In a New York Times’ op-ed today, billionaire investor Warren Buffett urged Congress to increase taxes on the wealthy, declaring that the mega-rich had been “coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.” Buffett called for an immediate increase “on taxable income in excess of $1 million” and an additional increase “for those who make $10 million or more.” Asked for his thoughts on Buffett’s request during his rounds at the Iowa state fair today, the latest GOP presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry (TX) seemed to agree that higher tax rates would not impact millionaires and billionaires but fell back on the GOP position that a higher tax rate would “devastate” small businesses:

PERRY: I just think that new taxes are not the answer right now. If I had — I don’t know what he’s worth — $80 billion or $30 billion or whatever it is, he’s never going to spend all his money so taking money away from Warren Buffett isn’t going to affect anything. But, it’s the $250,000 folks who they’re trying to tax who’s the small businessman that’s getting devastated in this.

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Perry is right to second Buffett and fellow billionaire Bill Gates’ conclusion that a higher tax rate on millionaires and billionaires would not really “affect anything.” After all, millionaire tax rates have “plunged over the last two decades. As a percentage of their incomes, millionaires are now paying about one-quarter less of their income to federal taxes than they did in the mid-1990s.” What’s more, only 321,000 households have incomes over $1 million. The current tax cuts give these 300,000 wealthy Americans more in one week than it takes to fund a children’s nutrition program for an entire year.

Perry, however, is indisputably wrong to claim small businesses will be “devastated” by such a tax increase on the wealthy. As the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, fewer than 2 percent of small businesses claim an income in the top two income brackets (roughly making more than $250,000 annually). Indeed, a “substantial percentage” of small businesses are actually in the lowest tax brackets. 34 percent are in the bracket that are not subject to income taxes at all because their incomes are too low. And as TP Economy editor Pat Garofalo notes, if a small business owner is actually taking home $1 million per year in income, the individual “ought to be taxed like anybody else making that much.”

Perhaps this is why 63 percent of Americans want Congress to increase taxes on wealthy Americans. For their part, Buffett notes that many of his “mega-rich” acquaintances “wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.”

In a New York Times op-ed today, billionaire investor Warrenn Buffett renewed his oft-made call for tax increases on the ultra-wealthy. “While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks,” he wrote. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”

Today, 2012 GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney — who has a personal net worth between $190 million and $250 million — rejected that argument. Reprising a version of his “corporations are people” argument from last week, Romney claims that Buffett’s taxes are higher than he says they are because he, as a business owner, bears the burden of the corporate income tax. (This argument comes from a piece by the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore, who explicitly believes that the poor need to pay higher taxes to finance tax cuts for the rich.) Romney went on to claim that raising taxes on the wealthy would actually be a tax increase on small businesses:

Look, I know there are some who say “let’s just tax the rich.” Let’s raise the taxes on the rich…Businesses, small businesses. Are you a sub-S corporation or a c-corp? For those that aren’t familiar with that, that means that his business pays personal income tax. He’s taxes at the personal income tax rate.So if we raise taxes on wealthy people, that means businesses see their taxes go up. I don’t want to raise taxes on employers.

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As we’ve noted over and over again, during both the 2008 and 2010 tax debates, raising taxes on the rich will have little effect on small businesses. Fewer than 2 percent of small businesses owners make more than $250,000, never mind the $1 million level, at which Buffett is advocating a tax increase. Far more small businesses (14 percent) claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is only available to low-income workers.

Just letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those making more than $1 million per year could reduce deficits by $500 to $600 billion over 10 years, according to the same Wall Street Journal that Romney ceaselessly cites.

Today, GOP presidential primary candidate former Gov. Buddy Roemer (LA) spoke at the National Press Club about how he is campaigning by taking on Big Money and special interests in Washington.

At one point, Roemer was asked what it would take for Congress to enact reform of our trade policies. Roemer explained that monied interests would try to block reforms he was proposing, like eliminating foreign tax credits and tax deductions for overseas business expenses:

QUESTION: What would it take to convince Congress to pass significant trade reform?

ROEMER: Cut off the big checks. GE doesn’t want trade reform, they want it the way it is. [...] I would do away with the deduction in the tax code, I think it’s section 162, which allows them to make a call center, for example, overseas and they deduct the expense from their American taxes. It oughta be changed. [...] Corporations are free to do what’s in their best interests. But I think it’s in their best interests for America to be strengthened. [...] There are ways to do it, I’ve mentioned two of them already, the deductability of expenses and the foreign tax credits.

By criticizing a tax code that incentivizes American firms to outsource jobs overseas, Roemer is taking an approach that is distinctly different from many of his GOP colleagues. Some candidates, like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (GA), have even gone as far as to praise tax dodging by major corporations, saying that we should let them decide their own tax rates.

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) has made it quite clear that he believes Social Security is an unconstitutional “Ponzi scheme.” In his book Fed Up!, Perry writes that Social Security is “by far the best example” of a program “violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles.” Today, at the Iowa State Fair, Perry responded to a question from Politico’s Ben Smith by saying that he thinks one of the ways to deal with his vehement objections to Social Security is to simply send the program to the states and let them figure out what to do with it:

I’m for having a conversation with the country about how we find some solutions to have programs that are going to be sustainable. And I think having the states doing it is one of the ways. I’m not saying it’s the only way.

