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About a month ago, Warren Buffett, the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, made a strong case in support of raising taxes on those who enjoy enormous wealth. He noted, among other things, that he has a lower tax burden, as a percentage of his income, than anyone in his office. Millionaires and billionaires, Buffett said, “have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”
It looks President Obama is inclined to agree.
President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.
With a special joint Congressional committee starting work to reach a bipartisan budget deal by late November, the proposal adds a new and populist feature to Mr. Obama’s effort to raise the political pressure on Republicans to agree to higher revenues from the wealthy in return for Democrats’ support of future cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.
Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule.”
For the record, the NYT article quotes “administration officials,” which might suggest it’s still in the realm of rumor and insider scuttlebutt, but given the fact that the president’s official Twitter feed is promoting the Times article, it’s a pretty safe bet the article accurately reflects the White House’s thinking.
We don’t yet know all of the relevant details — most notably, what the new millionaires’ minimum tax rate would be and how much it would be expected to raise — but the fact that Obama is going at all this route is extremely encouraging.
Indeed, I’d encourage folks to consider the larger context. When the president said in his joint session speech that he’d deliver “a more ambitious deficit plan,” many of his detractors on the left feared the worst. He might, critics warned, go after Social Security as part of an effort to strike a deal with Republicans.
Everything we’ve seen from Obama this month suggests this White House has chosen a new posture when dealing with the GOP. The introduction of the American Jobs Act was a pleasant, progressive surprise; the White House’s reluctance to start making concessions was clearly a step in the right direction; word that Social Security is off the table is just what the left wanted to hear; and support for the “Buffett Rule” suggests Obama and his team aren’t afraid to draw contrasts with unpopular, hard-right congressional Republicans.
It’s possible that for many of the president’s critics on the left, it’s too late. But for those who’ve been urging Obama to adopt progressive principles and show a willingness to fight, it’s worth appreciating the fact that the president is doing exactly as they recommended.
Based on nothing but speculation, I’d bet the debt-ceiling fiasco changed Obama’s entire approach rather dramatically. The president very likely assumed that if he worked in good faith, offered reasonable concessions, and demonstrated a commitment to compromise and common ground, Republicans would respond in kind. The summer offered a painful lesson — those assumptions were wrong. GOP officials have rewritten the rules.
With those lessons in mind, the president is now taking a tougher line. Good for him — and for us.
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Alli on September 18, 2011 8:11 AM:
The left can go piss off. Good for nothing whiners who never step up when needed. Yawn when they get something and act like the world is ending when its taken away. I have no more patience for them and no more kind words. Do your thing Mr. President.
Good Morning everyone!
c u n d gulag on September 18, 2011 8:14 AM:
I can see it now -
Goehmert and Bachmann, among others, calling for a huge Washington DC bonfire to burn all of Jimmy Buffet's albums, tapes, and CD's.
What?
Never miiiiiiind...
Tom Marney on September 18, 2011 8:23 AM:
I wish... It isn't a matter of shared sacrifice. A sane tax regime would be better for everyone, including the rich. Buffett isn't being altruistic-- stronger consumer demand and a reduction in the decades-long glut of capital will make it easier for Buffett and others to find winning investments. Remember: Even with the top rate at 39.6% under Clinton, there was enough surplus capital out there to fuel the tech bubble.
Mark-NC on September 18, 2011 8:26 AM:
I'll buy this - right up to the point that he CAVES AGAIN.
It will be hard for Obama to overcome 2 1/2 years of being a push-over. If he begins to grow a spine, he has a shot at re-election.
DAY on September 18, 2011 8:33 AM:
Once again I click on comments, and once again I am greeted with:
" Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today. "
-except, of course, for gulag. . .
Ron Byers on September 18, 2011 8:34 AM:
Buffett isn't being charitable in his comments. Nor is he an ingrate socialist billionaire. He is talking totally from his own self interest.
