Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold said President Barack Obama, who does not qualify for the White House-supported “Buffett rule,” is “welcome to send as much money as he chooses” to the federal government.
“The president is welcome to send in as much money as he chooses to send in — you can overpay your taxes. But really this is about not so much the taxes. Our real problem is not that we’re taxed too little, it’s that we’re spending way too much,” he told The Daily Caller on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
“We’ve got to get the spending under control,” he continued. “You don’t want to send more money up here until we’ve done away with problems like we’ve got at the [General Services Administration] GSA and that sort of wasteful spending.” (RELATED: Obama: Ronald Reagan a ‘wild-eyed, socialist, tax-hiking class warrior’)
In his 2012 State of the Union address, Obama said, “We need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes.”
However, based on his 2011 tax returns, Obama does not qualify for the Buffett Rule since he made less than $1 million. If enacted, the rule would require individuals making over $1 million to pay at least 30 percent in federal income taxes.
“What the Buffett rule is all about is the fact that we pay a lower rate of tax on capital gains. That’s money we’ve already paid tax on, that we’ve invested. And low capital gains spur investment and investment is what we need to create jobs,” Farenthold said.
“I think Republicans and Democrats will get down to the real fact of the matter, get around the talking points and realize that doing away with the capital gains tax credit is going to be a problem,” he concluded.