A targeted senator lashed out at the White House today over a report in Friday’s Wall Street Journal that Republicans in 13 states are on a list to get pressured this week to vote for the “Buffett Rule” tax.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) is among those targeted for the vote one week from today.
“Instead of playing politics, the President should join me and three dozen other senators of both parties in endorsing his own Simpson-Bowles Debt Commission report,” Alexander said today. “Both Simpson-Bowles and the Ryan budget, which I also support, would restructure entitlement spending—the main source of our dangerous federal debt—and reform the tax code by closing special-interest loopholes.”
The White House is coming-out with a Buffett Rule offensive tomorrow, issuing a special report trying to make an economic argument for the “fairness tax.” Obama will speak on the report from Florida, where he’ll also be making campaign stops.
“This is a disappointing and cynical smokescreen,” Alexander said. “Since the top 1 percent of taxpayers already pay 37 percent of federal individual income taxes, the ‘Buffet Rule’ would generate revenues of less than 1 percent of the new debt projected under the president’s 10 year budget.”
The senator bases that projection on estimates provided by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation.
Other states with senators on the target list are Missouri, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Maine, Nevada, Nebraska, Alaska, Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Iowa.
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