I have been wandering around the Northeast and Canada on vacation the last couple of weeks. what I have seen is very depressing. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have been as hard hit by the great recession and slow recovery as anyone, but they are in the middle of a serious road building program. A little further south in northern Maine the recession has hit home hard, and nothing seems to be going on. Even my wife commented about the number of homes for sale a long the coast. New Hampshire and Vermont are still recovering from Irene. The American Jobs Act needs to be passed and passed now. It is clear America is in decline from traveling around the edges. Too bad those in the Washington area don't get out more. They would see just how badly things are going.
Billionaires don't just happen. They are the natural result of a strong and vibrant middle class. Upper middle class doctors, lawyers, small town bank presidents and educators buy vacation homes in the North East. Move money to the rich and away from the working class and lower middle class people who are the back bone of America and watch the upper middle class struggle. One of the first things they will do is abandon their cherished dachas in the woods. that will only make things worse for the lower middle class and working class as we all circle around the drain. As real poverty establishes itself watch the rich decline.
howie on September 18, 2011 8:41 AM:
If the left goes pissing off, BO loses forty five states.Good luck with that centrist party, Alli.
Steve, please explain how the administration believed something "the left" knew wasn't true in the summer of 2009.
I'll always believe that acting rethug was a feature and not a bug of BO 1.0. Let's hope that 2.0 is a little bit base friendly.
paul on September 18, 2011 8:59 AM:
It was "too late" for "the left" in 1999. But lucky for them, George W. to the rescue!
Nothing -- no thing -- Obama does will ever placate "the left." He rams through the first universal health bill in the nation's history to the lasting detriment of his political prospects ... not good enough.
Better to fight for the moon and have nothing for the next 500 years than to have no "spine" and make progress.
The original Obama stimulus plan circa 2009 was exponentially larger (including inflation) than those passed by FDR and an FDR-friendly Congress. "The left's" response: poutrage.
That this President and this blog has to perpetually apologize for the most progressive Administration in 60 years is ... well ... utterly predictable.
Ron Byers on September 18, 2011 9:11 AM:
I am tired of this fight between Obama and the "left." It is perfectly permissable to disagree with Obama without writing him off. We have to admit that Obama isn't so much the problem as are the "do nothings" we have elected to Congress. We sat on our hands in 2010 and allowed Dick Army to seize the populist initiative. Our fault, not Obama's alone. As a result we have a Tea Party dominated House. Nothing is going to change that until we retake the house. Next year seems an opportune time for that. As to the Senate, I know McConnell and the Republicans are a bunch of dicks, but the Democrats aren't much better. No fight at all. I say turn over the entire institution. We need to elect fighting Democratic senators who have some integrity and love for their country. Get rid of the Blue Dogs.
What Progressives really need to be doing is seizing control of the Democratic party. We haven't even tried which tells me most of the complaining left just likes to complain. They aren't interested in actually doing anything.
Lee on September 18, 2011 9:18 AM:
I don't know about Buffett, but most millionaires will simply move their "home" addresses to another country that has lower income taxes. Why don't the libs (and Obama's advisors) know this? Check www.ideasforourfuture.com for ideas that might help our struggling country.
DisgustedWithItAll on September 18, 2011 9:37 AM:
I'm very encouraged by the change in attitude from Obama. And think supporters ought to give him some props. I do with e-mail:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Josef K on September 18, 2011 9:38 AM:
I'm wondering if the White House shouldn't have 'learned' this lesson a bit earlier, or just treated it as a given the Republican caucus wasn't going to help them in the slightest.
Is it really a case of "better late than never"?
sherifffruitfly on September 18, 2011 9:45 AM:
"It’s possible that for many of the president’s critics on the left, it’s too late."
Yup. "True progressives" are far too deeply entrenched in their anti-Obama religion to do anything but hate everything Obama does. Just as teabaggers are.
George Colombo on September 18, 2011 9:51 AM:
I hate to be cynical but after two and a half years of Obama appeasing Republicans to no avail, it's difficult for me to believe that there's anything going on here beyond political calculation in the face of what's going to be a tough re-election campaign. Of course I'll vote for Obama next year (the alternatives are too awful to contemplate), but I'll do it without a shred of enthusiasm.
Fr33d0m on September 18, 2011 9:57 AM:
"Based on nothing but speculation, I’d bet the debt-ceiling fiasco changed Obama’s entire approach rather dramatically."
