percent.
Polls have shown a strong amount of public support for the “Buffett Rule,” despite Republican resistance – although at least one Republican is aware of the inequality that exists in our nation’s tax code.