Tax Day Contrast

CORE MESSAGE

 Why pay more? So Mitt can pay less.

Connect: Americans are fed up with a complicated tax code rigged to favor the wealthiest few, and politicians trying to keep it that way.

Define: Mitt Romney's plan cuts taxes for himself and the rest of the 1%, but he doesn't stop there -- he raises taxes for the families who can least afford it.

Brand it: That's the "Romney Rule": regular Americans pay more so Mitt can pay less.

Illustrate: Romney would hand out even bigger tax giveaways to fellow millionaires living off their wealth, while making millions of working Americans pay more.

Contrast: President Obama's "Buffett Rule" says that in America, Wall Street CEOs and Big Oil executives shouldn't pay lower taxes than secretaries and bus drivers.

Pose the choice: Which America do we want: a nation where millionaires pay lower taxes than the rest of us, or one where everyone pays their fair share?

Words to use: Tax giveaways; Millionaires and billionaires; Richest/Wealthiest 1%
Words to avoid: "Top" 1%

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QUOTE TO REMEMBER

"...that's crazy. It's time we stopped it."

President Ronald Reagan, describing a tax code that allows millionaires to pay lower taxes than bus drivers.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• The Ryan-Romney budget plan would raise taxes on working families making less than $30,000 a year -- while providing an average of $150K for the richest 1%.
• Romney is fighting to protect the tax loopholes like Swiss bank accounts that millionaires like him use to pay lower taxes and give himself and the rest of the 1% more massive tax giveaways.
• In the last two years, Mitt Romney paid an average tax rate of 14 percent on the money he's made off of the wealth he already has -- meaning that means he pays a lower tax rate than a typical family making a middle-class income.
• Many millionaires and billionaires -- approximately 55,000 -- are paying lower taxes than millions of middle-class Americans. In fact, in 2009, 1,500 millionaires managed to pay no federal income taxes on their millions.
• The incomes of the richest 1% have nearly quadrupled in just one generation, leaving middle-class incomes far behind. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the richest of the richest few -- the wealthiest 0.1% -- is at nearly the lowest rate in over 50 years.
• In contrast, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Mike Bloomberg, and hundreds of "patriotic millionaires" say the wealthiest Americans like them should do what's right and pay higher taxes.

ATTACKS AND RESPONSES

ATTACK: "In Obama's government-centered society, you need taxes to spread the wealth around."
RESPONSE:

• This is about which America we want: a nation where millionaires pay lower taxes than middle-class Americans or one where everyone pays their fair share. It's not even a close call what most Americans would choose.
• All of America does better when everyone pays their fair share, everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone plays by the same rules.
• But Romney would make our rigged tax code even worse and make struggling families pay MORE taxes so he and the rest of the 1% can pay LESS.

ATTACK: "The Buffett Rule is class warfare."
RESPONSE:

• As Warren Buffett tells it, the only class warfare in America is being waged by his class -- and they're winning.
• Middle-class families shouldn't have to pay higher taxes than any millionaire. That's not class warfare. That's a basic American value.
• The President's Buffett Rule proposal is based on that simple principle. President Reagan got it. President Obama gets it. Americans get it. It's time for Republicans in Congress to get it, too.

EXCUSE: "The Buffett Rule isn't worth it because it raises only a pittance amount of money."
RESPONSE:

• Republicans are actually attacking the Buffett Rule for raising taxes on millionaires -- but also that it's not going to raise their taxes enough. That's like complaining the food is terrible and they didn't bring you seconds -- they can't make up their mind how to smear it.
• But that's exactly what we'd expect from the politicians who so easily doubled the national debt and fought for the wasteful tax giveaways behind today's record deficits.
• The truth is that we can invest in America's future and pay down the debt if millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share. Let's start with the Buffett Rule.

We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working. See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.