Elyse Clonan
Politics PA
Pat Toomey took the Senate floor Monday to oppose President Obama’s “Buffett Rule,” calling the proposal a “gimmick” and a “political stunt” that would eventually result in a higher tax rate among the middle class.
Toomey relented that such a proposal is doing nothing but wasting precious time in Congress, stating “this is not a serious effort to deal with a ridiculously broken tax code…[or] a completely broken budget.”
“Instead,” he continued, “we’re going to waste time arguing.”
Meanwhile, the Morning Call reports, Toomey is preparing to unveil his proposal for a Senate budget.
Today at Toomey’s Pittsburgh office, protesters marched in support of the measure, which they say is essential for tax fairness. The participants staged a “Dodge ball game of working people vs. tax dodgers,” right beforehand.
“Workers, students, voters and community members will protest tax dodgers and the tax loopholes that help the 1% at the expense of the rest,” organizers said in a press release.
The fight has emerged as an important subplot of the 2012 election, hence the President’s emphasis on a proposal that has little chance of passing through Congress.
Toomey argued Buffett tax would generate less than $5 billion per year, thereby doing “nothing meaningful for our budget deficits.”
He he accused the proposed policy as an effort to instigate “class warfare” which would “distract from the underlying mismanagement of economic policy and fiscal policy that we have seen from this administration.”
“This is bad economic policy,” he concluded.
Read more: http://www.politicspa.com/on-senate-floor-toomey-blasts-buffett-rule/34222/