One of President Obama’s proposed solutions for the debt and deficit is something he calls the Buffett Rule, or Buffett tax. The President said that if you enact the principles of the Buffett rule, "not only do we pay for our jobs bill, but we also stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade."

Here are some basic facts: During President Bush’s first term he ran deficits that totaled $0.8 trillion. During his second term his total deficits equaled $1.2 trillion. Now President Obama has been somewhat of an overachiever when it comes to deficit spending. During President Obama's four years his deficits totaled about $5.3 trillion. How much would the Buffett tax raise? The answer is $20 billion.

Now $20 billion does not stabilize deficits totaling of $5300 billion. I think the President of the United States has a duty not to mislead the American public. With his Buffett Rule comment, President Obama was misleading the American public. He continues to do it by implying that just making the rich pay their "fair share" will stabilize the debt and deficit. It simply won’t.

The most recent Democratic proposal in the Senate to increase taxes on the top 1 percent would have only raised $67 billion per year, when our deficit is about $1,300 billion.

I oppose tax increases because the federal government needs to be focused on economic growth. We shouldn’t do anything that would harm economic growth, because that’s the No. 1 component of the solution. If we’re going to create jobs we have to grow our economy, and we have to make sure that businesses have money available to reinvest, to increase wages, to pay for healthcare, and to fund 401Ks and retirement plans. When the federal government takes that money out of the pockets of small businesses, it severely hampers their ability to grow their business and create jobs – which we need to do if we’re ever going to get our unemployment rates down to acceptable levels.

Video courtesy of Chippewa Valley Community Television.