Warfare.
By BRIAN KNOWLTON and JACKIE CALMES
Published: September 18, 2011
WASHINGTON — Leading Republicans on Sunday decried the notion of a new minimum tax rate for millionaires as “class warfare,” saying it seemed intended by President Obama as a way to portray Congressional Republicans, should they resist, as being callously indifferent to the hardships faced by ordinary Americans.
Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee said that the tax proposal, which Mr. Obama is expected to unveil on Monday, would also weigh heavily on an already stagnating economy.
“It adds further instability to our system, more uncertainty and it punishes job creation,” Mr. Ryan said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Class warfare may make for good politics but it makes for rotten economics.”
The pushback from Republicans — Mr. Ryan was not the only one to use the words “class warfare” — came after a report that Mr. Obama would call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/us/politics/republicans-call-obamas-tax-plan-class-warfare.html