April 19, 2012--Buffet's Gimmick

Just after Republican senators blocked the Buffet Rule that would have raised taxes for very high earners, Mitt Romney, who also opposes it, appeared on his favorite news network, Fox News, to be interviewed by one of his favorite hosts--ober free-marketeer, Larry Kudlow.

The Rule would apply a minimum tax of 30 percent to individuals such as Romney and Kudlow making more than a million dollars a year.

Kudlow threw Romney a soft ball:

KUDLOW: Listen, the 30 percent millionaires' tax, the Buffett tax was stopped in the Senate last night, you know that. Let me ask you this. President Obama, Vice President Biden and others, they're taking to calling it the Romney Rule. It's not the Buffett tax. It's the Romney Rule because they say that wealthy, successful people like yourself don't pay their fair share in taxes. I want to get your initial response to that, please.

ROMNEY: Well, you know, these kind of gimmicks that they've talked about, the so-called Buffett Rule, if they want to change the name, that's fine, too, they couldn't get it through their own Democratic Senate. And I think the reason is, people recognize that these gimmicks are not going to get America strong again, they're not going to create jobs. They're going to have the opposite effect of creating jobs.

The reason the Buffett Rule couldn't get through the Senate is because Republicans filibustered it. There are only 51 Democrats in the Senate and since a 60 vote majority is required to overcome a filibuster, with only one Republican joining all the Democrats, it went down to defeat. So Romney was wrong to blame its demise to "their own Democratic Senate." It was defeated by Republicans. If the Senate had majority rule for ordinary business, "their Democrats" would have passed it.

The reason Republicans filibustered it is because they know that the Buffett Rule isn't a gimmick. Yes, making sure that million-dollar earners pay more than at present yields "only" $47 billion over the next decade; but if we can't do even that, how can we realistically expect to handle the bigger fiscal issues we face?

Far from being a gimmick, the Buffett Rule is a start—and a wildly popular one. Seventy-two percent of Americans favor it, including a majority of Republicans.

The GOP criticism of it in the Congress focused on how small a portion of the annual cost of the government would be covered by the $47 billion--some senators said only 18 minutes of spending, others three days. But $47 billion is real money and would be a start in the direction of fairness and fiscal responsibility.

A start is not the definition of a gimmick.

It's both real and symbolic. Reality and symbolism are often equally important. They can be reciprocally connected. I sadly suppose we will have to wait until after the November election to get serious about the mess we've made.