Today, the Senate Budget Committee is hosting a hearing to consider the Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act, which would apply the same social security tax rate to incomes over $400,000 as the one applied to workers making $40,000, ask those taxpayers taking home more than $400,000 to contribute a bit more to Medicare, and close a loophole that allows hedge fund managers and other wealthy people to avoid paying into Social Security and Medicare.
Groundwork Collaborative’s Acting Executive Director and Tax Expert Kitty Richards released the following statement in advance of the hearing:
“Today’s Senate Budget Committee hearing focuses on a few common sense tax policies that ask the wealthiest to contribute a fairer share to programs that we all rely on. Closing a loophole that allows hedge fund managers to contribute nothing to Social Security and Medicare should be an easy sell, as should funding the government and giving the IRS resources to crack down on wealthy tax cheats.<
“The American people agree. In poll after poll, asking the rich and corporations to pay their fair share wins majority support across the political spectrum. Yet extremists in the House are proposing radical, unpopular tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans and fighting among themselves over who can propose crueler, more economically disastrous cuts to programs that ensure children don’t go hungry, seniors don’t go homeless, and corporations don’t cheat their workers out of the pay they have earned.
“We cannot allow a radical minority to hold our government hostage once again in the name of protecting their wealthy friends and corporate donors and sabotaging an economic recovery that is finally delivering for workers and families.”
Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with Kitty Richards about the hearing and the importance of long-overdue measures to ensure the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share in taxes.