Lets hope not. It was far too obvious in January 2009 what approach the Repugnicon's were taking. To not see it in April 2011 would be stupid.
@sherifffruitfly, It is the height of ignorance to shoot at your own soldiers on purpose. Certainly you don't think your "brilliant" words are going to bring anyone on-board.
DisgustedWithItAll on September 18, 2011 10:01 AM:
If the "true" left doesn't get enthused with the level of danger that's in the atmosphere in these times, this country's going down. They damn well better be getting enthused, and helping to elect Obama, whether that enthusiasm comes in the form of support for Obama or hate, and I mean hate, for the shit coming at the country from the right.
If the Nader voters in Florida would've voted for Gore, the country and the world would not be in the shit shape it is. Wake up, get over yourselves, and get your thinking straight.
martin on September 18, 2011 10:15 AM:
given the fact that the president’s official Twitter feed
Anyone know how this works? Is there a team of White House twitterers who work in round the clock shifts. Does every tweet have to be approved by the higher ups, or is there just twitter talking points released each morning to be slowly tweeted out during the day?
The West Wing sure would have been a different show if Twitter existed then;>
small silbilita claims Mr Captcha
hornblower on September 18, 2011 10:27 AM:
"Critics on the left"?
Ignore them. They have media outlets and loud voices but they speak mostly for themselves. In their arrogance they think they speak for the rest of us, they don't.
PeteCO on September 18, 2011 11:03 AM:
A few weeks ago I got a call from a guy at Organizing For America. He wanted to meet and talk about the upcoming campaign-they were doing outreach and wanted to hear from people who had worked for Obama in 08. We met for coffee and I (politely) let him have in with both barrels-Quit it with the bi-partisan bullshit, go on the attack, and hammer the GOP on their economic incompetence and coddling of the wealthy.
I asked him if he had heard this from other volunteers. Of course he had, many times. The OFA guy, a volunteer himself, said there were only five layers between him & the top (DNC?) people. If this is true, maybe they actually are listening to the grassroots.Here in Colorado (a battleground state) the DNC are running an ad campaign plugging the American Jobs Act during the evening news. It's a start.
Swift Loris on September 18, 2011 11:11 AM:
word that Social Security is off the table is just what the left wanted to hear
Did we want to hear that he's going after Medicare and Medicaid instead?
jjm on September 18, 2011 11:13 AM:
Two and a half years of appeasing Republicans? What planet are you from?
The compromising he did in the first two years was with his own blue dog Democrats, in case you don't remember. Not a single Republican ever voted for his many accomplishments in the first two years, including unprecedented health care legislation and financial reform.
But no, the short term memory is all you've got.
In the two instances of hostage taking by the GOP controlled House, Obama 'lost' but actually won: in the first case, the budget extension, the GOP crowed they'd made him cut $33 billion dollars, and it looked like that on its face. But under closer examination, the bill actually expanded spending. The GOP got suckered.
In the second case, the debt ceiling fight: Obama offered the GOP the 'grand bargain' on cutting the budget, even including their wet dream of cutting back a bit on Medicare, SS.
No deal.
Now he's able to tell them: "Too late, you fools. You rejected this offer; we're withdrawing it from our Super Committee proposals."
The GOP wouldn't have 19% approval ratings had he not played his cards right. Oh he 'only' has 43%? Well he's obviously the loser!
gelfling545 on September 18, 2011 11:27 AM:
It seems to me that the President is able to move to this position now because he was able to use the republican response to the debt ceiling to prove to voters(not the people who comment here, but the people who have never heard of here) that it is not possible to deal with the republican members of Congress as if they were reasonable people.
n on September 18, 2011 11:53 AM:
one thing you should consider... the way the debt ceiling played out (while the press has focused on POTUS's numbers which moved lower but within MOE, but it was the tea party numbers that took big tumbles, esp. with swing voters) gave POTUS political room to maneuver to a tougher approach.
