U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) released the following statement on his vote tonight against beginning debate in the Senate on the so-called "Buffett Rule":
"Instead of playing politics, the president should join me and three dozen other senators of both parties in endorsing his own Simpson-Bowles Debt Commission report. Both Simpson-Bowles and the Ryan budget, which I also support, would restructure entitlement spending--the main source of our dangerous federal debt--and reform the tax code by closing special-interest loopholes.
"This is a disappointing and cynical smokescreen. Since the top 1 percent of taxpayers already pay 37 percent of federal individual income taxes, the "Buffett Rule' would generate revenues of less than 1 percent of the new debt projected under the president's ten-year budget," (based on estimates provided by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation).