4 Oct 2011 12:48 pm
The Buffett Reagan Rule Reagan Called For An End To Crazy Tax Loopholes That Let Millionaires Pay Less Than Bus DriversWhen President Obama released his plan for the Buffett rule, which involves closing tax loopholes and ensuring that millionaires pay their fair share in taxes, he explained that middle-class families shouldnt be paying higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires. Warren Buffetts secretary shouldnt pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett, he said. Ever since, many Republicans have been attacking Obama for inciting class warfare.However, if calling for an end to millionaires having lower tax rates than their secretaries is class warfare, Obama is only the latest class warrior to occupy the Oval Office. In a June 6, 1985 speech at Northside High School in Atlanta, Georgia, then President Ronald Reagan explained that tax loopholes allowing a millionaire to pay lower taxes that a bus driver were crazy, because they allowed the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share: Were going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. 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 thats crazy. [...] Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver or less?Watch Obama and Reagans remarks, side by side: When Reagan asked the crowd whether millionaires should be paying more or less in taxes than a bus driver, the crowd resoundingly responded more! Reagan also told an Illinois crowd about a letter he had received from a man who said that tax loopholes allowed him to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. He wrote me the letter to tell me hed like to come to Washington and testify before Congress as to how thats possible for him to do and why it is wrong, Reagan said.