yellowdog on September 18, 2011 12:21 PM:
@jjm on September 18, 2011 11:13 AM:
This comment is astute. The left of the Democratic Party tends to underestimate the significance of the ideological divergence within the party itself. Obama has to wrestle with Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, Joe Manchin, and Mark Pryor before he ever gets to McConnell and Boehner. For Democrats to hold the majority in the Senate, the party has to include some Nelsons as well as some Boxers and Mikulskis. That is the reality of the current electoral map. It would take a local liberal groundswell in places like Nebraska, Arkansas, and West Virginia for that to change. These are states where Obama is not popular but some Democrats are viable statewide. Liberals who hate the Blue Dogs believe more liberal positions would carry in these states. I doubt it--though I am open to hearing other views. As long as this conservative strain exists in the Democratic Party, liberals will be unhappy--though I doubt they would be happy with the hard-core conservative alternative either. Obama has to work with the constellation of players voters choose to send to Washington--and that includes some fairly conservative Democrats. Liberals vent a lot of frustration at Obama, but until they move some votes in places like Arkansas and West Virginia, the political map will be more conservative than they like. Obama is giving liberals and the rest of the party plenty to rally around in the American Jobs Act - and I hope Democrats in these states in particular are mobilizing to get it passed.
Rugosa on September 18, 2011 1:04 PM:
I know there are lefties for whom nothing but idealogical purity will do - the ones that go so far left that they cross the International Date Line and end up coming out on the right. But we can, as pointed out by others above, disagree with Obama on some things or some tactics without giving up the game. He's showing some spunk at last; let's give him our support and keep nudging leftward. That's how the Republicans have achieved their goal of moving the center rightward (and most Americans are "centrists," whatever they think the center may be.)
captcha - smoov b? Oh, sBMothe year (no I can't resist stupid captcha jokes)
Joe Friday on September 18, 2011 4:17 PM:
"Obama to push 'Buffett Rule' "
Shoot.
I was hopin' it would be the JIMMY Buffett rule.
Joe Friday on September 18, 2011 4:22 PM:
Lee,
"I don't know about Buffett, but most millionaires will simply move their 'home' addresses to another country that has lower income taxes."
Countries that are our industrialized competitors have HIGHER taxes. If they want to move to some Godforsaken second or third world countries, great, don't let the door hit them in the ass on the way out.
Just don't call 911 to the American military if your company gets seized or you get kidnapped by some rebels.
Roh108 on September 18, 2011 4:35 PM:
Alll says that the left are whiners. What an ass!! Where have you been for the last 2 1/2 years?? Boner the weeper of the House, Cantor the weasel cry baby, McConnell filibuster leader and biggest whiner, alll you have no clue!! take a good look at your sorry ass UnAmerican party and wake up. it seems that your party is the party of little bitch ass CRYBABIES along with your sorry ASS!!
zizi on September 18, 2011 7:16 PM:
The disgruntled left's patently false meme that Pres. Obama has been a pushover needs to stop. If you have one party that is hellbent on dismantling the commonweal through kamikaze acts, and a president who has the responsibility of keeping this fragile country floating, then you have no business insulting said President for doing whatever it takes not to heave us down the rathole.
Governing this country is NOT a GAME where all that is at stake is swagger and bully points. It is a Damn fucking country we are steering here. That the corporate media chooses to treat this whole thing as a game makes it the prime catalyst for our rapid descent into economic and political mayhem.
No good deed goes unpunished has bee the lot of this President. That the disgruntled left doesn't think this country is worth saving but rather a blinking game to be won is a damned shame.
If we all don't fight this wingnut venom in our midst event he left's last bastion of opinion peddling, the internet, will be lost when wingnuts destroy net neutrality. Perhaps then folks will learn their lesson in radio silence.
Anonymous on September 18, 2011 7:30 PM:
I understand that 11 dimensional chess is out of style, but I think it is possible that Obama planned this apparent shift a while ago.
One way of imagining things is that he decided that he had to give in to the demands of hostage takers who would really kill the hostage, and planned to go after them the instant they released the hostage. This fits the facts.
Another is that he knew what he wanted to do, played hard to get, and made us beg for it. Consider Clinton, Clinton and Magaziner wrote a health care reform and tried to get it through the Senate. Obama let the Senate mess around for months until senators were begging for Presidential leadership.
