In spite of a majority of Senators voting to pass the Buffett Rule creating a minimum tax rate for those making over a million a year, the bill failed. Along an almost straight party line vote, the Buffett rule did not muster the 60 votes needed to stop a potential filibuster.
With 60%of the public and 57% of small business owners supporting a minimum tax rate on incomes over a million a year, the nation’s wealthiest can sleep well this tax day knowing that the our federal tax inequality is safe, at least for now.
But the executive director of Center for Community Change, Deepak Bhargava, says in an opinion editorial in The Hill’s Congress Blog today that a tax revolt 2.0 is brewing. According to Mr. Bhargava, the old Grover Norquist-style tax revolt has passed “like the Cold War or the fax machine.”
Well, just like I still sometimes use a fax machine, the “never-raise-taxes” revolt is not completely dead.
Yesterday I participated in the national Buffett Rule battle and appeared for a live cut-in on Fox Business News. (No, Hell hasn’t frozen over but Fox did fail to identify me as the Vice-Chair of the American Sustainable Business Council even though that is how I received the invite.)
Now on to House Majority Leader Cantor’s bill to cut small business taxes on profit by 20% with the absurd prediction that this will inspire job creation. More on this tomorrow.