Michele Bachmann today proposed tax increases for lower income Americans.
 
“It is only fair that everyone should contribute something to the core government services like national defense, our courts, our roads, and necessary infrastructure…Everyone benefits and everyone needs to pay something,” she said in a speech at Iowa State University in Ames.

“Let’s face it, freedom is not free and all of us benefit from it.  Today we live in a world where only 53 percent of Americans pay federal income tax, 47 percent pay nothing.  People who pay nothing can easily forget the idea that there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

The Republican presidential candidate did not spell out details of how she would get lower income Americans to pay more federal taxes. Nor did she address the taxes they do pay for Medicare and Social Security.

Though she would chafe at the comparison, she did urge a version of what President Barack Obama calls the Buffet rule – that millionaires such as Warren Buffet should lose loopholes and pay more so that they pay the same rate of taxes as their secretary.

“Even though everyone should pay something, those who can afford to pay more should pay more,” Bachmann said, according to a text of her prepared speech.

“This is true not just in absolute terms.  Someone at a higher income level should pay at least the same percentage of income as someone at a lower income level.  In other words, a flat tax should at least be flat, and not tilted against lower and middle-income families.”