‘Raise My Taxes, Go Right Ahead’: Ken Langone
Congress should raise taxes on the wealthy to get the issue off the table but it won't be enough to fix the country's fiscal problems, Ken Langone, Home Depot co-founder, told CNBC on Monday.
"I happen to think the real issue is entitlements," Langone said in a "Closing Bell" interview. "We need to get the issue of taxes off the table."
He said Speaker John Boehner's "Plan B" to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making up to $1 million sounds perfect because it gets the tax issue off the table and puts the focus on spending and entitlements.
"People making $1 million a year are not going to do anything different if they pay more taxes," Langone said.
"Raise my taxes, go right ahead," the Invemed Associates chairman, said. "Understand something you get nothing, effectively nothing, out of going after the heavyweights."
But Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky pushed back against calls for higher taxes.
"I really think in the end, as Republicans, we need to stand for what we've always stood for which is you stimulate the economy by leaving more money in the private sector," he said.
Like Langone, Paul sees opportunity to cut back on military spending and means test Social Security and Medicare in order to help fix the country's fiscal problems.
But Rand said, "The leading Democrats in the Senate have said Social Security is not broken. They won't look at the age and they won't means test because they think those programs are not broken."
