Over the weekend, more Republicans joined with lawmakers like Senator Tom Coburn and Congressman Steve LaTourette in saying that higher tax rates for the top 2 percent of incomes will be part of any balanced agreement to avert the fiscal cliff. Senator Bob Corker said on Fox News Sunday:
Over the weekend, more Republicans joined with lawmakers like Senator Tom Coburn and Congressman Steve LaTourette in saying that higher tax rates for the top 2 percent of incomes will be part of any balanced agreement to avert the fiscal cliff. Senator Bob Corker said on Fox News Sunday:
“There’s a growing body of folks who are willing to look at the rate on the top 2 percent.” [Fox News Sunday, 12/9 [1]]
The trend is growing beyond lawmakers, expanding to the business community that Republicans are claiming to protect. Just yesterday, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric said:
“We need revenue, everybody knows we need revenue… Bowles-Simpson, there’s not been one commission that says we can do this just on spending cuts. There’s going to have to be revenue. I think Speaker Boehner’s the only guy who can lead us on that…He’s gotta take the heat and I trust he can do it.” [CBS “This Morning,” 12/9 [2]]
Perhaps this growing consensus is based on the increasing number of polls that show the majority of Americans [3] support raising taxes [4] on the highest earners. The latest poll out today continues this trend:
“A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll finds that 60 percent of respondents support raising taxes on households that earn more than $250,000 a year and 64 percent want to raise taxes on large corporations.” [POLITICO, 12/10 [5]]
All this just shows that Republicans have an increasingly untenable position to sell in protecting tax cuts for the wealthy. They know how to get out of it: by passing a balanced, bipartisan deficit reduction plan that includes spending cuts and higher tax rates on income above $250,000.