Obama revives call to hike taxes on rich

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is calling on Congress to increase taxes on millionaires, reviving a proposal he first pitched in September that aims to draw sharp election-year lines between him and his Republican opposition.

The plan, scheduled for a vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate on April 16, stands little chance of passing. But it is a prominent symbol of the efforts the president and congressional Democrats are making to portray themselves as champions of economic fairness. Republicans dismiss the idea as a political stunt with little real effect on the budget.

"We don't envy success in this country. We aspire to it," Obama said in his radio and Internet address Saturday. "But we also believe that anyone who does well for themselves should do their fair share in return, so that more people have the opportunity to get ahead -- not just a few."

Obama has taken to calling his plan the "Buffett Rule" for Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained that rich people like him pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than middle-class taxpayers. Many wealthy taxpayers earn investment income, which is taxed at 15 percent. Obama has proposed that people earning at least $1 million annually should pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes.

The push for the Buffett Rule draws renewed attention to the effective tax rate of Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, a millionaire who is paying 15.4 percent in federal taxes for 2011 on income mostly derived from investments. By contrast, the top nominal rate for taxpayers with high incomes derived from wages, not investments, is 35 percent.

In the GOP reply, House Speaker John Boehner challenged Obama to support more oil and gas production in federal lands and for a freeze in new regulations over refineries, sustaining a GOP drive to blame the administration for high gas prices.