OPINION:
President Obama wants tax increases on “rich people” with a debt-ceiling increase (“Progress scant in negotiations to reduce debt,” Page 1, Monday). Republicans want spending cuts or no debt-ceiling increase. I propose a compromise:
Increase taxes on the major donors to the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. These are the “rich,” after all, are they not?
It was their candidate who increased the national debt by $4 trillion faster than any president before him. So why not impose a new tax of the same amount by which this president has upped the national debt on his rich major contributors? We could simply apportion the new tax on those major donors to the campaign according to the size of their contributions to the Obama campaign in 2008.
This would allow us to pay down the debt by $4 trillion so that the debt ceiling does not need to be raised. The next time the debt-ceiling topic is broached, a new tax can be imposed on the major contributors to Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign.
If we can’t impose a tax directly on the president’s major contributors, we could impose a new tax on the industries, companies and stockholders in which major Obama contributors are concentrated - think Hollywood, for example.
This solution is one that both Mr. Obama and the Republicans should like if they really mean what they say.
WOODROW WILCOX
Griffith, Ind.
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