Billionaire banking executive Jamie Dimon has said he supports taxing the wealthy to pay down the national debt.
The CEO of JPMorgan Chase said he supports the so-called “Buffett Rule,” which would require everyone making more than $1 million a year to pay a minimum effective tax rate of 30% on their income.
Reducing the debt, which recently surpassed $35.12 trillion, while maintaining strong spending on defense, infrastructure and the earned income tax credit, is “doable,” Dimon said. He said in an interview with the Public Broadcasting Service on Wednesday.
“I’m going to use my money to help make this country a better place,” the 68-year-old JPMorgan chief executive said, adding that he supports a “competitive international tax system.”
“And then maybe raise taxes a little bit, like the Warren Buffett rule,” he said.
“I will, and then we’ll be okay.”
In 2012, The Obama administration has announced policy proposals. The “fundamental principle” of this rule, known as the “Buffett Rule,” is that “families earning more than $1 million a year should not pay a lower rate of income tax than middle-class families.”
The regulation did not become law due to lack of support from Congress. Billionaire investor speaks to ABC News He shared his views on income inequality in America.
Buffett’s net worth is Bloomberg Billionaires Index Rating Bosanek, whose income stood at $138 billion as of Wednesday, noted that his own tax rate is 17.4 percent, while his secretary, Debbie Bosanek, pays 35.8 percent of her income in taxes.
“I’ve never been more blessed. … What’s happened these days is they say a rising tide floats all boats, but a rising tide floats all yachts,” Buffett said as he sat next to Bosanek and showed the Disney-owned news division his tax returns.
Bosanek was invited by then-President Barack Obama to attend the State of the Union address in January 2012, where he sat next to Laurene Powell Jobs and then-First Lady Michelle Obama.
But in recent years, as wealth inequality has worsened, the tax code appears to have become more progressive.
For the 2021 tax year, the Internal Revenue Service released a report noting that the top 1% of earners paid a tax rate of 25.9%, nearly eight times the average rate of 3.3% paid by the bottom 50%.
The last time the US government had a budget surplus was in fiscal year 2001. At the time, the US had a surplus of $128 billion.
But since then, the national debt has soared due to crises including the September 11 attacks and the subsequent war on terror, the collapse of the dot-com bubble, the Great Recession caused by the housing market collapse, the bailout of the U.S. auto industry, and COVID-19.
