ECONOMY - Patriotic Millionaires WANT Higher Taxes

"'Patriotic Millionaires' Lobby Congress for Higher Taxes on Rich" PBS Newshour 11/16/2011

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): The ‘Occupy' movement, the bipartisan congressional super committee, deficits, taxes, fairness, economic inequality, they're all very much in the air right now. Over the past few months, we have been exploring these issues in a series of reports and conversations.

Tonight, we hear from a group that wants higher taxes on itself. They call themselves Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength. And members were on Capitol Hill lobbying today.

More excerpts

GARRETT GRUENER, Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength: These are about 200 folks so far who make a substantial amount of money and who believe that the -- it's time to roll back the Bush tax cuts, that essentially what we need to do for the sake of the country is to tax folks like ourselves more.

JEFFREY BROWN: And is there a consensus on how much more when you talk about -- you're talking about the marginal rate?

GARRETT GRUENER: That's right.

We are talking about moving back to the marginal rate that prevailed under President Clinton of 39.6 percent on, in this case, folks who make more than a million dollars a year.

JEFFREY BROWN: What's the argument? Why?

GARRETT GRUENER: Well, simply, first of all, the country needs the money, and we think it's the right thing to do.

We think that, you know, like other Americans, we love this country, and that those in the upper 1 percent essentially have been treated too good for their own sake, too good for the sake of the country. We have all done very well, and it's time to give back.

JEFFREY BROWN: And how did this get organized or how did it come about?

GARRETT GRUENER: Well, I think there are a variety of people who came together.

I wrote an op-ed that ran in The L.A. Times that -- entitled "Tax Me More." And that was certainly one of the strains. But I think a variety of people came to the same conclusion, that the relentless desire on the part of the Republicans to push down marginal rates was causing us to have an excessive deficit, which we believe is a big problem, and to under-invest in things that we think are critical for a good society.
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GARRETT GRUENER: The U.S. government is not a charity. We didn't take -- we didn't pass the hat when we decided to go into Afghanistan. We don't pass a hat when we decide whether or not to -- the country needs another aircraft carrier or to build a freeway or what have you.

What we do is, we make a decision as Americans, and then we fund it. And, alas, we have gotten out of the habit recently of understanding that the decisions we make as a country are decisions we have to pay for. And we need to make sure that the funding resources, that the revenues are there in order to meet the choices we make collectively.

Now, I think it's a good thing to debate whether or not these taxes should be increased for the upper 1 percent. Obviously, I strongly believe we should. But if we decide that, well, then it's the law of the land, and we're all responsible for paying.

Can you believe this? YA!

Now the question is, will the Tea Party (ex-Republican Party) listen? Sad to say, I doubt it. These people have been taking the Anti-Tax Hallucinogen for too long.