Rick Santelli Deconstructs the Buffett Rule

The outspoken (Deo Gratias) Rick Santelli, the father of the Tea Party, explains quite forcefully the spuriousness of Obama's Buffett Rule.  The fact that it is, indeed, a non solution to the problem will not stop Obama from pushing for it because it's an important piece of his class warfare rhetoric.

The video was on The Foundry (the Blog of The Heritage Foundation) today, along with these comments:

Back in February 2009, CNBC’s Rick Santelli launched a nationwide firestorm when he spoke out from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade about the federal government run wild and President Obama’s mortgage plan, calling for a Chicago Tea Party in July of that year.

Today, Santelli again spoke truth to the American people when he explained why the President’s “Buffett Rule” does nothing to solve America’s fiscal crisis.

Neil Cavuto's Greatest "Rant"

The inestimable Neil Cavuto, whose show airs on Fox News Channel weekdays at 4:00 PM ET, often closes his show with what some call a rant but what is actually a brief statement clothed beautifully in common sense and wisdom.  This is one of his best.

What Is A "Fair" Share?

From The Heritage Foundation today:

America has heard a lot of talk about the “Buffett Rule” — President Barack Obama’s plan to make the tax code more “fair” by permanently raising taxes by $1.5 trillion over 10 years, with most of the burden falling on families and businesses earning more than $250,000 per year. But if he wants to talk about “fairness,” he should look at how much top income earners already pay in taxes, as the chart below shows:

(Click to enlarge)

In a new paper, Heritage’s Curtis Dubay explains that the supposed “fairness” of the new rule is anything but fair:

To President Obama, it is “fair” to raise taxes on families and businesses earning more than $250,000 a year by raising their income tax rates and limiting their deductions. That must also mean he believes that they currently pay too little in taxes.

Yet the data show the highest-earning families and businesses already pay the lion’s share of the federal income tax burden. According to the IRS, the top 1 percent of income earners—those earning more than $380,000 in 2008—paid more than 38 percent of all federal income taxes while earning 20 percent of all income. The top 10 percent ($114,000 and above) earned 45 percent of income and paid 70 percent of all taxes. At the same time, the bottom 50 percent of income earners—those earning less than $33,000—earned 13 percent of all income and paid less than 3 percent of federal income taxes.