Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

December 4, 2011

Jonathan Riskind: Company for Collins on issue of taxes on rich

Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine and other Senate Republicans complained last week that Democrats played politics by forcing them to vote on a payroll tax cut extension paid for with higher taxes on millionaires that was preordained to fail.

Democrats, of course, realized in advance that their proposal would suffer a party-line defeat, but they saw that Senate floor loss as a political win.

The squabble over the Social Security payroll tax cut extension is a precursor to the main debate and what is sure to be a focal point of the 2012 national elections: whether to extend all of the Bush tax cuts that expire at the end of 2012.

Senate Democrats believe making Republicans take the vote last week on the millionaire tax surcharge is good politics -- and will keep pushing the same theme heading toward Election Day 2012. It's a fight that has everything to do with the raging argument over income inequality and whether Americans who have accumulated wealth, even as many in the middle class struggle, should pay more toward the effort to get the country's fiscal house in order.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, highlighted GOP fissures when she cast the sole Republican vote in favor of the Democrats' extension plan.

Collins said she is OK with raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires, she just wants to exclude small-business owners she regards as "job creators" from the 3.25 percent surcharge. Senate Democrats declined to give Collins her "carve out," but Collins voted for their plan last week anyway, saying higher taxes paid by some small-business owners would be offset by payroll tax cut savings offered not just to employees next year but also to employers on the first $5 million of their payroll.

"I have long said that multimillionaires and billionaires who are not running businesses could pay more of their income to help us deal with the deficit," Collins said.

Collins plans to pursue her carve-out idea next week, likely with a Democratic co-author, as Democrats and Republicans seek a likely but yet undefined compromise on the payroll tax cut extension.

Several other Republicans have indicated they might be open to tax hikes.

For instance, Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., senses a "change of mood" in the GOP, and indicated last week he might be willing to compromise on higher taxes if it helps lead to an agreement on reducing the deficit, the New York Times reported.

If all the Bush tax cuts for the middle class and wealthy alike expire, it would produce an additional $3.7 trillion in revenue over 10 years, with cuts for individuals making more than $200,000 and households earning more than $250,000 representing $700 billion of that amount. Democrats want to allow the tax cuts for wealthier Americans to lapse.

Senate Republican leaders had to be embarrassed last week when their alternative method of paying for the payroll tax cut extension -- mainly freezing federal employee salaries through 2015 and reducing the federal work force through attrition -- garnered just 20 Republican votes. Still, tellingly, the GOP package also dinged wealthy Americans, including higher Medicare premiums for people making more than $750,000.

In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last month, 60 percent of respondents agreed that the "current economic structure of the country is out of balance and favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country," and that the government "should not provide tax breaks to the rich."

For her part, Snowe says she favors the extension, too, but disagreed with a surcharge she maintains would hurt small businesses.

(Continued on page 2)

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