The OutFront Brief: would taxing millionaires at 30% make a difference in the national debt?
In the State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Obama made a several pointed references to the inherent unfairness of millionaires paying a lower tax rate that working class families. He urged Congress to join him in ensuring that the super-rich pay no less than 30% in taxes.
As The Los Angeles Times explained,
“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of Americans barely get by” or adopt proposals to strengthen middle-class jobs and futures, Obama told a joint session of Congress gathered in the chambers of the House of Representatives. “What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.”
But what impact would the "millionaires tax" have on the national debt? CNN's Erin Burnett has crunched the numbers, and shows it might be a better sell politically than financially. The tax would raise enough revenue to pay down just over one percent of the national debt.
Coming up at 7pET on Erin Burnett OutFront, Erin runs through the numbers–and talks through the politics of the president's proposal.
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Have the long term effects been considered? As the debt goes down, the 1% value would increase. Seems like this calculation only counts for 1 year from now.
well, the first rule to getting out of a hole is to stop digging. Even if it's only 1% of the entire debt, it would be a pretty big piece of the annual deficit, and would get us that much closer to a balanced budget on an annual basis. Republicans that want to balance the budget without tax increases don't understand the math.