AP Notes ‘Buffett Rule’ Would Raise Just $5 Billion Per Year

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From a post by Tom Blumer at Newsbusters (original post date 4/15/12):
President Obama has been using his weekly radio and Internet address to urge Americans to ask their member of Congress to support the “Buffett Rule,” which is named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who says he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

The “Buffet” plan would require that people earning at least $1 million annually, whether in salary or from investments, pay at least 30 percent of their incomes in taxes.

Senate Democrats later this year may hold votes tied to President Barack Obama’s “Buffett rule,” using his idea of a minimum 30 percent tax on the wealthiest to raise money for proposal to create jobs and keep student loan rates from rising.

Yet the measure would raise just $47 billion over a decade, a smidgen of the $7 trillion in federal deficits expected during that time.

Only one of five Associated Press [AP] articles on ‘Buffett Rule’ mentions that it would only raise $5 billion per year.

In the five relevant articles found in a search on the Omaha billionaire’s last name at the [AP] wire service’s national site [on April 15] at 10:30 a.m. ET, only one (the latest) mentions that it might raise $47 billion over 10 years, i.e., the paltry $5 billion per year cited at media outlets ranging from CNNMoney.com to Rush Limbaugh that the rule might raise. Beyond that, if the rule is coupled with permanent Alternative Minimum Tax repeal, as is being proposed by Congressional Democrats, the federal treasury will be out hundreds of billions of dollars. None of the AP reports mentions that.