(Photo credit: Flickr user Steve Rhodes)

In a radio interview with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green argued that Democrats should go on offense and use smart leverage in fiscal talks. Schultz agreed, and then proposed that Democrats ask for higher than Clinton tax rates on the rich. He then tweeted out the idea:

On Schultz’s radio show, Green elaborated — saying such a plan to raise taxes on the super-wealthy exists in the House, and should be talked about more more in fiscal talks.Ai??Progressive Rep. Jan Schakowksy (D-IL) has proposed a “millionaire’s tax” that creates special tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires that range between 45 and 49 percent. According to economist Dean Baker, using numbers from Citizens for Tax Justice, this tax plan would raise as much as $1 trillion over a decade. Here’s a how much the plan would raise in billions of dollars each year (the presumed starting year when this study was performed was 2011):

The public supports a higher tax rate on the rich. We polled voters in Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Montana, and Minnesota on the question of whether they would support Schakowsky’s millionaire tax idea. Here are the results, which show that voters are overwhelmingly supportive of this idea:

QUESTION: Would you support or oppose a proposal that said personal income above $1,000,000 would be taxed at 45%, income above $20,000,000 dollars would be taxed at 47%, and income above $1,000,000,000 would be taxed at 49%?
Ohio 62% support 29% oppose
Missouri 56% support 30% oppose
Montana 56% support 33% oppose
Minnesota 61% support 29% oppose
Virginia 60% support 27% oppose
Illinois 67% support 23% oppose

As Schultz pointed out, yesterday the president said, “[We’ve got to] look at every avenue” to reduce the debt. Raising taxes on the rich — not just letting the Bush tax cuts expire, but raising rates to where voters want them to be — is a popular option that progressive should ask him to champion.

Click here and hereAi??to see more of our polling that shows voters want higher taxes on the wealthy and other progressive priorities.

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