Paul Ryan gave some remarkably dishonest answers in defense of keeping inequities in out tax system that give the wealthy preferential low tax rates, rather than to adopt the reforms the President has proposed for correcting these inquiries with the Buffett Rule.
WALLACE: Let's turn to taxes and there's a lot to talk about. I want to break it down in some bite-size pieces.
First of all, what do you think to all -- over the papers today, I guess, the New York Times reported that, first, this idea of a new minimum tax rate for millionaires to insure that they pay at least the same percentage of their money that they get their income as middle income taxpayers?
RYAN: Great. So, I guess what he's saying he's going to raise on capital at ordinary income tax rate, raising capital gains and dividends. Look, if you tax something more, Chris, you get less. If you tax job creators more, you get less job creation. If you tax investment more, you get less investment.
At a time when experts are telling us, including, I said the fiscal commission, we should lower tax rates on investment and job creation by getting rid of all of the loopholes so we can create economic growth. So, we think this is going in the wrong direction. Let's not forget that under the current law that the president has already passed, the top tax rate on individual and small businesses in 2013 goes to about 44.8 percent.
So, we have employers in Wisconsin that pay that tax rate are competing against countries that are taxing their businesses from 16 percent in Canada, almost 21 percent going in England, 25 percent in China. The world taxes their businesses at about 25 percent and he's saying we're going to tax these job creators at above 45 percent with this new tax. What it does is it adds further instability to our system, more uncertainty and it punishes job creation and those people who create jobs.
Class warfare, Chris, may make for really good politics but it makes a rotten economics. We don't need a system that seeks to divide people. We don't need a system that seeks prey on people's fear, envy and anxiety. We need a system that creates job and innovation, and removes these barriers for entrepreneurs to go out and rehire people. I'm afraid these kinds of tax increases don't work.
Ryan must have lost track of what exactly he is trying to defend here. Its the existing tax system that seeks to divide people who earn wages and salaries from the wealthy elites who receive Dividends and Capital Gains. How does Congressman Ryan defend this disparity in tax rates? By trying to prey on people's fear and anxiety about the future of the economy.
Then Ryan launches into some double talk about double taxation, that includes what seems to be a false statement, that distorts the whole issue.
WALLACE: But, Congressman, this is being called the Buffett rule, because it comes after Warren Buffet, the multibillionaire owner of
Berkshire Hathaway said, I end up -- because I get so much of my money from capital gains -- I end up paying a lower tax rate than my secretary who gets her money in salary.
What about the question -- what about the question of fairness, sir?
RYAN: So, what he's saying, what he forgets to mention on that, that's a double tax. Capital gains and dividends are taxes on money that has already been taxed once before based on income. So, a person who's paying an income tax is paying the first level of tax on that money and then when you pay capital gains and dividends tax, you are paying that tax again on that money that earns it. What it does -- and we've done this before -- we have raised capital taxes gains and dividend taxes, we hurt economic growth, we stifle investment in our economy. So, if we tax investment in job creation more, you will get less of it. Like I said, this is -- this looks like to me not a very good sign, because it looks like the president wants to move down the class warfare path.
Class warfare will simply divide this country more. It will attack job creators, divide people and it doesn't grow the economy.
Rep. Paul Ryan
Ryan's convoluted answer suggests that the Chairman of the House Budget Committee may have a false idea of how capital taxes gains and dividend taxes are actually levied in this country. Ryan seems to be suggesting that capital gains and dividends are taxed once as normal individual income and capital taxes gains and dividend taxes are added on top of that income tax. That is simply false. Capital gains and dividends are NOT taxed as an individual's ordinary income.
One would assume that a Chairman of the House Budget Committee would know how the U.S. tax system is structured. So I'm thinking Paul Ryan is going on Fox News Sunday where he knows nobody is going to drill down into his double talk, so he let fly with a whopper.
I mean what the hell? Its Fox News! Go for it Paul!