Bernie Sanders: Rely on more tax revenue for deficit reduction

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) signaled Monday that Congress should rely mainly on increased tax revenues in its efforts to rein in budget deficits for the rest of the year.

In a release, Sanders suggested a surtax on millionaires and taking away tax breaks for oil companies as ways to narrow the deficit. 

“It would be morally wrong for the United States to balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in our society while asking nothing from the wealthiest,” said Sanders, a self-described socialist that caucuses with Senate Democrats. 

The senator’s comments come as Republicans and Democrats in Washington remain at something of a loggerheads over the federal deficit and government funding levels.

President Obama signed a spending measure last week that will fund the government through March 18 that included $4 billion in spending cuts. But, looking past that date, GOP lawmakers are pushing for another $57 billion in cuts this year, while Democrats have proposed trimming an additional $6.5 billion.

Sanders indicated in his release that top Senate Democrats have already agreed to roughly $50 billion in cuts, and said that additional revenues should account for the rest of deficit reduction.

According to the senator, a 5.4 percent surtax on adjusted gross incomes over $1 million could bring in as much as $50 billion a year, while ending tax loopholes for the oil-and-gas industry could chip in $3.5 billion.

Democrats in Washington have also called for rolling back tax breaks for oil-and-gas, while the Sanders release notes that a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll contained some positive feedback on the idea of a surtax on millionaires. 

Democrats have recently been saying that they have been meeting House Republicans — who campaigned last year for $100 billion in spending cuts — halfway when it comes to deficit reduction, noting that the spending measure they passed late last year was $41 billion under the president’s budget request for the current fiscal year. 

But some independent fact-checkers have questioned those statements, with The Washington Post calling the $41 billion figure “largely illusory.”