President Obama's new "Buffett rule," a plan to raise taxes on millionaires, invokes investor Warren Buffett, who has repeatedly argued that he and other very wealthy Americans pay a significantly lower percentage of their income in federal income and payroll taxes, at least compared to their hirelings. "Warren Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett," Obama said in rolling out today's $3 trillion deficit reduction plan. "There is no justification for it." Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann proposed another cure for Buffett's tax angst: "If Warren Buffett believes he doesn't pay enough taxes, then he should write a check today to the Treasury," the Minnesota Republican said in a statement savaging the debt plan as "warfare on the millions of small businesses, on charities and on middle class America with increased tax burdens."
