Big Spenders

Pelosi Proposes Millionaire's Tax

Will help fund health-care bill.

Who will pay for nationalized health care? Politico reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants it to be the millionaires. The historic health-care bill wending its way through the House would raise taxes for individuals with annual adjusted gross incomes of $280,000 or families making $350,000 or more. In a bid to sell the bill to conservative Democrats, Pelosi has proposed raising the trigger to $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for families, "so it's a millionaire's tax," she said. As Pelosi later put it, "You hear '$500,000 a year,' you think, 'My God, that's not me.'" Pelosi also said she'd try to "drain" more savings from the medical industry in order to keep costs low.