{http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/16/hillary-clinton-to-propose-further-tax-increases-on-wealthy-americans-at-buffett-event.html}
Hillary Clinton to propose further tax increases on wealthy Americans at Buffett event
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton plans to signal she'll propose further tax increases on wealthy Americans today while collecting a public endorsement from one of the wealthiest, billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
Buffett has made clear his support for Clinton in interviews and campaign fund-raisers. But his public appearance at her side in Omaha is rare, and she's using it to amplify her tax policy approach with just weeks to go before she squares off against Sen. Bernie Sanders at the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
Clinton has proposed large new spending plans for such priorities as making college more affordable, expanding infrastructure, and bolstering access to childcare and early childhood education. The Republican National Committee estimates the total cost of those proposals so far at $1.2 trillon over 10 years.
The Democratic front-runner has vowed to pay for those plans without increasing taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000 a year. But she has yet to specify tax hikes on wealthier Americans and corporations sufficient to pay those bills. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that Mrs. Clinton's tax increases so far would raise slightly more than $800-billion over 10 years.
In her remarks alongside Mr. Buffett, a campaign official said, Mrs. Clinton will point toward how she will begin to fill that gap of roughly $400-billion, or $40-billion per year. Specifically, the official said, that will include an "expanded" version of what the Obama administration has dubbed its "Buffett rule" proposal that Mr. Buffett backs. The Buffett rule seeks to ensure that American households earning at least $1-million per year pay an effective tax rate of at least 30% - which many do not currently.
The campaign official said Clinton will not specify elements of the expanded Buffett rule today. Nor will she signal whether details of her tax plan forthcoming in January will include at increase in the top personal income tax rate of 39.6%. In his 2013 "fiscal cliff" tax deal with Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama returned the top rate to that level - which matched the top rate at the end of the term of Mrs. Clinton's husband, President Bill Clinton.