'Patriotic Millionaires' Ask to Be Taxed More By Ben Terris, Wednesday, April 13, 2011 | 10:03 a.m.
If President Obama's deficit-reduction speech today includes a call to end the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, there will surely be pushback; Republicans have already begun a preemptive attack on raising taxes. One group of millionaires, however, is saying that they are more than willing to pay more for the good of their country.
The “Patriotic Millionaires” penned a letter to Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker John Boehner, urging them to “increase taxes on incomes over $1,000,000.”
The Millionaires—a group that includes producer and director Doug Liman, actress Edie Falco, the founder of Ask.com, and top Google engineers—wrote that the United States has helped them succeed financially, and they are willing to help the country do the same.
“Our country has been good to us. It provided a foundation through which we could succeed,” the group wrote. “Now, we want to do our part to keep that foundation strong so that others can succeed as we have.”
According to Alison Goldberg of the group Wealth for the Common Good, raising tax rates on millionaires could raise $60 billion to $80 billion a year in revenue.
"This small monetary sacrifice is both an ethical and patriotic decision, made in the hopes of allowing the United States of America to continue to be a leader economically, politically, and morally," said Garrett Gruener, founder of Ask.com.
But while these millionaires may be willing to pay more taxes, that doesn’t mean everyone in the country necessarily thinks it’s a good idea.
“I am not in favor of raising taxes right now, period,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Wednesday on MSNBC. “The question is raising revenues.... And how are you going raise revenues? Are you just going to raise taxes through a magic wand you’re going to produce more money? Or are you going to grow this economy?”