He is attacking the Republicans after all liberals and most centrists have begged him to grow a spine. Pundits who called him weak are (slightly) embarrassed to turn around and say he is imperial and extreme.
"Brilliant strategy or pure luck ?" That is the eternal question. The other is "who cares ?"
DBLS on September 19, 2011 11:45 AM:
You could pass this tax tomorrow and it would have almost no effect on Buffet. The vast majority of the money Buffet has made in his lifetime will never, ever be taxed under the President's proposal. Buffet buys stocks cheap, holds them for long periods of time during which they become quite valuable. That increase in value is a capital gain - a type of income. Buffet's plan is to give all these stocks away to charitable trusts he's set up - either now or at his death. Once he does that, there will be no tax paid by him or anyone ever on the increase in value of the stocks he's giving away. In other words, through the miracle of charitable deductions, he is avoiding any income tax of any kind on the vast majority of his income.
If you want to see whether Buffet really and truly wants to pay his "fair share," and whether President Obama is really serious about making Buffet pay his "fair share," then you ought to be demanding that capital gains tax be paid on appreciated properties at the time of their donation or bequest to charity. Otherwise, you are being played for suckers.
square1 on September 19, 2011 2:45 PM:
@yellowdog: The left of the Democratic Party tends to underestimate the significance of the ideological divergence within the party itself. Obama has to wrestle with Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, Joe Manchin, and Mark Pryor before he ever gets to McConnell and Boehner.
You are half correct, yellowdog. There absolutely IS an ideological divergence in the Democratic party, particularly on economic issues.
One ideology is what might be termed "traditional liberalism." The adherents of this ideology basically believe that the Democratic Party largely got it correct between 1932 and 1996. That Keynesian policies work. That government is a positive force for regulating markets. That "union" isn't a 4-letter word. And that a strong middle-class is the economic engine that drives a healthy economy.
The other ideology is that traditional liberalism is fundamentally flawed. That unions are inherently corrupt. That business regulations more often than not stifle innovation. That tax cuts unleash economic growth. And that what drives the economic engine is not a vibrant middle class, consuming goods and services, but rather a small group of economic elites: "savvy" financial services gurus, CEOs and other senior business executives, and wealthy holders of capital.
Although there are important differences between certain political terms used for Demcorats, broadly speaking, we can say that "Blue Dogs," "New Democrats," "Third-Way Democrats," and "Centrists" generally adhere to the more corporate ideology.
What you get wrong, yellowdog, is that it isn't liberals who ignore these ideological differences. It is the Centrists who pretend that there is no ideological difference between the camps; that we are one big happy Democratic family. Centrist need this illusion because if most Democrats were forced to choose sides, the Centrist faction would lose out politically. So Centrists pretend that when they achieve Centrist policies, they were forced to accept those policies out of political expediency rather than out of political preference.
A logical question to ask is, in which ideological faction does President Obama fall?
Based on his actual policies, one would normally say that he is a Centrist. However, Centrists don't want us to believe this. They want us to believe that President Obama is a liberal who has been forced to compromise with the Centrists. Is there any evidence for this? Not really. But it is a convenient fiction.
Obama has to wrestle with Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, Joe Manchin, and Mark Pryor before he ever gets to McConnell and Boehner.
What evidence is there that Obama has to wrestle with any of these folks -- or Lieberman, Lincoln, Landrieu, Bayh, etc.? For some unexplained reason, liberal Democrats are expected to simply accept on faith -- upon pain of being called a firebagger -- that President Obama fundamentally disagrees ideologically with these conservative Democrats. But if there are two ideological factions within the Party, isn't it entirely possible that the President simply belongs to the other faction? That he agrees with the policies that he has advocated?
I think it is all well and good that President Obama is supporting the Buffet Rule. But there is a big difference between sounding like a liberal and being a liberal. The reason that many liberal Democrats question President Obama's liberal bona fides is not because they hate him. It is because Obama has caused liberals to doubt whether the President actually wants traditionally liberal policies. That isn't an insult, just an analysis.