On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Arena,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said that he isn’t necessarily against eliminating taxes on tips, but “would prefer just to have a much more progressive income tax so people who are making a lot of money are paying more, much more, like happened under very conservative presidents like Nixon or Eisenhower, than to give people the kind of symbolic consolation prize of saying, we’re not going to tax tips.”
Host Kasie Hunt asked, “[N]o taxes on tips, which is part of this bill, for working people who work on a tipped wage, do you support that?”
Raskin responded, “I haven’t looked seriously at it because I haven’t thought they were serious about it. Tips are income, and I would prefer just to have a much more progressive income tax so people who are making a lot of money are paying more, much more, like happened under very conservative presidents like Nixon or Eisenhower, than to give people the kind of symbolic consolation prize of saying, we’re not going to tax tips. Tips are income. I suppose it’s difficult to record them and to keep track of them. So, I’m not necessarily opposed to it, but I think that it’s a major distraction from what’s really going on, which is that the GOP has destroyed the idea of progressive income taxation in America, which is, the more money you make, the more you should pay, because you get to draw more resources from society.”
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