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Perry has said before that he wants to give states the option of allowing workers to opt out of Social Security. “So the states will let people opt out of Social Security?” asked CNN’s Eliot Spitzer. “They should,” Perry replied. But as ThinkProgress’ Ian Millhiser has pointed out, making Social Security a state program is simply economically impossible:

A workable plan to allow states to opt out of Social Security would require draconian provisions, such as a mandate that everyone must retire in the same state that they worked and paid taxes in. Otherwise, workers who are too young to receive Social Security benefits would move to an opt-out state to avoid paying Social Security taxes — and then promptly move to a state with Social Security benefits the moment they became eligible. Eventually, the entire system would collapse under the weight of too many Social Security beneficiaries who had not paid into the system.

Of course, having Social Security collapse in spectacular fashion may be just the outcome that Perry has in mind.

During an interview with Bloomberg News’ Al Hunt, 2012 GOP presidential contender Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said that she envisions entitlement reforms that go well beyond what House Republicans approved in their budget, written by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). While Ryan is always careful to say that his plans would not affect those “near” retirement, which he defines at 55 or older, Bachmann believes that those whose retirement is imminent should be subjected to cuts:

BACHMANN: Anyone who is currently a senior citizen on entitlement benefits, they will receive them. We’ll be crystal-clear. But beyond that, we will reform the entitlement programs now, not five years from now, not 26 years from now, now. Anyone who is not yet on those programs, we’re going to change them.

HUNT: So if anyone’s 62 or 63, they would face Medicare cuts now?

BACHMANN: There would be changes in the entitlement system. And of course, we’d have to agree to them, but we all know what needs to be done. Whether it’s longevity issues or means- testing, that needs to be employed.

HUNT: But you would go beyond where Paul Ryan went on Medicare and you would address Social Security cuts, too?

BACHMANN: For Social Security, again, I want to be crystal clear: Anyone who is currently a retiree would not be impacted. But for people who are younger than that age, that needs to be on the table. Everything needs to be on the table.

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Consider that she has said that she wants to “wean everybody off” entitlements. “Basically, what we have to do is wean everybody else off,” she has said. “So we just have to be straight with people. So basically, whoever our nominee is, is going to have to have a Glenn Beck chalkboard and explain to everybody this is the way it is.” As a reminder, the House Republican budget all but eviscerates Medicare, increasing costs for seniors dramatically, while gutting Medicaid. And for Bachmann, that isn’t enough.

The Detroit Free Press released a blockbuster story yesterday noting that — despite its public assurances to the contrary — mortgage giant Fannie Mae has been pushing banks to put seriously delinquent borrowers into foreclosure, even when the banks are examining those borrowers for mortgage modifications:

The records cover Fannie Mae’s foreclosure decisions on more than 2,300 properties, a snapshot from among the millions of mortgages Fannie handles nationally. The documents show Fannie Mae has told banks to foreclose on some delinquent homeowners — those more than a year behind — even as the banks were trying to help borrowers save their houses, a violation of Fannie’s own policy.

The nation’s banks have been awful when it comes to implementing the Obama administration’s signature foreclosure prevention program, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). One of the principal problems has been that the banks were foreclosing on homeowners who were waiting to see if they qualify for HAMP, in what’s known as “dual tracking.” The government has supposedly ended dual tracking on loans that it owns, but documents obtained by the DFP indicate the Fannie Mae may be doing just that:

In one instance, from August 2010, Bank of America requested a 45-day delay for a Wisconsin homeowner who owed $124,610 and was 32 months delinquent. The bank said the borrower was applying for a loan modification through HAMP and “it appears that all financial documents have been received and we are waiting for an underwriter to be assigned.”

Fannie Mae’s response: “Per our new delay initiative, any loan over 12 months deliq must be on an active payment plan with monthly payments coming in. Therefore, this request to postpone is declined. Please proceed to sale.”

“Fannie just wants to clean up its balance sheet and get these loans off the books while taxpayers are eating these losses,” said Valparaiso Prof. Alan White. “And Treasury and the FHFA are letting them get away with it. It’s a huge waste.” Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, added, “It’s rarely in anyone’s best interest to kick out a struggling homeowner who is trying to stay in their home, particularly in cities like Detroit whose housing market is devastated.”

If Fannie Mae is indeed pushing borrowers into foreclosure whose homes can be saved, it needs to stop. Even if there is something going on here that the Free Press missed, Fannie needs to step forward and to be transparent for its reasons. The foreclosure prevention programs that have been put in place so far have been weak enough, without Fannie Mae undermining them.

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) jumped into the GOP presidential primary on Saturday, touting the largely-mythical “Texas miracle” to boost his economic bona fides. “We have led Texas based on some just really pretty simple guiding principles. One is don’t spend all of the money. Two is keeping the taxes low and under control,” Perry said during his announcement speech.

In fact, tax cuts were a constant theme during the speech. “We need lower taxes,” Perry said, later adding that “it is time to limit and simplify the taxes in this country.” However, it seems that Perry wants to raise taxes on at least one population — the working poor, seniors, and students who currently have no federal income tax liability:

We’re dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax. And you know the liberals out there are saying that we need to pay more. We are indignant about leaders who do not listen and spend money faster than they can print it.

It’s certainly true that nearly half of Americans don’t have any federal income tax liability, but a large portion of that population pays federal payroll and excise taxes, as well as state and local taxes, which fall much harder on the middle-class and low-income individuals than those at the upper end of the income scale. The simple fact is that they don’t make enough money to have to qualify for even the lowest federal income tax bracket.

Overall, less than a quarter of the nation’s households don’t contribute to federal tax receipts — and the majority of the non-contributors are students, the elderly, or the unemployed. Does Perry believe that these people are really undertaxed?

At the same time that Perry is crying foul over the poor and the elderly paying too little in taxes, income inequality in the country has skyrocketed. Just the richest 400 Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of Americans combined, and the richest 10 percent of Americans control two-thirds of the country’s net worth. But its low tax rates at the bottom of the income scale that have Perry all riled up.