pander to their notions of progressivity? i don t know. i mean, it just doesn t make any sense. if a republican thinks the democrats are going to vote for him because of one little addition to this bill that s pandering, i think they re very mistaken. this is an all-out political war, and the winner in 2018 and 2020 will get the bacon and will carry the issues home. i personally think the democrats are putting themselves at great risk in 2018. they ve got a lot of exposure in the senate, and i think they could well lose a lot of seatses in the house as well. so they are at risk doing this type of obstructionist type of policy. so i don t know why they re doing it. i mean, being i spent half my life as a democrat and as a republican, and clinton, i voted for him twice, i m a kennedy democrat. i don t know why the democrats don t go back to their roots and vote for this bill and get america growing and going again. it s what they should be doing, and i don t know why they just
are still not exactly known. are we adding more to the tax code instead of subtractingsome. i don t think so. i don t think that s going to happen. there s no taste, i don t think, no appetite for raising the highest rate. it makes no sense east, i mean, you can t hate job creators and love jobs. and if you want middle class prosperity, you ve got to make the employers happy to hire these people, to give them jobs that they otherwise wouldn t have had, to raise the wages that we all want for the middle class. that also requires the cooperation of the upper class and lower. i mean, you know, we re all in this stuff together. as kennedy said, a rising tide raises all boats, and this is a kennedy-esque tax bill that is really wonderful. david: i m wondering if all republicans know that because when they first came out with their tax plan a couple of weeks ago, they had a line saying it won t be any less progressive, and it s progressivity that has widened that divide between the
country. the l the lowering of rates. child tax credit are all designed to bring much needed relief and put money in the pockets of working families in the country. comprehensive bill. one thing we know is the economy is sputtering along. we want to see growth rate get back up to 3%. when that happens, you get higher wages, better paying jobs. you also have to reform when u re doing middle class tax relief. you also have to reform make th competitive in the global marketplace. that translates into according to the congressional budget office better paying jobs for people in this country. all part of a package. the finance committee and you mentioned i serve on that committee the ways and means committee in the house will have to fill in the details. i will tell you this. the president and his team and leadership have made it very clear we want to maintain the progressivity and the tax code.
progressivity of our tax system. the effect of tax rate on the 1% is back up to about what it was in 1979. if you just look at that measure, it obama has rolled us back to prerate levels of average. not all the rates are the same, but the overall level of taxation on 1% is back up what used to be considered reasonably high levels. health reform is a huge benefit in terms of economic security to lower income americans essentially lower income working americans because people who are too affluent to didn t qualify for poverty programs but many of them lacked health insurance. so that s one thing. obama has actually done a pretty significant job of mitigating some of the extremes. beyond that, you do things like the minimum wage. minimum wage has overwhelming public support. it s not going to pass in congress probably even so but raising the pim wage would do a substantial amount for incomes at the bottom. he s going to propose raising it for federal contractor who
so here, we re talking about tax progressivity and equality more broadly and specifically about the deal that was struck to avert the fiscal cliff. here are my thoughts in short order. look, this was a step in the right direction in terms of progressivity. it restores a rate schedule that s as progressive as it has been since the charter years. it reduces capital gains rates. limited reductions at the high end of the scale. there are people at the top who have gotten 92, 93, 94% of total wealth gains just in the recovery. forgot about the last 30 years, are going to pay more. there are all sort of way the tax system is corrupt and rigged. and those ways which are rigged and corrupt in which some senses aren t even necessarily ideological do have rates that cut against progressivity we