The moral case President Obama has made to explain his “Buffet Rule” proposal is pretty simple. “Let me tell you something,” Obama told a crowd in Iowa on Wednesday, “asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary, that’s just common sense.” But the policy rationale behind that statement is far less clear cut.
When Barack Obama talks about taxes these days, he likes to talk about Warren Buffett’s secretary. “Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires,” Obama announced last month. “Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett.” But if Mitt Romney is able to clinch the Republican nomination fnext spring, Obama will have a better example to talk about.
